152 Sheep
several of those of Africa, have more or less distinctly hairy coats ; and it
is stated that this type of pelage tends to reappear in the woolly breeds of
domesticated sheep which have run wild.
“ Sheep,” writes Darwin in his Animals and Plants under Domestication,
“ have been domesticated from a very ancient period. Rutimeyer found in
the Swiss lake-dwellings the remains o f a small breed, with thin, tall legs,
and horns like those of a goat, thus differing somewhat from any kind now
known. Almost every country has its own peculiar breed ; and many
countries have several breeds differing greatly from each other. One of
the most strongly marked races is an Eastern one with a long tail, including,
according to Pallas, twenty vertebra, and so loaded with fat that it is
sometimes placed on a truck, which is dragged about by the living animal.
These sheep, though ranked by Fitzinger as a distinct aboriginal form,
bear in their drooping ears the stamp of long domestication. This is likewise
the case with those sheep which have two great masses of fat on the
rump, with the tail in a rudimentary condition. The Angola variety of
the long-tailed race has curious masses of fat on the back of the head and
beneath the jaws. Mr. [Brian] Hodgson, in an admirable paper on the
sheep of the Himalaya, infers from the distribution of the several races that
this caudal augmentation in most of its phases is an instance of degeneracy
in these pre-eminently Alpine animals. The horns present an endless
diversity in character, being not rarely absent, especially in the female
sex or, on the other hand, amounting t o g u r or even eight in number.
The horns, when numerous, arise from a crest on the frontal bones, which
are elevated in a peculiar manner.”
The important feature in this passage is Hodgson’s theory that the
length of the tail in the domesticated breeds is due to degeneracy. And if
this be true, and bearing in mind that the horns of many of such breeds are
of the same general character as those of several members of the Caprovine
group, it is quite' possible that the latter is really identical with the typical,
Distribution and Habits 153
or Ovine group. For the present, however, it seems preferable to allow
the former to stand as a subdivision of the genus". -■>
Distribution.— The Holarctic and Sonoran regions, with one species just
impinging on the north-western frontierglf the Oriental region. The
headquarters- of the genus are the highlands of Central Asia, where there
occur two out of the three groups into which its wild members are divided.
In America there p b u t a single species,- represented by a local race in
Kamschatka ; and North Africa has likewise only one Species, which is,
however, very distinct from all the others. In most respects the distribution
of the sheep is very similar to that jpl the genus Cervus, especially in
having one peculiar type common to Eastern Asia and North America, but
it differs in the marked distinction of the African from the EuSSpean form.
iB a fossil state sheep are not definitely known previous to the ep o ch « the
Norfolk forest-bed, forming the earliest stagclpif the Plistocene epoch,
although there is some evidence that they may be represented in the
Indian Siwaliks.
Habits.—Sheep, -like goats, are essentially mountain-dwellers, associating
either in: 'Small parties or in large flocks, the latter of which area
however, formed during the greater part of the year by ewes and young
rams alone, th e jftfi rams keeping apart. In Asia sheep generally
inhabit more open and undulating ground than that tenanted by goats,
and do not frequent precipitous cliffs. The rams, more especially during
the_ pairing season, are extremely pugnacious animals, fighting by charging
one another from a considerable distance, and receiving the impact of the
charge on the forehead. In these contests the majority of the species do
not raise themselves B n their hind-legs when butting, after the manner
of goats, although this is the case with the bharal, which is structurally
the most goat-like o f the group. From the absence of any strong odour
in the males, • the flesh of all the species of wild sheep is of excellent
quality.