SHORT-TAILED EUROPEAN BREEDS 69 



of such primitive breeds in Sweden, Professor 

 Einar Lonnberg, of Stockholm, wrote to me in 

 1 91 1 as follows : — 



" I beg to state that there are hardly anywhere 

 in Sweden, except in the most remote provinces, 

 any sheep which can be regarded as pure descend- 

 ants of the old native stock. Certainly none such 

 can be found anywhere near Upsala. Our old stock 

 of sheep has been crossed from time to time with 

 imported breeds (mostly from Great Britain) ; this 

 being evident from the fact that horned sheep are 

 now but seldom to be seen in the country. 



" In the interior of Smaland, on the island of 

 Gotland, and in Yamtland, indigenous breeds may 

 possibly survive ; but I have no means of knowing 

 whether any of them are identical with those of the 

 old stock in the central provinces. All of them 

 probably differ to a certain extent locally. Those 

 of Yamtland have remarkably coarse wool." 



From Scandinavia short-tailed sheep extend 

 through Finland and the whole of northern 

 Russia ; ^ by the Russians they were also introduced 

 into Siberia, to which they were originally strangers. 

 Some of these short -tailed Russian sheep are stated 

 to be very like the Icelandic and FarOe breeds ; but 

 in the more northern districts, as well as in the cold 

 climate of Siberia, they run smaller than in the 

 south, but whether they are inferior in point of size 



* Vide Fitzinger, op. cii., p. 198. 



