The doctor thinks it must be a variety of the steatopyga, or Boucharian fheep; but what we know for certain, and what makes it highly interesting is, that a valuable trade is carried on with its fkin; as it furnishes the beautiful and high priced blue furs, in such great estimation as a winter drefs for the nobility of Russia, Poland, and other northern countries. It is impofsible to pafs over the blue furs of the north, without calling to mind a race of sheep mentioned by Boethius and Sibbald, as inha-. biting the island of Rona, and bearing a blue fleece, similar to what is so much prized here.

It might be worth the curiosity, if not the inte rests of your society, to inquire if any traces of the breed remain, on that or any other island of Scotland*.

*The ingenious writer is here led into a dilemma, from the equivocal meaning of the word blue, in the Scottish, dialect of the English language, when applied to animals of this sort. Nothing is more common than to hear country men talk of blue horses; but a horse literally of a blue colour, in the strict meaning of the word, was never I believe seen in this country: at least I know that I have seen thousands of blue horses, as they are called; and these are all literally gray; consisting of mixed hairs black and white: when it has a reddish glance, it is called iron gray. The blue sheep of Scotland are precisely of the same sort. The fleece always consists of a mixture of white and black hairs having a bluish glance; as I have seen thousands of times.

On the other hand, the blue furs of Taurica here mentioned, or at least some furs which I have seen, are of a bright blue colour strictly so called, exactly of the same cast with the blue cloths of Europe that have been dyed with indigo; and I am convinced these have all been so dyed, and that there is no fheep to be found any where that are naturally of that colour: at least I have never seen any such, or heard of any well authenticated fact to make me believe that there are any such. The blue fheep of Rona mentioned by Boethius, I have no

A second variety of theep mentioned by the same authors, bearing a fleece composed of wool and hair, is probably that which has lately drawn so particularly the attention of your society for the melioration of British wool, as I understand that the fine woolly down, which seems to surpafs every thing of the kind on your side Thibet, is hid by long hair which rises above it, and serves as a covering to the animal whilst deprived of its finer under coat; the festival of the island, must then be at theep pulling, not at fheep hearing as in England.*

doubt were of the same kind with the sheep called blue at this day by the natives, of the kind above described, which are to be found in all the remote parts of Scotland I have visited, where large flocks of sheep are not kept, and where of course little attention is paid to the breed.

Edit.

*There is, I believe, no variety of fheep reared in any part of Britain among which there may n t be found individuals whose fleece contains a mixture of hairs; nor is there any county, or any breed among which individual sheep may not be found that have no hair among the wool at all In some places however hairy wool is common, and nearly universal, and in other places clean wool is equally general, and a hairy fleece a rarity.-In general, wherever the farmers have been for a long time past attentive to the quality of their wool, the hairy sort is rare, because they have taken care not to breed from that kind; and wherever no attention has been bestowed to the breed, hairy wool is very common.

In Shetland, from what I have heard and seen, hairy wool is common for no other reason than that they have hitherto bestowed no attention to their breed of fheep; but fortunately it is not universal, as some fine woolled fheep are still to be found there that have no hairs at all among their fleece. From all these facts, I am far from admitting, that hairy wool is a peculiar characteristic mark of dist.nc-+ tion of any one breed of fheep whatever, though doubtless in some districts, and in some particular flocks in these districts, that kind of fleece abounds much more than in others.

Edit

A third variety of sheep mentioned by the same old writers, and so much laughed at, was one with yellow fleece, and teeth of the colour of gold. But, Mr Editor, as we find two of the three varieties do exist in nature, it is but fair, before we condemn our venerable authors as fabulous, to see if it is possible to account for such a phenomenon from natural

causes.

* In all the remote parts of Scotland and the isles, where sheep have been in a great measure neglected, and allowed to breed pro. miscuously, without any selection, there is to be found a prodigious diversity of colours; and among others dun sheep,—or those of a brownish colour tending to an obscure yellow, are not unfrequent. These I have often seen; and these, I have no doubt, are the yellow fheep of Boethius. But a bright yellow fheep, resembling the clear yellow colour obtained on pure white wool by means of weld, I never saw or heard of; and believe none such exist more than of the blue.

