CLASS I. MAMMALIA: OPwDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 
519 
THE UOCKT IIOUM'AIX BUiiKP. 
or flesh duripg their long and rigorous winters, and, if reduced to necessity, he eats his own wool. 
He is diminutive like the Orkney, or massive like the Teeswater. He is policerate or many- 
horned ; he has two large or small spiral horns like the Merino, or is polled or hornless like the 
mutton sheep. He has a long tail like our own breeds, a broad tail like many of the eastern, or 
a mere button of a tail, like the fat-rumps, discernible only by the touch. His coat is sometimes 
long and coarse, like the Lincolnshire ; short and hairy, like those of Madagascar ; soft and fiirry, 
like the Angola, or fine and spiral, like the silken Saxon. His color, either pure or fancifully 
mixed, varies from the white or black of our own country to every shade of brown, dun, buff, 
blue, and gray, like the spotted flocks of the Cape of Good Hope, and other parts of Africa."* 
Several of the breeds of sheep are marked with such peculiarities as to be regarded by some 
eminent naturalists as forming so many distinct species. The general opinion, however, is, that 
they all belong to one species, and that the diversities of form, color, and size, which we find 
among them, are the result of breeding, climate, and other circiimstances. As to the original 
stock of the sheep, some have supposed it to have been the Mouflon of Europe, others the Argali, 
and others still, with much plausibility, maintain that the sheep is the result of a mixture of sev- 
eral aflied species, not, however, including any of the wild races now known. But be this as it 
may, it is certain that the sheep was one of the earliest animals subjected to the sway of man ; it ♦ 
is the very first of which wc have any historical notice. Abel was a keeper of sheep. "Abra- 
ham and his descendants," says the author just quoted, "as well as most of the ancient patri- 
archs, were shepherds. Job had fourteen thousand sheep. It is said of Rachel, the favored 
mother of the Jewish race, 'She came with her father's sheep, for she kept them.' The seven 
daughters of the priest of Midian, 'came and drew water for their father's flocks.' Moses, the 
statesman and lawgiver, who 'was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, kept the flocks of 
Jethro, his father-in-law ;' and David, the future monarch of Israel, the hero, poet, and divine, 
was a keeper of sheep. It was to shepherds, while 'abiding in the field, keeping watch over their' 
flocks by night,' that the birth of the Saviour was announced. The root of the Hebrew name for- 
sheep signifies fruitfulness, abundance, i)lenty, as indicating the blessings they were destined to 
confer on the human race. With the sacred writers, they were the chosen symbol of purity and 
* "Domestic Animals," &c., by R. L. Allen; published by 0. A. Moore, New York. 
