FAT-TAILED AND LONG-TAILED SHEEP 179 



the rams provided with moderate-sized horns, which 

 taper rapidly towards the tips, and form a crescentic 

 curve. Typically the tail reaches to the hocks, 

 where it terminates abruptly,^ but in some examples 

 its cylindrical tip is so lengthened as to sweep the 

 ground, as in the ram shown in pi. xiii. fig. 2, which 

 was presented to the British Museum (Natural 

 History) by the Minister of Agriculture for Cape 

 Colony. This great elongation of the tail in some 

 individuals of this breed, accompanied apparently 

 by a smaller accumulation of fat at the base, is of 

 importance as indicating a transition from the fat- 

 tailed to the long-tailed type. In the naked under 

 surface of its fat-laden portion, and the separation 

 of the bare from the woolly areas by a pair of 

 longitudinal grooves, the tail of the Africander 

 sheep resembles that of the other fat-tailed breeds. 

 Its weight is commonly from 20 to 30 lbs. The 

 colour of the short, thick, and curling woolly fleece 

 varies from uniform dirty white to rusty or dark 

 brown, black, or silver-grey, but piebald and skew- 

 bald specimens are not unknown ; in the ram repre- 

 sented in the plate, the greater part of the face 

 is tan-coloured, and the fleece white. 



Formerly Africander fat-tailed sheep were kept 

 in enormous flocks in Cape Colony, where they 

 constituted some of the most valuable stock of the 



' See the figure on page 11 of Conrad Schreiner's The Angora 

 Goat, London, 1898. 



