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The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)
The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)
The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)
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The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)

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"The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles" is an essay by David Low, published as part of the "Domesticated Animals of the British Islands" series. This fascinating and profusely-illustrated essay explores the history of the British sheep, with information on its various breeds, selection, domestication, management, and much more. This volume is highly recommended for those with an interest in the wildlife of the British isles, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of allied literature. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 29, 2017
ISBN9781473343122
The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)

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    The Sheep - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands) - David Low

    LAMB.

    II. THE SHEEP.

    The OVINE FAMILY, it has been seen, differs so little in conformation from the Caprine, that zoological characters can scarcely be found to discriminate them. Yet, in every country where these animals are known, they are separated in popular language, shewing that each possesses habitudes and external characters sufficient to distinguish it from the other. Sheep have the bodies more massive, and deviate more from the Antelopian type, than Goats; the horns, where they exist, are generally more angular, furrowed, and spiral; and the rams are destitute of the hircine odour. Of the species of true Sheep which have been found in the state of nature, those most generally admitted into zoological systems are:—

    1. OVIS AMMON, the Argali of Asia.

    2. OVIS MONTANA, the Rocky-Mountain Sheep.

    3. OVIS TRAGELAPHUS, the Bearded Argali.

    4. OVIS MUSIMON, the Musmon.

    The ARGALI of ASIA is somewhat less than the size of a stag. He has enormous horns, measuring about a foot in circumference at the base, and from three to four feet in length, triangular, rising from the summit of the head so as nearly to touch at the root, ascending, stretching out laterally, and bending forward at the point. He has a fur of short hair, covering a coat of soft white wool. The colour of the fur externally is brown, becoming brownish-gray in winter: there is a buff-coloured streak along the back, and a large spot of a lighter buff colour on the haunch, surrounding and including the tail. The female differs from the male in being smaller, in having the horns more slender and straight, and in the absence of the disc on the haunch. In both sexes the tail is very short, the eye-lashes are whitish, and the hair beneath the throat is longer than on other parts of the body.

    These creatures inhabit the mountains and elevated plains of Asia, from the Himmalaya Mountains westward to the Caucasus, and eastward and northward to Kamschatka and the Ocean. They are agile and strong, but very timid, shunning the least appearance of danger: their motion is zigzag, and they stop in their course to gaze upon their pursuer, after the manner of the domestic Sheep. They are usually found in very small flocks; and, at the rutting season, the males fight desperately, using their horns and forehead in the manner of the common ram. They are hunted by the people of the countries for their flesh, which is esteemed to be savoury, and for their skins, which are made into clothing. In autumn, after having pastured during the summer on the mountains and secluded valleys, they are fat, and in request; but as winter advances, and they are forced to descend from the mountains in search of food, they lose their plumpness, and are sought after only for their skins. When taken young they are easily tamed, but the old ones never resign their natural wildness.

    The ROCKY-MOUNTAIN SHEEP, or Argali of America, is allied to this species, or identical with it. It inhabits the loftiest mountain chains of North America. It was long ago described by Spanish writers as the Sheep of California, and is familiar to the Indians and fur-traders of Canada. It equals or surpasses the Asiatic Argali in size, and is taller than the largest of our Domestic Sheep. Its horns are very large, approaching, but not touching, one another at the base. The horns of the female are small, and slightly curved. The fur is of a reddish-brown colour, but becomes paler in winter, and in spring the old rams are nearly white. The face and nose are white, and the tail and buttocks present the buff-coloured disc which distinguishes the male of the Asiatic species. They collect in flocks, under the guidance of a leader. They pasture on the steepest parts of the mountains, and on the approach of winter descend into the plains. They are wild and timid, betaking themselves on the least alarm to the summits of the mountains. They are pursued and killed by the Indians for their flesh and skins, and have never been subjected to domestication.

