Class I. SHEEP. 37 



and that which is taken from the neck and 

 shoulders, is used (mixed with Spanish wool) in 

 some of their finest cloths. 



Wales yields but a coarse wool ; yet it is of 

 more extensive use than the finest Segovian 

 fleeces ; for rich and poor, age and youth, health 

 and infirmities, all confess the universal benefit 

 of the flannel manufacture. 



The sheep of Ireland vary like those of 

 Great Britain ; those of the south and east 

 being large, and their flesh rank ; those of the 

 north, and the mountanous parts, small, and 

 their flesh sweet. The fleeces in the same man- 

 ner differ in degrees of value. 



Scotland breeds a small kind, and their fleeces 

 are coarse. Sibbald (after Boethias) speaks of 

 a breed in the isle of Rona, covered Avith blue 

 wool; of another kind in the isle of Hirta, 

 larger than the biggest he goat, with tails hang- 

 ing almost to the ground, and horns as thick, 

 and longer than those of an ox.* He mentions 



* Gmelin describes an f animal he found in Siberia, that in 

 many particulars agrees with this ; he calls it Rupicapra cornubus 

 arietinis; Linnceus styles it Copra Ammon. Syst. 97. and Gesner, 



t This animal, which, in the former edition of the British 

 Zoology, and in the Synopsis of Quadrupeds, was considered as 

 belonging to the goat genus, has since been described by Mr. 

 Pennant in his History of Quadrupeds, p. 45. as a variety of the 

 wild sheep. Ed. 