When any variety of these sheep becomes a favourite with a particular person, those of that colour are selected to breed from; and in this way it frequently happens that those of one colour begin to predominate in one place more than another. It is for this reason, and to save the trouble of dying, that the poor people in the Highlands propagate black, and russet, and brown, and other coloured sheep,` more than in any country where the wool is regularly brought to mar ket. In the isle of Man a breed of dun sheep is very common ill this hour; and I have been told sheep of the same dun colour, are common in the Crimea.

Of all the variety of colours I have seen among these flocks, that of the silver grey, consisting of a mixture of pure white and black filaments is the most beautiful. Where the black is clear and fhining, and the white pure, it has a very fine lustre and brilliancy. Mottled fheep. consisting of spots of different colours are to be found in Shetland. At Aislabie park in Yorkshire there is a breed of the mottled sheep which have been preserved there for a long while past as a curiosity. They are descended from a ewe and ram thus marked, that camę originally from Andalusia in Spain. Their wool is very coarse

Edit

:

The learned zoologist, Mr Pennant, mentions hav ing found at Athol houfe on his Scotch tour, the jaw of a sheep incrustated with gold coloured pyrites, a mineral abounding in a valley close by, where he thinks were fheep to graze, their teeth might acquire the same incrustation. now Sir, I will venture to add, that if fheep were to be folded in this pyritical valley, some of the gold coloured particles might, without a miracle, adhere to their fleece, and produce à curious yellow glittering appearance which would not a little astonish the vulgar, and pofsibly transfer the story of the golden fleece from Colchis to Athol.

Dr Pallas on reading over the rough copy of this paper, made the following note at the bottom of this article.

A yellowish glofsy tartar is found likewise on the teeth of the Kirguise fheep, and I think in all dry pasture grounds; but it is nothing like pуrites.*

I think with Pennant, Mr Editor, that the fourth variety mentioned by Boethius as inhabiting the island of Hirta, was very pofsibly the musimon or wild fheep; for he describes it as larger than the biggest he-goat, with a tail hanging almost to the

*This remark of the learned doctor perfectly coincides with my own observations on this head. The teeth of the greatest part of theep become black when aged, but many of them are yellowish, though that tinge is evidently nothing pyritical; and is often seen on the teeth of sheep that feed where pyrites is rare, and vice versa.

Edit

ground, and horns as thick and longer than those of an ox.*

Conclusion.

In the paper thus presented to the society for the melioration of British wool, through the medium of the Bee, I have endeavoured to concentrate the whole of Dr Pallas's observations on the flocks of the pastoral nations (a few learned inquiries excepted, of which I have only given the result,) from the ample materials furnished by that liberal philosopher; and I think we may draw the following conclusions from the whole.

1st. That there is but one species of fheep, divided into a certain number of varieties, distinguished principally by the tail; as the doctor has found that all the different species mentioned by authors propagate to gether an dproduce prolific descendants; which refutes all idea of a specific difference.

* In the time of Boethius, men were very inaccurate observers of natural objects, and much disposed to catch at the marvellous; on which account, their descriptions cannot be relied upon, as those of naturalists in our day, when they speak of what they have seen. I have never found a fact except this here mentioned, which indicated, that the long tailed fheep were to be found, at an antient period, in Scotland. The native breeds of all the neglected parts of Scotland and the isles were certainly of the short tailed sorts. We can at this day almost trace every long tailed sheep that is now found in Scotland, from the southward. That breed seems to have been first reared in England. It is in general of a larger size than the short tailed sort. Possibly some coarse fhaggy woolled breed, of the long tailed sheep, may have been brought to that island among the plunder from England, in some of the military expeditions so common in antient times; and may have propagated their kind there till the memory of their first introduction was lost.

Edit.