ZOOLOGICAL POSITION AND STRUCTURE 41 



between them in the spring of 1857. A description 

 of this breed will be found in a later chapter. 



Great diversity of view has prevailed among 

 naturalists with regard to the ancestry of the 

 domesticated breeds of sheep. As a summary of 

 these views is given by Darwin,^ who refrained 

 from committing himself to any definite opinion on 

 the subject, it will suffice to mention that whereas 

 Dr. L. J. Fitzinger, to whose writings frequent 

 reference is made in the sequel, believed tame 

 sheep to be derived from no less than ten distinct 

 wild species, other writers have considered that the 

 number of parent forms was not more than two or 

 three. Of late years the trend of opinion has been 

 in the latter direction, and it seems most probable 

 that the existing mouflon or European wild sheep 

 and one of the races of the Asiatic urial have 

 formed the chief, if not indeed the sole, parent 

 stocks. If this be so, it would seem that, as in the 

 case of the ox, there were two centres of domes- 

 tication, one in Europe and the other in Asia ; 

 the Asiatic product being first introduced into 

 Europe with the arrival from the East of the 

 ancestors of the prehistoric Swiss lake-dwellers. 

 It is, however, quite likely that certain extinct 

 species more or less closely related to the mouflon 

 may have participated in the production of the 

 European domesticated breeds. 



> op. cii., p. 97. 



