353 



THE SHEEP FAMILY. 



No animal is of greater service to mankind than the 

 Sheep. Poland rightly says that what the American 

 Bison was to the North American Indian, and what the 

 Reindeer is to the Laplander, the Sheep is to all the in- 

 habitants of every portion of the world. Clothing, and 

 lanoline and other by-products, are made from its wool; 

 gloves, shoes and innumerable useful and ornamental ar- 

 ticles are made from its skin, and nearly every part of its 

 body is used for food. 



We are told that the Persian, Astrachan, Ukrainer and 

 other sheep producing the tight curled lambs, whose skins 

 are becoming more and more valuable every year, are the 

 result of crossing the native sheep of the various sections 

 indicated by the names applied to the different lambs, 

 with the Karakule and Arabi Sheep of the Asiatic desert; 

 but the word Arabi is a general rather than a specific 

 term, and Karakule is a designation applied to all grade 

 fur producing desert sheep, rather than to any particular 

 species. The literal meaning of the word is Black Lake, 

 the name of the place where the Eussian traders first went 

 to buy Sheep from the herders of the Bokhara Desert. 



Dr. C. C. Young of Belen, Texas, a breeder of Arabi 

 desert Sheep, who recently made a hazardous trip to the 

 land of the Persian Lamb, says: "The Tartars call the 

 producer of any valuable fur-bearing sheep Arabi. Arab 

 in Tartar means black, and it is supposed the name origin- 

 ated from this source, as the word and the Sheep are un- 

 known in Arabia. The small Arabi (Ovis-patytira.) is 

 practically extinct, and the one this country has been get- 

 ting most of its skins from for the last fifty years is the 

 large Sheep known as the Doozbai. 



"When mature, all of the breeds have black, lustrous 

 hair on the legs, tail, abdomen, face and head; so I de- 

 cided that the origin of them all must have been a black 

 animal with a powerful, persistent strain, which had car- 

 ried its black pigment down through generation after gen- 

 eration. After a hunt through the traditions and his- 



