AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
Farm, G-arcien, and. HouseliolcL 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST U S E FOE, AND MOST NO I! EE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”— Washington. 
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VOLUME XXXVII.—No. 1. NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1878. NEW SERIES—No. 372. 
THE MUSMON OR WILD 
American Agriculturist. 
s 
HEEP OP EUROP E —(Ovis Musimori). — Drawn and Engraved for 
The origin of our domesticated sheep will proba¬ 
bly ever remain a mystery. From which of the 
known races of wild sheep it has been derived, is a 
matter of dispute, or at least of difference, amongst 
naturalists. Indeed, it is and has been a question 
which of these wild races is really the aboriginal 
one, or whether there was but one or more than one. 
Whoever has carefully studied the subject, and is 
without prejudice, or does not seek to support a 
foregone conclusion, would probably consider the 
different wild sheep to have been derived from one 
aboriginal race, and the different domesticated va¬ 
rieties that have a very ancient history, to have 
sprung from the more ancient wild races. Thus 
we might consider with reason, that the Argali or 
Asiatic Mountain Sheep, was the progenitor of our 
Rocky Mountain Sheep, and of the domesticated 
Asiatic races, as well as of the European wild 
mountain sheep the Musmon, the subject of the 
above illustration ; and this last in turn may rea¬ 
sonably be supposed to have been the ancestor of 
the very different Spanish Merino, and consequent¬ 
ly of our own American Merino. The gradual evo¬ 
lution of an improved breed from a very coarse an¬ 
cestry, and the wonderful refinement that is possi¬ 
ble in course of even a few years of careful breed¬ 
ing, go to explain very satisfactorily many other¬ 
wise startling differences in the structure, habits, 
and other general characteristics of an animal. It is, 
therefore, far from difficult to account for the wide¬ 
ly different characters of our Merino and this ancient 
wild race, which is, doubtless, at this time nearly, 
if not precise!}', like what it was two or three 
thousand years ago. The Musmon inhabits the 
mountains of Southern Europe, and of the Islands 
of Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, and Corsica. It for¬ 
merly abounded in Spain, and is supposed still to 
exist iu the mountains of some of the wilder por¬ 
tions of that country. The male has horns two feet 
in length, but the female is often hornless. These 
animals gather in flocks of some hundreds, except 
at the breeding season, when the large flocks sepa¬ 
rate into small ones, consisting of one male and a 
few females. They have been known to breed from 
the domestic sheep, and the progeny is fertile. 
Such cross breeding was common in the time of 
Pliny, or over 2,000 years ago, and the produce was 
mentioned by this writer as being termed Umbri. 
The coat of this sheep is outwardly a brownish 
hair, covering an undercoat of fine, gray wool, 
which is short, but full of spirals, and very closely 
serrated upon the edges. It is interesting to con¬ 
sider if the Spanish Merino inherits its “fine, short 
wool, full of spirals, and closely serrated,” from 
this original race, which inhabited the country 
where the former first became known to the Ro¬ 
mans, who carefully bred and greatly improved it. 
