If we would have fine wool, therefore, our rams should be supplied with Barbary ewes: and if the restoration of size be the object, the muflon should be given to our sheep. The same effect might be produced in our goats. We might change the nature of their hair, and render it as useful as the finest wool, by intermixing them with the goats of Angora. The goat species, although greatly degenerated, is less so in our climate, than that of the sheep; and in the warm countries of Africa and India, it appears to be still more degenerated. The smallest and weakest goats, are those of Guinea, Juda, &c. and yet in those countries we find the largest and strongest sheep. The species of the ox, of all domestic animals, seems to be that on which its food acts with the greatest influence. It attains a prodigious size in those countries where the pasture is rich and nourishing. The ancients called the oxen of Ethiopia and some provinces of Asia by the name _bull-elephants_, because in those countries they nearly approached the size of the elephant. The great plenty of herbage, and its succulent quality, produced this effect, proofs of which we have in our own climate. An ox fed on the tops of the verdant mountains of Savoy or Switzerland acquires twice the bulk of our oxen; though the oxen of Switzerland, like ours, are shut up in the stable during the greatest part of the year. The difference arises from their being admitted to free pasture as soon as the snow is melted; whereas in our provinces they are not permitted to enter the meadows till after the crop of grass reserved for the horses is carried off; they are, therefore, neither amply fed nor properly nourished, and it would prove extremely useful to the nation in general, if a regulation were made to abolish these useless pastures, and to encourage enclosures. Climate also has great influence on the nature of the ox. In the northern parts of both continents, it is covered with a long soft hair resembling wool; and on its shoulders is a large hunch, which deformity is found in all the Oxen of Asia, Africa, and America. Those of Europe alone have no hunch. The last, are the primitive race to which the hunched race ascend by intermixture in the first or second generation. What still further proves this hunched race to be only a variety of the first, is its being subject to great degradations. There is an uncommon difference in their size. The little zebu of Arabia is not more than a tenth part the size of the bull-elephant. In general, the influence of food is greater, and produces more sensible effects on those animals which feed on herbage and fruits. Those that live only upon flesh, vary less from that cause than from the influence of climate; because flesh is an aliment, already assimilated to the nature of the carnivorous animal that devours it; whereas grass being the first product of the earth, possesses all its properties, and immediately transmits the terrestrial qualities to the animal.