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

to

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 pyrites.*

I think with Pennant, Mr Editor, that the fourth variety mentioned by Boethius as inhabiting the island of Hirta, was very possibly 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 sheep 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.

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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 sheep, divided into a certain number of varieties, distinguished prin cipally 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 sheep 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.

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With regard to Wool.

2dly, That the first variety of Pallas, the Tscher kefsian or long tailed, are the best wool bearing sheep, carrying naturally an woolly fleece without admixture of hair in all countries where it has been found; except always in the extremes of heat and cold, which turn wool to hair in every variety of the animal.

3dly, That next to the Tscherkefsian, the mixed breed he has named Boucharian, promises the greatest advantages with regard to fleece, if managed with skill and attention by the able and industrious Europeans.

This variety, the 4th and last of our author, is dis◄ tinguished by a tail, thick and fat above, but long and lean below.

4thly, That the Russian fheep which constitutes his ad variety, distinguished by a fhort meagre tail, are a small breed carrying wool of the very coarsest kind, only fit for the drefs of the northern peasants in a state of vafsalage; although climate, care, and pasture, seem to meliorate it very considerably.

5thly that the large fat rumped, or fat tailed sheep, the variety reared from the frontiers of Europe, to those of China, by almost all the pastoral nations, and the whole of the Nomades; and that which seems to be the most universally reared over the whole globe, as an article of food, from its size and fatnefs, ranks the lowest with regard to fleece; as it carries only a species of coarse wool mixed with hair, in all countries where it has been found : and even that very inferior fleece is so matted together, as to

Sept. xi. be with difficulty carded, if at all capable of that operation. However that last circumstance observed by Dr Pallas in the Kirguise fheep, may be owing to some local cause.

6thly, That a temperate climate is the most favourable for the production of wool; as extremes of both heat and cold have a tendency to convert it into bair, or at least into a species of wool so extremely coarse, as not to be easily distinguished from it.*

8thly, That saline bitter pastures, have great influence in augmenting the size of theep, as well as in fattening them; at the same time that such pastures have a particular tendency to produce the species of soft oily grease, which forms more especially on the rump and tail of the steatopyga variety of fheep, and is different from suet, the kind of fat common to ruminating animals.

9thly, That leguminous Alpine plants, especially the astragali †, and a shrub resembling the robinia

* Of the effect of climate on the wool of sheep, more may be said than could properly come within the compass of a note. Perhaps this may afford a subject for a separate difsertation. Some farts respecting this subject are ascertained with tolerable accuracy by experiment ; others still are doubtful, and require further elucidation, so that I suspect we must here suspend our decision for a little.

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With regard to the nutritious plants mentioned above by my learned friend, I can say nothing of the shrub resembling a species of robinia, as he does not name it; but I believe you have none of the genus to which he compares it. However, surely the mountains of Scotland must be well stored with Alpine plants in general, to which Ae attributes so much merit; and as for the astragali, which he singles

Caragana, when aided by a temperate climate and exercise, have a tendency to produce the largest sized domestic fheep the doctor saw in his travels, even equal to the musimon or wild fheep, which lives. and feeds like the flocks of the hills of Dauria, that But that these plants resemble it so much in bulk.

have no tendency to form the soft oily fat mentioned above, which the doctor thinks is only produced by saline bitter pastures.*

out, and that sheep choose for food in a state of nature, whilst their instinct is not counteracted by acquired taste, you have three species of it, viz. Astragalus glycyphillos, or wild liquorice, A. arenarius, or purple mountain wilk wort, and A. uralensis, or silken astragalus.

Arcticus.

*The favourite food of the sheep according to the accurate remarks of the great Swedish botanist and his desciples, is the festuca ovina, or fheeps fescue grafs, and on which they fatten very quickly. This plant is common in dry pastures in Scotland, and certainly could be still much more so by cultivation.

Plants hurtful to Sheep.

After mentioning plants which are eminently salutary to sheep, it certainly will not be foreign to the subject to point out those that are poisonous from the same great authority. Many marth plants are so, ist, As the anthericum ofsifragum, or marsh asphodel. 2d, The equisetum, or horse tail. 3d, The ranunculus flammula, or lesser spear wort. 4th, The myofotis aquatica, or water mouse ear; and 5th, The kalmia angustifolia, and latifolia, the narrow and broad leaved kalmia, two American plants, the most deadly of all sheep poi

sons.

Of these poisonous plants, the first is very common in moorish grounds all over Scotland.

Of the 2d, you have 6 species of marsh plants;but which is meant by the Linnæan school is difficult to guefs; however there is little danger of sheep meddling with what is hard enough to polish wood. The 3d. common with you by the sides of lakes and ditches; but a Highland