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They abound in Dorsetshire and in part of Wilt- 
shire; and occur, in scattered flocks, throughout 
a large portion of Britain. Their body is tall 
and light ; their faces are white, their legs long, 
aud their wool short. Their shoulders are broad 
at the top, and lower than the hind quarters. 
The back is tolerably straight, the carcase deep, 
and the loins broad. The fleece seldom weighs 
above 34 pounds; and the staple is not often 
more than two inches long. This breed is very 
prolific ; and the ewes occasionally bring forth 
twice a-year. It is from them that the luxuri- 
ous tables of London are supplied with Christmas 
lamb. ‘The victims are reared in little dark ca- 
bins ; and the ewes are kept in a neighbouring 
field, and fed with oil-cakes, corn, hay, &c., and 
introduced, after certain intervals, to give suck 
| to their young. The latter are kept very warm 
_ and clean, and their lodgings are constantly lit- 
tered with fresh straw. See the article Lams. 
The wool of the Dorsetshire sheep, though not 
abundant, is of a superior quality, the fine Wilt- 
shire cloths being fabricated from it. 
The Somerset sheep are a subvariety of the 
Dorset breed. But they are larger and taller, and 
have more arched profiles, and have noses, not of 
_ a black or white colour, but of a pink or fleshy 
| colour, similar to the Merinos. Their lambs also 
| are larger, and their wool somewhat longer, yet 
| of nearly the same fineness. Both the Somersets 
| and the true Dorsets, however, have, for a con- 
siderable time past, been increasingly dislodged 
by the Southdown race from some of their 
grounds, and increasingly crossed and modified 
with them in others. Some or even many sub- 
| varieties of the same group as the Somersets and 
the Dorsets, were formerly more or less rife in 
the southern parts of England; but are now 
quite or nearly extinct. 
The Portland sheep inhabit the Isle of Port- 
land; and are cognate to the Dorsets, but are 
much smaller, and constitute a perfectly distinct 
breed, and have existed as such from an untrace- 
ably remote period. Both males and females 
have horns; and they have a good shape and a 
gentle disposition. Their face and legs are 
white, but have a tinge of dun; their wool is 
coarser than that of the Dorset, and makes a 
very light. fleece ; and their mutton is delicate 
and excellent, and fetches a good price in the 
market. 
The Ryeland sheep took their name from a 
sandy tract of country, which was formerly used 
much for the raising of rye crops, in the valley 
of the Wye; but they have borne other names 
in the principal districts where they have pre- 
vailed,—and particularly that of Hereford sheep 
in most parts of Herefordshire, and that of Ar- 
chenfied sheep or of Ross sheep in the tract of 
country situated between the Forest of Dean 
and the Malvern Hills. They are small and 
hornless ; and have existed, as a distinct and 
unmixed breed, from a remote period; and 
SHEEP. 
have, for ages, been more or less cultivated | 
throughout a large portion of Herefordshire, | 
Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, and 
Warwickshire, on account of the softness and 
fineness of their wool. “These sheep,” says 
Spooner, “are of small compact forms, without — 
horns, quiet in their habits, patient, and hardy. 
The mutton is delicate and juicy, and the carcase 
from 12 to 15 pounds per quarter. The wool is 
white, and extends over the face, and forms a tuft 
on the forehead. ‘hey are principally distin- 
guished for the fineness of the wool, which is 
superior, for carding purposes, to all other of 
English produce, the Merino alone excepted. 
This formerly occasioned it to be in great de- 
mand, and to realize a good price; but since the 
general importation of the Merino wool, its great 
superiority has caused the demand for the Rye- 
land to be greatly diminished, and its price to | 
fall in proportion. Thus the fleece being light, 
averaging only two pounds, it will not repay the 
trouble and expense that used to be incurred 
in keeping these sheep in large cots or houses, 
containing from 100 to 200, where they were fed 
with peastraw and dry forage,—a practice found | 
to conduce very much to the fineness of the | 
fleece, and which was generally practised when | 
the Lemster wool, as it was termed from the city 
of Leominster where it was sold, was in the 
zenith of its prosperity.” The Ryeland sheep, | 
however, have been so extensively substituted | 
by some of the larger races, and so generally 
modified, in places where they still exist, by old 
crosses with the Merinos, the Southdowns, and 
the Cotswolds, and by recent crossings with the 
Leicesters, that comparatively few of the pure | 
breed now occur in even the districts where, at 
one time, they were most highly valued. 
The black-faced or heath sheep are a very pe- _ 
culiar breed, and have a wild unreclaimed as- | 
pect, and inhabit lofty, heathy, barren moun- 
tainous tracts throughout the northern counties 
of England and in many parts of both the south- | 
ern and the northern highlands of Scotland, from | 
Dumfries-shire and Roxburghshire away even to 
the Pentland frith. It has existed from time 
immemorial in the north of England, and found 
its way many centuries ago into the south of 
Scotland ; but was not introduced into the wes- 
tern, central, and southern highlands of Scotland 
till periods ranging downward from about the 
middle of last century, and has now, in a great 
measure, supplanted the earlier ovine inhabi- 
tants of these regions. “ This breed,” says Pro- 
fessor Low, “is of the smaller races of sheep with 
respect to the weight at which it arrives, but it 
is larger and more robust than the Shetland, the 
Welsh, and the ancient soft-woolled sheep which 
it displaced. It somewhat resembles the Per- 
sian, so that it might be conjectured that it is. 
derived from the Hast. But it is more natural 
to assume that its peculiar characters have been 
communicated to it by the effects of food and 
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