SOME PECULIAR AFRICAN BREEDS 241 



a special feature of certain flocks kept in Warwick- 

 shire and Northampton. 



The horns of the rams differ from those of the 

 Manx and Hebridean loaghtans not only by being 

 generally black in colour, although they may be 

 streaked with yellow, or even wholly yellow, but 

 likewise, in spite of a certain amount of variation in 

 these respects, by their form and direction. In 

 Manx and Hebridean four-horned sheep (pi. iii, 

 fig. 2), for instance, the upper pair of horns have 

 the front surface concave, whereas in the piebald 

 breed it is invariably convex. In some cases the 

 upper (and additional) pair in the piebald breed are 

 directed upwards, outwards, and backwards, as in 

 the ram on the right side of pi. xviii. fig. 2 ; but 

 in other cases, as in the one on the left side of the 

 same illustration, they sweep boldly upwards, out- 

 wards, and downwards. In the fine head shown in 

 fig. I of the same plate, presented by Colonel 

 Piatt to the British Museum, a somewhat inter- 

 mediate condition exists. The lower horns may 

 either curve forwards by the sides of the face, as in 

 the ram just referred to, or may be directed more or 

 less backwards. The head of a ram presented to the 

 British Museum by Mr. W. P. Pycraft is of interest as 

 carrying only a single pair of horns, of which, how- 

 ever, the tips are cleft, thus apparently foreshadow- 

 ing the development of a second pair, and indicating 

 that these sheep were originally two-horned. 



Q 



