CHARACTERISTICS OF BREEDS. 153 



the Leicesters, of fine symmetry and carrying great 

 weight and light offal, they are among the most popular 

 of large mutton sheep. 



The SonTH Down is an ancient British breed, taking 

 its name from a chalky range of hills in Sussex and 

 other counties in England about sixty miles in length, 

 known as the South Downs, by the side of which is a 

 tract of land of ordinary fertility and well calculated 

 for sheep walks, and on which probably more than a 

 million of this breed of sheep are pastured. The flock 

 tended by the " Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," of whose 

 earnest piety and simple faith Hannah More has told 

 us in her widely circulated tract, were South Downs. 

 Formerly these sheep possessed few of the attractions 

 they now present. About the year 1782 Mr. John 

 Ellman of Glynde turned his attention to their improve- 

 ment. Unlike his cotemporary Bakewell, he did not 

 attempt to make a new breed by crossing, but by atten- 

 tion to the principles of breeding, by skillful selections 

 for coupling and continued perseverance for fifty years, 

 he obtained what he sought — health, soundness of con- 

 stitution, symmetry of form, early maturity, and facility 

 of fattening, and thus brought his flock to a high state 

 of perfection. Before he began we are told that the 

 South Downs were of " small size and ill shape, long 

 and thin in the neck, high on the shoulders, low behind. 



