A Treatise on Sheep:: The Best Means for their Improvement, General Management, and the Treatment of their Diseases.Blacklock, Ambrose
Science
A Treatise on Sheep:: The Best Means for their Improvement, General Management, and the Treatment of their Diseases.
Blacklock, Ambrose
Sheep
and varieties, a matter of necessity. Thus all human beings belong only
to one species, which may, however, be divided into five races, and
these again into an infinity of varieties. The differences between a
race and a variety are, that the latter is a subdivision of the former,
and that in the former the modifications are more profound, the changes
not being confined to the surface, but extending to the frame-work of
the body; whereas, to constitute a variety, nothing more is necessary
than the superficial influence of heat and light on the skin, and its
appendages the hairs. The Negro and the Abyssinian are precisely
similar in colour, yet they are by no means of the same race, as their
different features will distinctly prove; the Abyssinian approaching as
much in cast of countenance to the European, as the negro does to the
higher orders of the ape. The same may be noticed among sheep, but this
is sufficient for the present.
The changes induced by climate, result from the working of a power
inherent in most animals and vegetables, by which they are suited
within certain limits, for bearing up against removal from their
ordinary localities, and assuming a different cast, as the place of
their exile may differ in degree from that which they have left. This
gradual adaptation to circumstances by an accommodating power is
termed, in philosophical language, acclimation.
(68.) _Adaptation of the Sheep to Climate._--No animal varies more
than the sheep, and none so speedily adapts itself to climate; it
would almost appear that nature, convinced of its great utility, had
bestowed upon it a constitution so pliant, as to enable it to
accommodate itself to any point in a wide scale of temperature; for
though its natural situation as a wool-bearing animal, like that of
man appears to be the wine countries, yet with him, it has spread to
every quarter of the globe, becoming impressed at every change with
some peculiarity, alterable only by a change of situation, and
varying, we might almost affirm, with the weather; for, where the
temperature is equable, there does the animal preserve unchanged an
atmospheric stamp, and defies our efforts to alter the breed; while
under a fluctuating sky we can model it at will, though in this case,
continued exertions are required to secure them for any length of time
in an undeviating course.
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