    The BEARDED ARGALI inhabits the inland steeps of Barbary and the mountains of Egypt, It is larger than a fallow deer, and nearly equal in size to a stag. The horns are thirteen inches in circumference at the base, approaching near to one another on the top of the head, angular, black, bending backwards and downwards, and about two feet in length. The hair on the lower part of the cheeks and under-jaw is long, forming a divided beard. The under part of the neck and shoulders is covered by coarse hair; on the upper part of the neck, and especially at the withers, the hair is long and bristly, forming a mane; the knees are covered by long dense hairs, as if to protect them when the animal kneels; the hair on the rest of the body is short, and underneath the whole is the rudiment of a soft fine wool. It is a gentle and petulant creature, fond of ascending to high places, as the roofs of houses, capable of running swiftly, and of bounding with prodigious force.

    The MUSMON inhabits the lofty regions of the Caucasus and ancient Taurus, and still lingers in the islands of Crete and Cyprus, and the mountains of Greece. It is smaller than the Argali. In the male the horns are two feet in length; in the female they are often wanting. They are very thick, and they turn inward at the points, in which respect they differ from the horns of the Argali, which bend outward. The fur consists of a brownish hair, concealing a short, fine, gray-coloured Wool, which covers all the body.

    The Musmons, although resembling the Argalis, are smaller and less powerful, and inhabit, apparently, a lower range of mountains. They are gregarious, assembling in large flocks during the summer months; but, at the rutting season, fierce contests take place between the rams, and the herd divides into smaller bands, consisting of a male and several females. These animals are readily domesticated, and exhibit all the habits of the Domestic Sheep, although, in the first generation at least, they do not entirely resign their natural wildness. They breed freely with the Domestic Sheep, and the offspring is fruitful. Pliny mentions such alliances as being common, and states that the progeny were termed Umbri.

    A species, or variety, termed by M. G. St Hilaire, Mouflon d’Afrique, appears to resemble the Musmon of Asia and Europe. It has been found on the mountains bordering upon the plain of the Nile. It is about the size of a common ram. The horns are two feet long, and eleven inches in circumference at the base, diverging outwards, so that the extremities are about nineteen inches from one another.

    Another species of Musmon, or an animal nearly allied to it, has been found in Nepaul, both on the Indian and Thibetian sides of the snowy crests of the Himmalayas. It is described as having horns twenty-two inches along the curve, diverging greatly, but scarcely spiral; and as having fur of a bluish-gray colour inclining to red, the hairs concealing a scanty fleece of fine soft wool.*

    These are the wild species of Ovidæ which have as yet been described. But there is just reason to believe that others exist, although as yet too imperfectly known to be placed in the catalogues of naturalists. It is certain that Wild Sheep, approaching even more to the characters of certain domesticated races, exist in the immense countries bordering on the Hindoo Koosh, namely, Caubul, and the countries of the Turcomans, Persians, and others, towards the Caspian. One of these is described by Mr Fraser, in his interesting travels in these wild countries, as having been killed by the hunters of his party, and as being a fine animal, equal in size, and superior in strength, to the largest of the common races. It probably resembles a race of Sheep widely domesticated in the same countries, which has by some been termed the Persian breed, but which is to be distinguished from another race, to be afterwards referred to, found in the same country, and likewise termed Persian. The Sheep in question are covered with a very coarse hairy fur of a gray colour. Their horns are bent outward in the manner of the Argali, and, what is worthy of note, the head entirely resembles that of the Ham, as it is depicted on Eastern sculptures. This domesticated race is very widely diffused, extending to the Tartar countries inland; to Arabia, where it forms the most common breed of the Bedouins; and across the Indus over a great part of Hindostan.

