684 JReport on the Sheep Exhibited at Windsor. 
The glory of the Leicester is that it is not only excellent in 
itself, but that it has been the cause of so much excellence in 
other breeds. Much of this work had been done before the 
Society existed, though it was going on even in 1839 in 
quarters where the " Leicester cross " has now become a disputed 
tradition. 
At Windsor the entries of Leicesters numbered forty-one, 
and the chief prize-winners were Messrs. T. H. Hutchinson, 
R. and G, Harrison, David Linton, J. B. Green, and Mrs. 
Perry-Herrick. It is difficult to believe that the Leicesters ever 
were better in form or fleece than they are now. With their 
white legs and faces, heavy, well-grown fleeces, wonderful thick- 
ness through the heart, and straightness of line, they made a 
capital display, notwithstanding the rather lukewarm praise of 
the Judges. 
COTSWOLDS. 
As the Leicester, Cotswold, and Lincoln Classes came before 
the same Judges, it will be convenient to take them con- 
secutively. 
No variety of sheep makes a more handsome display in the 
show-yard than the Cotswolds, and there is none, too, about 
whose history there is more uncertainty. So far as living 
memory or definite record extends, the big white long-wool 
sheep as we now know them have inhabited the Cotswold Hills 
from time immemorial. But if they are indigenous they are an 
anomaly. The native breeds of the downs and uplands are 
elsewhere all small, active, and short-wool led. Adam Speed, 
too, writing early in the seventeenth century, speaks of the 
wool of the Cotswold as being similar to that of the Ryeland. 
On the other hand, Gervase Markham, in his Way to get Wealth 
(1657), speaks of the sheep of the " Cotsall hills" as having 
wool of " coarser and deeper " staple than that of the down 
sheep of Herefordshire and Worcestershire ; and Mr. Spooner, 
in his work on The Sheep ^ is " disposed to think that the present 
are the descendants of the old race," though he does not attempt 
to substantiate the opinion. The opinion of Professor Low 
carries great weight, for from his careful pages most subsequent 
writers appear to have taken the bulk of their facts, and he 
evidently had no doubt that the present Cotswolds have taken 
the place of a different breed which was short-woolled. In the 
report on the farming of Gloucestershire which appeared in 
the Journal' in 1850, the writer, Mr. John Bra vender, makes 
' Vc4, XI. l8t Series (1850), p. 161. 
