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Show 94 SIIEEP. CIIAI'. III. are in the whole world fourteen species, one of which: the Cor- . m lle concludes (as I am informed by lnm) to be siCan mou on, · h t-f tl ller short-tailed breeds, wit crescen the parent o Je sma ' . r l . l h h as tho old H1rrhland sheep. The a1ger, sbapec orns, sue b h Ion -tailed breeds, having horns with a double flexure, sue . as theg D orse t s, men.u o s , &c ., he believes to b.e descended. from a. n d ,t· ct Sl)ocics M Gervais makes SIX species unknown an ex m · · . f . 0 · . 73 but concludes that our domestic sheep form a 0 VlS' G t 1' t 74. l . t' t enus now completely extinct. A errnan na ura IS os me g ' b . . ll d' . t believes that our sheep descend from ten a on_gma y 1stmc · f b1species, o w 'ch only one is still living in a w1.l d sta.t e! An-other ingenious observer,75 though not a ~atur~hs~, wJ_th a. bold defiance of everything known on geographical chstnbutwn, mfers that the sheep of Great Britain alone are the descendants of eleven endemic British forms ! Under such a hopeless state of doubt it would be useless for my purpose to give a detailed account of the several breeds ; but a few remarks may be ·added. Sheep . have been domesticated from a. very ancient_ period. Riitimeyer 76 found in the Swiss lake-dwelhn~s the rem~ms of a small breed, with thin and tall legs, and w1th horns hke those of a goat: this race differs somewhat from any one now known. Almost every country has its own peculiar breed ; and many countries have many breeds differing greatly from each other. One of the most strongly marked races is an Eastern one with a long tail, including, according to Pallas, twenty vertebrre, and so loaded with fat, that, from being esteemed a delicacy, it is sometimes placed on a truck which is dragged about by the living animal. These sheep, though ranked by Fitzinger as a distinct aboriginal form, seem to bear in their drooping ears the stamp of long domestication. This is likewise tho case with those sheep which have two great masses of fat on the rump, with the tail in a rudimentary condition. The Angola variety of n Blyth on tho genus Ovis, in ' AnnR.ls and Mag. of Nat. History,' vol. vii.,1841, p. 261 : with respect to tbe parentage of the breeds, sec Mr. Blyth's excellent articles in • Land and Water,' 1867, pp.134, 156. Gervais,' Hist. Nat. des Mammiferes,' 1855, tom. ii. p. 191. 74 Dr. L. Fitzinger, 'Ueber die Racen des Zabmen Schufes,' 1860, s. 86. 75 J. Anderson, 'Recren.tions in Agriculture and Natuml History,' vol. ii. P· 164. i6 'Pfuhlbauten,' s. 127, 193. CHAP. III. THEIR VARIATION. 95 the long-tailed race has curious masses of fat on the back of the head and beneath the jaws.77 Mr. Hodgson in an admirable paper 78 on the sheep of the Himalaya infers from the distribution of the several races, "that this caudal augmentation in mo~t of its phases is an instance of degeneracy in these preemmently Alpine animals." The horns present an endless diversity in character; being, especially in the female sex, not rarely absent, or, on the other hand, amountinrr to four or even eight in number. The horns, when numerous, a~·ise from a crest on the frontal bone, which is elevated in a peculiar manner. It is r~markable that multiplicity of horns "is generally accompamed by great length and coarseness of the fleece." 79 This correlation, however, is not invariable ; for I am informed by 1\Ir. D. Forbes, that the Spanish sheep in Chile resemble in fleece and i~ all other characters, their parent merino-r~ce, except that mstead of a pair they generally bear four horns. The existence of a pair of mammre is a generic character in the genus Ovis as well as in several allied forms ; nevertheless, as Mr. Hodgson has remarked, "this character is not absolutely constant even among the true and proper sheep : for I have more than once met with Cagias (a sub-Himalayan domestic race) possessed of four teats." 80 This case is the more remark~ ble as, w~en a~y part or organ is present in reduced number m ~ompan~on With. tl~e same part in allied groups, it usually is s~~Je~t to httle var~atwn. The presence of interdigital pits has likewise been considered as a generic distinction in sheep . but Isidore. Geoffroy 81 has shown that these pits .or pouche~ are absent m some breeds. In sheep there is a str~ng tendency for characters, which have apparently been acqmred under domestication to become attached ei~her :xclusively to the male sex, or to be ~ore highly developed m this than in the other sex. Thus in many breeds the l~orns are_ deficient in the ewe, though this likewise occurs occaswnally ;vith the female of the wild musmon. In the rams of the Wallach1an breed "the horns spring almost perpendicularly 77 Youatt on Sheep, p. 120. 78 ' Journul of the Asiatic Soc of Be~gal,' vol. xvi. pp. 1007, l 016. · 7 Youatt on Sheep, pp. 142-169. 80 'Journal Asiat. Soc. of Bengal • vol. xvi., 1847, p. 1015. ' 81 '1-Iist. Nut. Gen.' tom. iii p 435. , . . |