    Ancient writers, too, speak of Wild Sheep, but with notices so indistinct, that no conclusions can be founded upon them. It is not certainly known whether Wild Sheep existed in the west of Europe. Boetius, a chronicler extremely credulous, yet worthy of trust as to what he says he heard or saw, mentions the existence of a race of Wild Sheep in the desolate island of St Kilda. He describes them as being larger than the largest goats, and as having tails hanging to the ground, and horns more bulky than those of the ox; and, according to Mr Pennant, an animal corresponding with this description is figured on a bas-relief taken from the wall of Antoninus, near the modern city of Glasgow.

    Looking at the vast diversities in the Sheep of different and distant countries, and the constancy with which certain races preserve their distinctive characters under the same conditions of temperature, food, and treatment, we are conducted to the conclusion, that Wild Sheep proper to different countries have been domesticated by the inhabitants; and, accordingly, that the domesticated races are not of one, but of various species, having the property of procreating with one another in the reclaimed state. The same hypothesis, we have seen, has been applied to the Goat, there being no other which satisfactorily explains the permanent differences which races of those animals exhibit under the same conditions from age to age. A like supposition, we shall see in the sequel, must be made in the case of the Dog, in order to enable us to account for those great variations which the domesticated races present in almost every country. The opinion, we shall see, that may most reasonably be entertained regarding the origin of the Domestic Dogs, is, that they are descended from the Wolf and other Canidæ yet found in the wild state; and there is no more difficulty in assuming the derivation of the Sheep than of the Dog from species yet existing in the state of nature, since the habits and forms of the Argalis and Musmons as nearly resemble the cultivated Sheep as the Wolf and other species of Canis resemble the common breeds of Dogs. Even the blood of the Goat, though of a species admitted, under every zoological system, to be distinct, has certainly been mixed with that of the Sheep of various countries. Sheep and Goats, indeed, when left free to select their own mates, do not breed together, but the union is readily produced when the males of one species only are present at the rutting season; and it has been long known to shepherds, though questioned by naturalists, that the resulting progeny is fruitful. Breeds of this mixed race are numerous in the north of Europe, and can scarcely have failed to take place in every country where Sheep and Goats are herded together.

    We may believe, then, that the Domesticated Sheep, the OVIS ARIES of naturalists, is a factitious species, and not one which has been called forth in the natural state. A species of this kind, however, having been formed, by whatever mixtures of blood, the members of it must have been subject, like every other family mixed or pure, to vary under the influence of external agencies; and thus, independently of the differences produced by differences of origin, there are those which have been produced by climate, food, and domestication, giving rise to those great varieties which, even under the narrowest geographical limits, present themselves.

    From whatever sources derived, these valuable animals, we know, have been subjected to servitude from the earliest times. The most ancient written records of the Southern Asiatics refer to the Domesticated Sheep; and he is figured on the oldest monuments of the past, which time has left us, in Western Asia. On the sculptured remains of Egypt, the Sheep continually appears, and of a form which we can identify with that of the same animal still existing. The Sacred Writings record its existence along with the first known inhabitants of the earth; and the flocks and herds of the wandering Shepherds of the East, are described with a minuteness, which enables us to compare the pursuits of the most ancient people with those of the inhabitants of the same countries at the present hour. Scarcely any thing seems to have changed in the habits of men in those countries of pastoral tribes. Where Abraham pitched his tent, with his sheep and oxen, and asses and camels,—where he sat at the door of his tent,—where the stone was rolled from the wells from which his maidens drew water,—there the Arab or the wandering Turcoman encamps, and all the scene is like a vivid panorama of the past. In the case of the present people of the Desert,—their tents, their journeyings, their household cares, their flocks, their camels, their wells,—all inform us with what a matchless fidelity the Sacred History has been told.

