138 THE SHEEP AND ITS COUSINS 



The old writers, like Buffon in France, Pallas in 

 Germany, and Thomas Pennant in England, be- 

 lieved that the zackel sheep (to use its German 

 designation, as a convenient one) was a native of 

 Crete (Candia) and some of the other Mediter- 

 ranean islands, as well as of various parts of the 

 mainland of south-eastern Europe. It consequently 

 became very generally known as the Cretan zackel 

 sheep or Cretan sheep, being referred to under the 

 former name by Fitzinger ^ as one of the local races 

 of the zackel sheep, and figured under the latter 

 title in Wood's Natural History} 



According, however, to Dr. C. Keller,^ who 

 quotes an observer who visited Crete in 1 8 1 7 and 

 stated that zackel sheep were then very rare, these 

 sheep are nowadays quite unknown in the island, 

 to which they never appear to have been indi- 

 genous ; such individuals as were formerly seen 

 there having probably been imported from the ad- 

 jacent mainlai:d. The proper range of the breed 

 appears to extend from Greece, through Turkey, 

 Moldavia, Rumania, Wallachia, to Hungary and 

 Siebenbiirgen. 



The distinctive marks of the zackel sheep are 

 the small, pointed, and outwardly directed ears ; the 

 very long horns, spirally twisted on their own axis 



> Op. cit., p. 344. 

 ' Vol. i. p. 681. 



' " Studien iiber die Haustiere der Mittelmeer-Inseln," Neuc 

 Denks. Schweiz. Naif or. Ges., vol. xlvi. p. 141, 191 1. 



