PREFACE 



Although the sheep is one of the most valuable 

 and important of all domesticated animals, affording 

 as it does — in addition to food and other products — 

 the main supply of material for woollen fabrics, yet 

 there appears to be no modern book (at any rate in 

 English) dealing with the chief breeds of all parts 

 of the globe. 



This gap I have endeavoured to fill by means of 

 the present volume, which is written on the same 

 general lines as The Horse and Its Relatives and 

 The Ox and Its Kindred, and to which it is intended 

 to form a companion. But, owing to the incom- 

 pleteness of our knowledge of the sheep of many 

 parts of the world — more especially Central Asia — 

 it has to be confessed that the work can only be 

 regarded as an attempt. As a matter of fact, our 

 information with regard to many of the Central 

 Asian breeds of sheep has scarcely advanced since 

 the time of the German naturalist P. S. Pallas, 

 who traversed Central Asia in the middle of the 

 second half of the eighteenth century, and subse- 

 quently wrote a book on the sheep of those regions. 



