MEDIUM-TAILED BRITISH BREEDS 117 



Hall, Loughborough, who began his breeding 

 experiments shortly before 1760. The improve- 

 ment appears to have been accomplished solely by 

 selection, no alien blood having been introduced. 



The so-called Border Leicester, which appears 

 to have been produced by crossing Teeswater ewes 

 with Bakewell Leicester rams, is a larger, heavier, 

 and longer - legged sheep, with the forehead and 

 shanks entirely free from wool, and the hair of the 

 face pure white unmixed with any tinge of blue. 



Although Leicesters have been exported to all 

 the sheep-rearing countries of the world, they are 

 nowadays by no means abundant, even in their 

 native county. In Canada, according to Professor 

 C. S. Plumb, small flocks are kept in all the 

 provinces, but more numerously in Ontario than 

 elsewhere ; while in the United States the breed 

 is chiefly represented in Michigan, Pennsylvania, 

 Oregon, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. 



The Cotswold Hills of Gloucestershire, which 

 take their name from the Saxon cote, a sheepfold, 

 and would, a bare hill, and form part of a chain of 

 hills of Oolitic rocks extending from the Yorkshire 

 moors to the English Channel near the Isle of 

 Portland, have long been famous for their sheep. 

 In early days these sheep were probably of the 

 soft-woolled type characteristic of Wiltshire and 

 Berkshire ; but at some unknown date these were 

 replaced by a long-wooUed breed, which has cul- 



