26 SHEEP. Clafsl. 



and horns as thick, and longer than thofe of an ox^. 

 He mentions another kind, which are clothed with 

 a mixture of wool and hair ; and of a fourth fpecies, 

 whofe flefh and fleeces are yellow, and their teeth of 

 the colour of gold ; but the truth of thefe relations 

 ought to be enquired into, as no other writer has 

 mentioned them, except the credulous Boetbiiis. 



Befides the fleece, there is fcarce anv part of thi^ 

 animal but what is ufcful to mankind ; the flefh is 

 a dcHcate and vvholefome food ; the fldn dreflTed, 

 forms difl'erent parts of our apparel-, and is ufed 

 for covers of books. The entrails, properly pre- 

 pa.«-ed and twifled, ierve for firings for various mu- 

 fical inftruments. The bones calcined (like 'Other 

 bones in general) form materials for tefls for the re- 

 finer. The milk is thicker than that of cows ; and 

 confequently yields a greater quantity of butter and 

 cheefe ; and in fome places is fo rich, that it will 

 not produce the cheefe without a mixture of water 

 to make it part from the whey. The dung is a re- 

 markable rich manure •, infomuch that the folding 

 of fheep is become too ufeful a branch of hufbandry 



* Gmelin defcribes an animal he found in Silteria, that in many 

 particulars agrees with this ; he ealls it Rupicapra cornubus arieti- 

 nis ; LinniTus ftyles it Capra ammon. Syji. 97. and Gefner, p. 934. 

 imagines it to be the Mujimon of the antients; the horns of the 

 Sihcria7i animal are two j'ards long, their weight above thirty 

 pounds. As we have fuch good authority for the exigence 

 of fuch a quadruped, we may venture to give credit to Boethius^& 

 account, that the fame kind was once found in Hirta. M. de 

 Buijcn, torn. xi. p. 352. defcribes it under the name oi LeMoiifio*,i 

 and with great appearance of reafon imagines it to be the Iheep 

 in its wild ftate. in the fecond plate of this edition is given the 

 fcure of the horns of this animal, from the Fetrop.Tranfa^ma, 

 Tom. iv. 



fcr 



