MERINO RAMS.
The best wool-producing sheep. Imported from Spain to Australia.
In India and Persia the sheep is sometimes used as a beast of burden. Mr. Lockwood Kipling, in his "Beast and Man in India," says: "Borax, asafœtida, and other commodities are brought into India on the backs of sheep in bags. The flocks are driven in large numbers from Tibet into British territory. One of the sensations of journeying in the hills of the 'interior,' as the farther recesses of the mountains are called by Anglo-Indians, is to come suddenly on such a drove, as it winds, with the multitudinous click of little feet, round the shoulder of some Himalayan spur. The coarse hair bags scrape the cliffside from which the narrow path is built out or hollowed, and allow but scant room for your pony, startled by the hurry and the quick-breathing rush of the creatures as they crowd and scuffle past. Only the picturesque shepherds return from these journeys. The carriers of the caravan (i.e. the sheep), feeding as they go, gather flesh in spite of their burdens, and provide most excellent mutton.... In the towns of the plains rams are kept as fighting animals. A Mohammedan swell going out for a stroll with his fighting-ram makes a picture of foppery not easily surpassed by the sporting 'fancy' of the West. The ram is neatly clipped, with a judicious reservation of the salient tufts, tipped with saffron and mauve dye, and besides a large collar of blue beads it wears a necklace of hawk-bells."
The Fat-tailed Sheep of Persia and Tartary exhibits a curious provision of nature. When food is plentiful, a quantity of fat accumulates on the tail and croup. As the pasture dries up and the animal finds little food, this store of fat is gradually absorbed. Another fat-tailed sheep is found from Syria and Egypt to the Cape. This has a long tail reaching to the ground. In the Egyptian breed the tail is broad throughout; in the Syrian it narrows to a point. The ordinary weight of the Syrian sheep's tail is 15 lbs.; but in some well-fattened examples it reaches 70 or 80 lbs. Ludolph saw in Egypt a sheep's tail of 80 lbs. weight. This overgrown tail is a great encumbrance to the animal. In order to lighten the burden, the shepherds fasten under it a small board, sometimes with wheels attached, to make it easy to draw over the ground.
Photo by J. T. Newman] [Berkhamsted.
BLACK-FACED MOUNTAIN-SHEEP.
The sheep of the high mountains and heather-moors.
In Greece, Wallachia, and Western Asia a fine breed of sheep, quite different from the English forms, is seen. It is called the Wallachian Sheep. When the Zoological Gardens were first founded here, some of these sheep were introduced and crossed with English breeds. The horns are tall spirals, as in the great kudu antelope. The body is large, and the fleece long and straight, and more like that of the long-haired goats than curly wool.
There are now few countries in the world to which sheep have not been introduced. They were probably among the earliest animals to be domesticated. Certainly they are the first to be mentioned; for we learn that "Abel was a keeper of sheep," while Cain tilled the earth. The feud between the keeper of flocks and the grower of crops typified in this ancient quarrel still goes on wherever the wild mountain breeds of sheep are kept, for there is of necessity always danger that the wandering sheep may raid the plots of corn. In Spain a curious and ancient set of laws regulates the passage of the flocks to and from the mountain pastures through the corn-lands.