Chapter Nineteen. Sheep - Book of Zoology for Boys by Mayne Reid
The Sheep is one of the animals which man has subjected to his use; and one, too, of primary importance in the domestic economy of almost every civilised nation. Like the horse, dog, cat, ox, and pig, it has assumed the greatest possible variety. Many naturalists have treated these varieties as species; but those writers of greatest authority agree in considering all the domestic breeds as having originated from one common stock; and it would be idle here to speculate upon this question.
Of the tame sheep there are not less than forty very distinct kinds, besides numerous varieties of each of these kinds! These, of course, are distributed among many nations, and exhibit a very great difference in point of size and general appearance. Some are without horns, while others have these appendages very large, and of eccentric shape; some are covered with long crisp wool; others have the wool lank and straight; while still others have no wool at all, but instead a coat of hair resembling that of a spaniel or Newfoundland dog! But, besides these distinct kinds, as already stated, there are numerous varieties of each kind. For instance, the common sheep of England is itself branched out into quite as many as twenty breeds, each of which has a name of its own, and differs from all the others in many essential characteristics.
Leaving the common sheep of our own country, we shall say a few words of some of the more noted kinds that are in the possession of different nations abroad.
From Spain comes the Merino, so celebrated for the quality of its wool; while in Astracan and other Oriental countries there is a breed, the lambs of which furnish the well-known Astracan lambs’-skin, one of the most beautiful and valuable of furs. The Wallachian sheep, bred in Hungary, Transylvania, and the Danubian principalities, also produces a flue fur-like skin, much worn by the peasantry of Eastern Europe, in jackets and cloaks termed “bundas.”
A very similar kind of hairy-coated sheep is propagated throughout Asiatic Russia and Siberia—the skins affording a warm and comfortable clothing for the natives of these cold countries.
In the Indian countries there are many varieties, such as the Barwall of Nepaul, and also the Huniah, Cago, and Seeling, belonging to the same kingdom. Again, in the Deccan there is a breed known as Deccan sheep, another called Garar, and two others in Mysore denominated respectively the Carrimbar and Shaymbliar. China has a variety known as the Morvan, with very long legs; and in Russia, again, there is a kind with tails so long that their tops drag upon the ground; and another in Northern Russia, with tails so short that they appear altogether wanting!
With regard to tails, no breed has these appendages so developed as the broad or fat-tailed sheep. This kind is supposed to have originally come from Barbary; but they are now propagated in different parts of the world. In Asia they are found among the Tartars, Persians, Buchanans, and Thibetians. In Africa itself they are common among the Abyssinians, and are also kept in large flocks by the Dutch colonists of the Cape. The tails of these sheep are sometimes so large and heavy, that it is with difficulty the animals can carry them; and in some instances they are dragged along the ground as the sheep move from place to place! The fat of which this appendage is composed is esteemed a great delicacy; and at the Cape, as elsewhere, it constitutes an important article of the cuisine.
There are several other curious breeds of sheep reared in the different countries of Africa. These are, the Guinea sheep of the western coast; the Morocco sheep, bred in the kingdom of the same name; the African sheep, an inhabitant of the Sahara; and the smooth-haired African sheep. There are also the Tezzan sheep, belonging to Tripoli; the Saint Helena sheep, of the celebrated Island of Saint Helena; the Congo sheep, of Congo; and the Angolas, of the same region, famous for the quality of their wool—not to be confounded, however, with the Angora wool, which is the produce of a goat. There are sheep in Tartary that eat bones like dogs, and in Hindustan and Nepaul there are kinds that have four horns each. These are the Dumbas. A little species exists in Iceland, in which the horns sometimes grow to the number of eight—though four is the more common number. America, too, has its varieties. These are the Brazilian sheep, the Demerara breed, the South American sheep, and a variety known as the West Indian.
In fact, go to whatever part of the world you may, you will find a species or variety of this valuable animal, different in some respects from all the others.
The wild sheep, like the wild goats, do not number a great many species; but there are certainly several that are yet undescribed, and perhaps there may be about a dozen in all. No doubt the great central mountains of Asia, and also the ranges of Northern Africa, still unexplored, will in time yield several new species of wild sheep. Indeed, late travellers in the Himalayas speak of wild sheep that appear to be essentially different from the argali, and other species already known.
One species of wild sheep belongs to Europe—the Moufflon, which is to this day found plentifully in the mountainous parts of Corsica, Cyprus, and Candia. It was supposed to be the original of the tame breeds; but this is a mere conjecture.
In America there is also but one species of wild sheep, though it has also a variety. This is the Bighorn of the Rocky Mountains, lately much spoken of by prairie travellers and fur-hunters. It is not known in tropical North America, nor does its range extend to the Andes of the south; but it is found to the west, in the mountains of California, in a variety called the Californian sheep. The bighorn is extremely like the Asiatic argali, and was for a long time regarded as identical with the latter; but this was an error. It is now ascertained that not only is the American animal of another species, but also that there are several distinct species of the argali itself in the different ranges of Asiatic mountains.
Africa has its wild sheep, but only in its northern parts. This is the Aoudad, which dwells in the mountains of Barbary.
Asia appears to be the head-quarters of the wild sheep. One species is found in Armenia, and another in the Caucasus. Siberia has an argali, that appears altogether to differ from the argali of the Himalayas. Again, in the Himalayan Mountains themselves, there is one species which ranges north only as far as Thibet; while on the Thibetian plateaux, as far as the Altai Mountains, there is another, if not two other species, quite distinct from the latter.
It has been observed by competent travellers, that these Thibetian argalis bear a very strong resemblance to the different breeds of tame sheep found in the same regions; from which it may be reasonably inferred that the domesticated varieties of different countries have sprung from several wild species, instead of being all descended from one common origin.