The large-sized Lincoln Sheep, with lengthy fleece, those of the Cotswold Hills, the Teeswater, and Romney Marsh, are also heavy breeds, not equal in the totality of their points to the Improved Leicesters, although excelling them either in quantity of wool or hardiness of constitution.

The Short-woolled Southdowns, with close-set fleece of fine wool, face and legs dusky brown, curved neck, short limbs, and broad body, is one of the oldest and most valuable unmixed breeds that we possess. Their mutton greatly excels that of the Improved Leicesters, which, taken in association with their other good qualities, has caused them to extend to nearly every county. In parts of Hampshire, Shropshire, and Dorsetshire there are local breeds of Short-woolled Sheep which replace the Southdowns.

The Cheviot and the Black-faced, or Heath breed of our northern counties are mountain Sheep, of small size and hardy constitution, the former horned, the latter hornless and with a white face.

Welsh mutton is obtained from the small, soft-woolled Sheep with a white nose and face. The rams alone have horns, wherein the breed differs from that of the higher mountains, in which the ewes also are horned, at the same time that a ridge of hair is present along the top of the neck.

As wool forms so important an element of the mercantile transactions of Great Britain, and as Sheep-farming has so rapidly increased in Australia and New Zealand, a few words with reference to the statistics of the subject will not be out of place.

In 1788, when Governor Phillip landed at Port Jackson, there was not a Sheep in all Australia, and it was not until 1793 that about thirty of the Indian breed reached Sydney, their number being shortly augmented by the importation of breeding-stock from England and the Cape of Good Hope, principally Merinos. The progeny soon spread towards the interior, where the growing of wool became a lucrative pursuit. Sheep were first imported into New Zealand in 1840. It is estimated there are now one hundred million sheep in Australia, and nearly thirty million in New Zealand.

The following table of the number of bales of wool imported into Great Britain at twenty-year intervals, that is, in 1836, 1856, and 1876, gives a better idea than can be otherwise obtained as to the changes in the sources of wool as well as to the richness of each colonial district:—

IMPORTATION OF COLONIAL AND FOREIGN WOOL INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM (IN BALES).

1836.

1856.

1876.

New South Wales and Queensland

 19,066

 59,342

169,874

Victoria

None

 64,843

306,803

Tasmania

 15,449

 17,951

 20,480

South Australia

None

 16,618

102,067

West Australia

None

  1,267

  7,510

New Zealand

None

  6,840

162,154

Total Australasian

 34,515

166,861

768,888

Cape of Good Hope

  1,740

 50,607

169,908

Total Colonial

 36,255

217,468

938,796

German

 90,426

 22,272

 29,580

Spanish and Portuguese

 20,451

  8,106

  7,906

East Indian and Persian

  1,981

 45,236

 86,678

Russian

 15,072

  4,181

 34,511

River Plate

  5,151

118,593

Peru, Lima, and Chili

 16,653

 52,477

Alpaca

Mediterranean and Africa

 14,714

 13,665

Mohair

No returns

 13,515

Sundry

 12,784

 10,735

Total Foreign

172,081

175,338

277,268

TOTAL IMPORTATION

208,336

392,806

1,216,064

So much for the domestic Sheep; of other species of the genus Ovis we have Marco Polo’s Sheep.[2] This splendid Sheep, one of the finest species of the genus, has horns, describing a spiral of about a circle and a quarter when viewed from the side, pointing directly outwards, and sometimes measuring as many as sixty-three inches from base to tip along their curve, and as much as four and a half feet from tip to tip. At the shoulder the animal measures just under four feet. It inhabits the high lands in the neighbourhood of the lofty Thian Shan mountains, north of Kashgar and Yarkand, not descending below an elevation of 9,000 feet above the sea level, often ascending much higher. It is on account of the rarefaction of the air in these regions that there is considerable difficulty in obtaining specimens which have been wounded, because Horses at these heights are much distressed in their breathing, whilst the Sheep are not so. Mr. N. A. Severtzoff, an eminent Russian naturalist, has described three or four other species closely allied to Marco Polo’s Sheep, which are smaller than it, from Turkestan and the district east of it. In this Sheep, during the winter, the sides of the body are of a light greyish-brown, changing to white below. There is a white mane all round the neck and a white disc round the tail. A dark line runs the whole length of the middle of the back. In summer the grey changes to dark brown.