CHAPTER V 



THE MEDIUM-TAILED BRITISH BREEDS 



The great majority of the sheep of the British 

 Islands, including all those found on the mainland, 

 are characterised by the medium length of the tail, 

 a feature due, as pointed out in the second chapter, 

 to domestication. In the majority of breeds the 

 tail is, however, cut at an early age, and thus made 

 even shorter than in the breeds in which its length 

 is normally slight ; and to this practice may be 

 attributed that general lack of recognition of the 

 important fact that many of the more primitive 

 breeds of domesticated sheep are naturally short- 

 tailed. 



By Dr. Fitzinger ^ the various breeds of ordinary 

 medium-tailed sheep were regarded as a species 

 apart from the short-tailed type, but there can be no 

 doubt that there was in former times a complete 

 gradation from the one to the other ; and, as stated 

 at the close of the preceding chapter, the dun-faced 

 Spanish breed, which had a short tail, appears to 

 have been closely related to the longer-tailed Scottish 

 breed which bears the same name. 



' Op. cit., vol. xxxix. p. 354, i860. 

 78 



