94 - SHEEP. Chap. III. 



are in the whole world fourteen species, one of which, the Cor- 

 sican moufflon, he concludes (as I am informed by him) to be 

 the parent of the smaller, short-tailed breeds, with crescent- 

 shaped horns, such as the old Highland sheep. The larger, 

 long-tailed breeds, having horns with a double flexure, such as 

 the Dorsets, merinos, &c, he believes to be descended from an 

 unknown and extinct species. M. Gervais makes six species 

 of Ovis ; 73 but concludes that our domestic sheep form a 

 distinct genus, now completely extinct. A German naturalist 74 

 believes that our sheep descend from ten aboriginally distinct 

 species, of which only one is still living in a wild state ! An- 

 other ingenious observer, 75 though not a naturalist, w T ith a bold 

 defiance of everything known on geographical distribution, infers 

 that the sheep of Great Britain alone are the descendants of 

 eleven endemic British forms ! Under such a hopeless state 

 of doubt it would be useless for my purpose to give a detailed 

 account of the several breeds ; but a few remarks may be 

 added. 



Sheep have been domesticated from a very ancient period. 

 Kutirneyer 76 found in the Swiss lake-dwellings the remains of a 

 small breed, with thin and tall legs, and with horns like those 

 of a goat : this race differs somewhat from any one now known. 

 Almost every country has its own peculiar breed; and many 

 countries have many breeds differing greatly from each other. 

 One of the most strongly marked races is an Eastern one with 

 a long tail, including, according to Pallas, twenty vertebra?, and 

 so loaded with fat, that, from being esteemed a delicacy, it is 

 sometimes placed on a truck which is dragged about by the 

 living animal. These sheep, though ranked by Fitzinger as a 

 distinct aboriginal form, seem to bear in their drooping ears 

 the stamp of long domestication. This is likewise the case with 

 those sheet) which have two great masses of fat on the rump, 

 with the tail in a rudimentary condition. The Angola variety of 



" 3 Blyth on the genus Ovis, in 74 j) Y l. Fitzinger, ' Ueber die Eacen 



' Annals and Mag. of Nat. History,' vol. des Zahmen Schafes,' 1860, s. 86. 

 vii., 1841, p. 261 : with respect to the pa- ? 5 J. Anderson, * Eecreations in Agri- 



rentage of the breeds, see Mr. Blyth's culture and Natural History,' vol. ii. p. 



excellent articles in ' Land and Water,' 164. 



1867, pp. 134, 156. Gervais, ' Hist. Nat. 76 < Pfahlbauten,' s. 127, 193. 



des Mammiferes,' 1855, torn. ii. p. 191. 



i 