    Of the Sheep, we learn that its fleece was used by the Shepherds of Syria for the purposes to which it is now applied, and that it was shorn from the skin. Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon camels; and he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting which he had got in Padanaram, for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan: And Laban went to shear his sheep. * And Judah was comforted, and went up unto his sheep-shearers at Zimnath.† And at a long subsequent period, when the descendants of Judah had become a nation, and acquired the Land of Promise, the season of sheep-shearing is referred to as one of rustic labour. Further the wool was woven into cloth, which infers an advancement beyond the ruder stages of the arts. The mere barbarian uses, for raiment, the skin of the Sheep or Goat, with its covering of hair, as was practised by the Scythians, by the Gauls and Britons, and at the present day by the Kalmuks and other nomadic people of Asia, and by the Hottentots and other inhabitants of Southern Africa. When cloth is made by barbarous tribes, it is simply by pressing the wool together in a moist state, so as to form felt, as we yet see done in the case of hats and beavers; by which means the fibres adhere, and become intertwined in such a manner as to form a species of cloth; and of this simple manufacture were the woollen garments of the rude people in the north of Asia and Europe. The use of the distaff and the shuttle infers a considerable advancement in the arts. Yet at this stage, we know, by indubitable records, the wandering tribes of Syria had arrived, long ere the golden fleece had been acquired by Jason, or ere Minerva had communicated to her Athenians the gifts of spinning and weaving. And besides the spindle and the simple loom of the East, the Syrian Shepherds had, from early times, acquired the knowledge of the art of communicating to their cloths and garments those beautiful colours which so much please the eye. The fondness of a parent, and his gift of a many-coloured garment to a favoured child, gave rise to a tale which, in beauty and pathos, cannot be surpassed; and even yet amongst the people of India, the practice exists of giving to a favourite boy a garment of many colours, as a charm against evil. The flesh of the Sheep was likewise used, but with that temperance which still distinguishes the people of those countries in the use of animal food. It was from the milk of their flocks that they derived the chief part of their daily food. They understood the art of curdling the milk of their goats and ewes; and cheese and butter, with fat and honey, formed the simple repasts of these early shepherds, as of the Kurds, the Turcomans, and Arabs, of the present day.

    Domestication renders the Sheep more suited to our uses, but diminishes his physical powers, and adapts him to another condition of life. When once completely subjugated, he never again appears to acquire the faculties which fit him for a life of liberty. Give him afterwards what freedom we may, he remains more or less dependent upon us, and would fall a prey to wolves, and the swifter feræ, were he not under human protection. Yet he is not the stupid and insensible creature which some represent him to be. When entirely subdued, indeed, his natural instincts are blunted, and he loses the providence and sense of danger which are natural to him; but when left in a state of comparative liberty, as on the mountains of Scotland and Wales, he shews that, though comparatively feeble, he is not without the power of guarding himself from danger. When attacked by dogs or foxes, the flock forms a circle, with the rams in front, presenting a face to the enemy. The rams rush forward on the assailant, and strike him with their powerful horns; and in their contests with one another for the possession of the females, they fight with amazing determination, stunning one another with the violence of the shocks. The Sheep is an exceedingly hardy animal with respect to temperature, his close covering of wool defending him well from cold. He foresees an impending fall of snow, and takes shelter from its violence. When buried underneath the snow, as he sometimes is, he often survives for many days, and even weeks, and may be digged up without injury, provided he have escaped suffocation; for in such a situation, his thick fleece, which, as well as the snow, is a slow conductor of heat, retains the natural warmth of the body in such a degree as to preserve life. The ewe bears that affection to her offspring which Nature has imprinted, as it were, on the heart of every animal. Should mishap befal her young one, she mourns over it, and will not be comforted: should it wander from her side, her anxious bleatings are everywhere heard; and the little creature rewards her cares with surprising fondness. Who that has seen shearing of the flock, has not marked the startled aspect of the lamb when the mother first runs toward it divested of her covering, and how quickly it is reassured, and how sensibly it expresses its joy, when it hears the well-known voice, and receives the wonted caresses! The Sheep appears insensible and stupid, because it is rarely attached to us by acts of familiarity and kindness. But let the orphan lamb be brought up at the shepherd’s cot, and fed from his hand, and we shall find it to be nearly as familiar as a dog,—fond of

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