NAT. HIST. DIP. The treatment of the fleece when removed from the animal is spoken of under WOOL AND THE WOOL TRADE : see also WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE.
The sheep belongs to the class mammalia ; to the order ruminantia, with four stomachs, and the organs of digestion disposed for chewing the cud ; to the tribe eapridte, with horns persistent, and placed on an osseous nucleus; and to the genus orris, with or without horns, but these when present uniformly taking, to a greater or less degree, a lateral direction. The forehead of the sheep is arched, and protruded before the base of the horns; there are no lachrymal ducts, the nostrils are lengthened and oblique, and terminate without a muzzle ; there is no beard properly so called, the ears are small, and the legs slender. The hair is of two kinds, one hard and close, and the other woolly—the wool preponderating in proportion as the animal is domesticated. The sheep is principally distinguished from the goat by his convex forehead, by his spiral horns not projecting posteriorly, and more especially, and that in proportion to the care which is bestowed upon him, by the preponderance of wool over the hair, with which, in despite of every effort, the Cashmere goat is covered.
Different names are given to the sheep, according to its sex and age. The male is called a rain or tap. After weaning he is said to be a hog, a hogget, or a lamb-hog, or tup-/tog, or leg; and if castrated, a nether log. After shearing, and when he is probably a year or a year and a half old, he is called a shear hog, or shearling, or dinnwnt, or tap ; and when castrated, a shearling rather. After the second shearing, he is a two shear rain, or tup, or weticer. At the expiration of another year, he is a three shear rata, &c.
The female is a ewe or gintoter lamb until weaned, and then a giwmer or ewe hog or leg. After being shorn, she is a shearling ewe or gimmer, or theace or double-toothed ewe ; and after that, a two or three or four shear ewe or &tare. The age of the sheep is reckoned, not from the period of their being dropped, but from the first shearing.
The teeth give certain indications as to the age. The sheep has no incisor teeth in the upper jaw ; but there is a dense elastic cushion or pad, and the herbage, firmly held between the front teeth in the lower jaw and this cushion, is partly bitten and partly torn asunder. The
sheep has the whole of the incisor teeth by the time that he is a month old, and he retains them until the fourteenth ur sixteenth month. They then begin to diminish in size, and are displaced. The two central ones are first shed, and the permanent ones supply their place, and attain their full growth when the animal is two years old. Between two and three, the next pair are changed ; the third at three years old ; and at four, the mouth is complete. After this there is no certain rule, until, two years more having passed, the teeth one by one become loosened and are lost. At six or seven years of age the mouths of the ewes should be occasionally examined, and the loose teeth re moved. By good pasture and good nursing in the winter, they may produce lambs until they have reached the ninth or tenth year, when they begin rapidly to decline. Some favourites have lingered on to the fifteenth or sixteenth year; but the usual and the most profitable method is to fatten and dispose of the ewes when they are five or six years old, and to supply their places by some of the best shearliug ewes.
The rings at the base of the horns alffird very imperfect indications of the age of the sheep. Even when untouched, they are little to be depended upon.
The history of the British sheep will be most naturally divided according to the quantity and quality of the wool of the different breeds, and the quality of the flesh. The covering of the original sheep consisted of a mixture of hair and wool ; the wool being short and fine and forming an inner coat, and the hair of greater length, projecting through the wool, and constituting an external covering. When the sheep are neglected or exposed to a considerable degree of cold, this degeneracy is easily traced. On the Devonshire moors, the mountains of Wales, and the highlands of Scotland, the wool is deterio rated by a considerable admixture of hair. Even among the South downs, the Leicesters, and the Ryelands, too many kenzps occasionally lessen the value of the fleece. It is only by diligent cultivation that the quantity of hair has been generally diminished, and that of wool increased in our best breeds.