G62 Report on the Exhibition of British and Foreign Sheep, 
The only entry in the class of foreign wool was one of samples 
of the fleeces of Mr. Watts's four-horned Peruvians. 
Goats. 
Goats, British and Foreign, made a good show, and attracted 
so much attention that it was impossible to doubt the established 
revival of interest in this country in a race of animals second to 
none, perhaps, in the antiquity of its service to man. The question, 
What is, and what is not, a " British " goat ? may possibly afford 
scope for the exercise of some ingenuity in the art of definition. To 
what epoch of our history, or anterior to what precise date, must 
a breed trace its introduction, in order to justify its acceptance as 
a naturalised denizen of Great Britain? The horn has been 
declared an indispensable requisite of admission to the British 
goat-classes ; yet in view of the unmistakeable concurrence ol 
opinion of at least a large majority of well-informed breeders of 
goats, supported as it is by the remarks of the Judges in the 
subjoined Report, the reconsideration of this question seems 
advisable, in the event of a future exhibition of goats. We 
are constantly incorporating foreign elements. In this respect, 
probably, the modern British goat much resembles the modern 
Briton of the human race. The interest in goats is a growing 
one ; and as more attention is year by year attracted to the 
subject, the desire for improvement provokes experiment, crosses 
are tried, and in course of time new permanent varieties arc 
developed. These home-made breeds, although they are in 
some measure indebted to materials borrowed from other 
countries, can scarcely be classed among the aliens ; and it is 
surely desirable to admit to competition (under proper classifica- 
tion) all varieties which can be shown to possess merit. I\ot- 
withstanding the restriction imposed by the Society, hornless 
goats were exhibited in the British department, and the Judges, 
in the absence of special notices of disqualification, accepted 
them as legitimate competitors. In Class 214, short-haired male 
goats, both the prize-winners, subsequently disqualified, were 
either virtually or totally hornless ; and in that, and not in that 
class alone, there was at least a sovpgoji of foreign blood in some 
of the horned specimens which gained honourable notice. In 
the first instance the first prize in Class 214 was awarded to an 
animal with merely rudimentary horns, and the second to a per- 
fectly polled specimen ; but in consequence of a protest, these 
awards were cancelled, and the prizes passed to Miss F. A. C. 
Cresswell's " Prince Charlie," a long, level, good three-year-old, 
whose coat, however, looked a trifle threadbare ; and the second 
to Professor Simonds's good and shapely yearling, " Bouncing 
