SHEEP, PLAIN AND COLOURED.
IN future no sheep sent to shows are to be allowed to have their coats rouged, and the judges are in future to make their decisions uninfluenced by the beauties of cosmetics. This decision comes as a great blow to the skilled hands in the business of the " improver," who, by long experience and a nice knowledge of the weaknesses of judges, had brought the art of " making up " pedigree sheep of any particular breed to something very nearly approach- ing the ideal of perfection. Their wool was clipped so artistically as to resemble a bed of moss, and this being elegantly tinted with rouge or saffron, the sheep assumed the hue of the pink or primrose, according to taste and fancy. The reason for the edict which now requires that the cham- pions of the flocks shall be shown " plain " and not coloured is not too technical to appeal to the general public. Those who know the acute anxiety with which the exhibitors of prize animals, from fancy mice to shorthorns, watch them " coming on " as the hour for the show approaches, will treat tenderly, even if they cannot condone, the little weaknesses into which the uses of rouge and saffron led them. When a Southdown which ought to have a contour smooth and rounded as a pear still showed aggravating little pits and hollows where there ought to be none, nothing was easier than to postpone clip- ping those undesirable hollows till the moment before the show, or if there were bumps where there should be no bumps, to shave the wool down close over them. Left to Nature, the newly-clipped wool would show a different tint from the rest of the fleece; but the rouge or saffron then applied made all things even, to the eye, and the judges to find out whether the animals were "level" or not had to feel them all over. Feeling every six inches of some two hundred sheep's backs is very tiring work ; so the judges have struck against rouge, and there is an end of it.
Are our domestic sheep, except for their highly artificial development of wool, really very different from their wild ancestors, the active and flat-coated animals which still feed on the stony mountain-tops? The ways of sheep, not only in this country but abroad, show that a part at least of their wild nature is still strong in them; and if type photographs, such as Mr. Galton is now obtaining of all the representative domestic animals of our time, had been possible a few cen- turies ago, it may be that even in this country the shape of the animal would be found to have been far nearer to the sheep of St. Kilda and of the wild breeds than it is to-day.
In one of the old Cloth Halls of Norfolk are two fine reliefs in plaster, one showing the Argo,' bringing the golden fleece, the. other a flock of sheep of the day, with a saint in Bishop's mitre and robes preaching to them. The shepherd, in a smock, is spinning wool, with a distaff; and the sheep feeding around him, though carefully modelled, are quite unlike any of the modern breeds. Many of the domestic sheep of hot countries are more slender and less woolly than the wild eheep of the mountains. The black-and-white Somali sheep, for instance, are as smooth as a pointer dog.
But it is in temperament and habits that the close connection between the wild and tame breeds is most clearly shown. The excessive domestication of the flocks of Southern England has killed all interest in them even among thost who live in the country, and are keen and sympathetic observers of the ways of every other creature in the fields Just at this time of the year the beauty of the lambs attract, attention, and the prettiness of the scene when they and theit mothers are separated in some sheltered orchard among the wild daffodils and primroses, or in an early meadow by the brook, makes people wonder why they are so stupid when grown up. But the fact is that when not penned up by hurdles and moved from square to square over a whole farm, so that each inch of food may be devoured, each member of the flock can think for itself, and would, in less artificial surroundings, make for itself a creditable name for indepen- dence and intelligence. All sheep have retained this distin- guishing habit of their ancestors, that they are by nature migratory, and share with nearly all migrant animals a capacity for thought and organisation, and a knowledge of localities. Wild sheep are migratory because they live by preference on the rocky and stony parts of hills jest below the snow line. That is why the tame sheep do so well on the moors of Scotland and mountains of Switzerland.
But as the snow line descends each winter far below their summer feeding haunts, wild sheep either migrate to the lower slopes of the mountains, or, like the deer of the Rockies, move off altogether to great distances. Every winter, for instance, the lower valleys of Yellowstone Park are filled with deer and antelope from the distant mountains. So the tame flocks of Greece, Thrace, Spain. and even Scotland are migratory. In Scotland their transport is modernised, and they travel regularly by steamer from the islands to winter in the Lowlands, and by train from the Highlands. Two years ago a flock of migratory sheep from Ayrshire came for early spring feeding to Hyde Park, and
were there shorn, with their Highland collies looking on. In the "old countries" and the non-progressive East of
Europe the migration of the flocks is on a vaster and far more romantic scale. In Spain there are some ten millions of migratory sheep, which every year travel as much as two hundred miles from the plains to the "delectable mountains," where the shepherds feed them till the snows descend. These sheep are known as transhumantes. and their march, resting places, and behaviour are regulated by ancient and special laws and tribunals dating from the fourteenth century. At certain times no one is allowed to travel on the same route as the sheep, which have a right to graze on all open and common land on the way, and for which a road ninety yards wide must be left on all enclosed and private property. The shepherds lead the flocks, the sheep follow, and the flock is accompanied by mules carrying provisions, and large dogs which act as guards against the wolves. The Merino sheep travel four hundred miles to the mountains, and the total time spent on the migration there and back is fourteen weeks. In Thrace the migration of the flocks is to the northern ranges of Mount Rhodope. The sheep are said to be no less alert than the Pomak shepherds, obeying a signal to assemble at any moment, given by the shepherd's horn. The dogs are ferocious in the extreme, as the enemies of sheep in these parts are more commonly men than wild beasts, and the gentle shepherd, who has since the Russo Turkish War exchanged his long gun for a Winchester rifle_ shoots at sight and asks no questions.
The more nearly domestic sheep can approach the life of the primitive stock, the more intelligent their way of life becomes. The cleverest sheep live on the hills, and tho stupidest on the plains. In Wales, for instance, if a new tenant takes over the flock of an outgoing tenant, the latter is by law allowed a higher price if the flock is one which knows the boundaries and paths on the hills. On the plains of Argentina, on the other band, the lambs are born so stupid that they will ran after a man riding, or even a big puff-ball rolling before the wind, under the belief that it is their parent. Buffon rightly accounts for the different value set on sheep and goats by the difference in temperament. The former are less restless, and naturally more docile. This tameness and docility sheep clearly inherit from the wild breeds. Though the wild mountain sheep are quite as active as the ibex, a matter of physique in which the sheep of the Swiss mountains are little inferior to them, many species become astonishingly tame and friendly in a very little time. Burrhel, one of the Indian species, and the Barbary sheep or Aoudad, are perhaps the tamest and most friendly of all naturally wild animals. They delight in being handled, and will follow, not only people they know, but any human being who comes into their paddock, and beg for food. The moufflon, or wild sheep of Corsica, are apparently an exception ; and the ram of Ovis Ammon breed now in the Zoological Gardens is savage. But there would be no difficulty in domesticating any number of the wild Barbary sheep to-morrow if necessary.
The rams are by no means timid, and would probably attack a dog as willingly as they will fight with one another. All wild sheep, indeed, are highly combative. The Argali sheep of Northern Asia fight in set places, in which the ground has been found strewn with their broken horns. All these wild sheep have a little real wool under their straight khaki-coloured outer hair. The development of the animal in domestication is in no way astonishing, considering the length of time, certainly four thousand years, during which various shepherd races have devoted themselves to its improvement. Some of the tame breeds, especially the Wallachian sheep, some of which were imported in the early days of the "Zoo," and left at the farm at Kingston, have both hair and wool, the former being quite straight, and falling from the middle of the back of the animal almost to the ground.
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