Ill 
THE  LONK. 
As  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  England,  in  conjunction 
with  tbe  Royal  Lancashire  Society,  is  holding  its  show  for  1910 
in  Liverpool,  it  seems  desirable  to  give,  in  this  present  volume, 
an  account  of  the  only  breed  of  sheep,  possibly  the  only  variety 
of  live  stock,  indigenous  to  the  County  Palatine  of  Lancashire. 
This  breed  of  sheep — the  Lonk — is  found  on  the  extensive 
range  of  hills,  whose  watershed  for  many  miles  forms  the 
boundary  of  Yorkshire  and  Lancashire.  It  is  known  to  have 
been  for  long  peculiar  to  the  district,  and  is  popularly  supposed 
to  have  existed  there  from  time  immemorial.  In  the  Farmers' 
Magazine  for  1869,  there  was  published  an  article  by  the 
grandfather  of  the  present  writer  from  which  the  following 
quotation  is  taken. 
“ The  name  they  bear  is  purely  provincial  and  indicates  not  only  the  local 
habitation  but  the  antiquity  also  of  the  race.  In  the  vernacular  of  the  olden 
time,  Lancashire  was  pronounced  Loukashire.” 
“ The  old  form  of  the  first  syllable  now  survives  only  in  the  name  then 
given  to,  perhaps,  the  only  animal  of  the  kind  found  able  to  exist  upon  these 
lone  border  hills,  peopled  successively  in  still  more  early  time  by  the  wild 
boar  and  wolf,  the  moosedeer,  stag  and  roe.” 
Animals  such  as  the  sheep  referred  to  in  the  Farmers' 
Magazine  of  over  forty  years  ago,  which  had  been  able,  under 
many  disadvantages  as  to  soil,  climate,  and  locality,  to  live  and 
multiply,  could  not  have  been  other  than  hardy  and  prolific. 
They  must,  however,  have  had  all  those  marks  which  the 
struggle  for  existence  of  many  generations  would  inevitably 
leave  behind. 
It  is  as  stock,  sprung  from  ancestors  thus  reared,  that  the 
Lonk  of  the  present  day  must  be  judged.  No  mountain  sheep 
can  ever  compare  with  the  lowlander  if  judged  by  standards 
which  fail  to  give  credit  for  qualities  essential  to  earning  a 
thrifty  living  on  the  “ fell.”  The  narrow  though  deep  chest, 
the  long  and  powerful  leg,  are  as  inconsistent  with  the  canons 
of  symmetrical  proportion  accepted  by  him  who  feeds  “ downs  ” 
on  clover  and  turnips  as  they  are  necessary  to  the  animal  that 
grows  a fleece  and  rears  lambs  on  the  exposed  mountain  pasture. 
In  1861  at  the  show  which  was  held  by  the  “ Royal  ” in 
conjunction  with  the  Yorkshire  Society,  the  Lonk  may  be  said 
to  have  made  his  first  appearance  before  the  world  at  large. 
At  this  show  the  Lonk  “ Mountain  King  ” took  the  first  prize 
offered  by  the  Yorkshire  Society  for  aged  mountain  rams,  and 
attracted  the  attention  of  Dickens  in  All  the  Year  Bound.  He 
says  of  him  : — 
“ There  was  a ram,  the  Mountain  King  . . . with  vast  spiral  horns, 
a black  speckled  face,  and  picturesque  as  any  deer,  as  active  as  any  goat.”* 
* All  the  Year  Romid,  Vol.  VI.,  page  280. 
