134 THE SHEEP AND ITS COUSINS 



flocks. That it is a product on the one side of the 

 original French stock appears certain, but there is 

 some doubt as to its parentage on the other, 

 although it is suggested by Fitzinger that this may 

 have been from a half-bred strain of the German 

 sheep. Being of this cross-bred nature, it will be 

 unnecessary to describe its character. 



Yet another hybrid stock is the Normandy 

 sheep, which may be the product of a cross between 

 the old French and the Friesian breeds. There is 

 likewise the dwarf Breton breed, of Brittany, which 

 is probably allied, and, with the exception of a West 

 African breed, and another in Socotra, is apparently 

 the smallest of all sheep. Some fifty years ago 

 these tiny Breton sheep were not infrequently im- 

 ported into England, and exhibited at the Smithfield 

 Club Show. Both sexes, according to an illustra- 

 tion in Wood's Natural History,^ are hornless. 



Germany and Eastern Europe are the home of 

 a type of long-tailed sheep characterised, under 

 various local modifications, by the convex profile of 

 the nose, and the rather long, coarse, and wavy or 

 straight wool, which covers the whole animal with 

 the exception of the short-haired head and the lower 

 parts of the feet. Sheep of this type extend over the 

 whole of Germany, the adjacent districts of France 

 and Belgium, southern Holland, Austria, Styria, 

 Carinthia, and the Tyrol as far as northern Italy ; 



' Vol. i. p. 679. 



