SHORT-TAILED EUROPEAN BREEDS 67 



which may have existed with this country, or that 

 they could have been introduced by other than 

 human agency, though they conceivably may have 

 been brought by a drifting wreck." 



This passage, it has been observed by Miss A. 

 Gosset in her book on The Shepherds 0/ Britain^ 

 may serve to explain the fact of four-horned loaghtan 

 sheep having once been common to Ireland and the 

 Faroes. Possibly some of the so-called black Irish 

 four-homed sheep may have been of the true 

 loaghtan colour. 



All the aforesaid loaghtan and allied types of 

 island sheep are graceful, active little animals, re- 

 calling in their agile movements their wild relatives. 

 Writing of these sheep, Professor David Low ^ states 

 that " at certain seasons they find their way from 

 the mountains to the shores and feed on the fuci 

 [sea-weeds] and other marine plants. It is remark- 

 able to see them, on the receding of the tide, running 

 down from the hills, as if possessing an instinctive 

 knowledge of the time of ebb. They remain feed- 

 ing while the sea allows ; and sometimes they are 

 caught by the surrounding tide and drowned. 

 Sometimes they are unable, from exhaustion, to 

 ascend again to cliffs of the coast, and so perish ; 

 sometimes they are driven into coves, where they 

 are imprisoned until the retiring tide permits them 



* Page 78, London, 191 1. 



' Domesticated Animals of the British Islands, 2nd ed., p. 59. 



