MEDIUM-TAILED CONTINENTAL BREEDS 125 



applied to sheep which are moved from pasture 

 to pasture. Merinos in their native country are 

 denizens of the lowland plains ; the sandy downs 

 and uplands of Spain being tenanted by various 

 breeds of short-woolled sheep. That merinos have 

 been inhabitants of Spain from the time when the 

 country was in possession of the Moors is certain, 

 but beyond this nothing definite is known with 

 regard to their history, although it has been 

 suggested^ that the original stock was imported 

 at an early, although unknown date, from North 

 Africa, where long-woolled sheep with the oily 

 secretion from the skin characteristic of merinos 

 are stated to have formerly existed, even if they are 

 not to be found there at the present day. Indeed, 

 there appears to be historical evidence that long- 

 woolled sheep were imported from Carthage in the 

 days of her splendour to Spain. This, however, is 

 not to be taken as indicative that merinos, or the 

 ancestral stock from which they are derived, are 

 indigenous to Africa. On the contrary, such ances- 

 tral stock almost certainly came from Asia, by way 

 of Syria and Egypt, since with the exception of 

 one peculiar species {Ammotragus lervia), which is 

 widely different from all the domesticated breeds, 

 Africa has no wild sheep of its own. 



Merinos, which are divisible into three main 

 classes and a large number of strains, or sub-breeds, 



' Low, op. cit., p. 135. 



