MEDIUM-TAILED CONTINENTAL BREEDS 141 



the mountains they are sheltered only in cold or 

 bad weather. From the long woolly hair are 

 woven blankets, horse-cloths, &c. ; and the tanned 

 skin, with the fleece, forms an important part of 

 the dress of the peasants of Hungary, Moldavia, 

 and Wallachia, especially the shepherds. Although 

 coarse-grained, the mutton is well-flavoured and 

 highly nutritive. Formerly, when these sheep 

 were kept in enormous flocks, their flesh con- 

 stituted the staple supply of mutton in Vienna and 

 other parts of Austria ; but since about the year 

 1820 zackel-sheep mutton has been largely replaced 

 in the markets of the capital by that of other breeds, 

 and when Fitzinger wrote his account of the breed, 

 in i860, it was a rare thing to see any of these 

 sheep in the Vienna market. Where big flocks 

 are kept the milk of the ewes is largely used for 

 making cheese, although it does not produce the 

 best quality of sheep-cheeses. 



A well-known Hungarian breed, the rasko 

 sheep, is stated by Dr. Fitzinger^ to be the result 

 of crossing the ordinary German long-tailed sheep 

 with the Wallachian zackel sheep ; but no mention 

 is made of the evidence on which this assertion is 

 based, and there seems no good reason why the 

 rasko sheep should not represent the ancestral 

 stock of the zackel sheep. 



On the other hand, it should be mentioned 

 ' op. cit., p. 353. 



