in some breeds, but considerably finer.” The large-sized Lincoln Sheep, with lengthy fleece, those of the Cotswold Hills, the Teeswater, and Romney Marsh, are also heavy breeds, not equal in the totality of their points to the Improved Leicesters, although excelling them either in quantity of wool or hardiness of constitution. The Short-woolled Southdowns, with close-set fleece of fine wool, face and legs dusky brown, curved neck, short limbs, and broad body, is one of the oldest and most valuable unmixed breeds that we possess. Their mutton greatly excels that of the Improved Leicesters, which, taken in association with their other good qualities, has caused them to extend to nearly every county. In parts of Hampshire, Shropshire, and Dorsetshire there are local breeds of Short-woolled Sheep which replace the Southdowns. The Cheviot and the Black-faced, or Heath breed of our northern counties are mountain Sheep, of small size and hardy constitution, the former horned, the latter hornless and with a white face. Welsh mutton is obtained from the small, soft-woolled Sheep with a white nose and face. The rams alone have horns, wherein the breed differs from that of the higher mountains, in which the ewes also are horned, at the same time that a ridge of hair is present along the top of the neck. As wool forms so important an element of the mercantile transactions of Great Britain, and as Sheep-farming has so rapidly increased in Australia and New Zealand, a few words with reference to the statistics of the subject will not be out of place. In 1788, when Governor Phillip landed at Port Jackson, there was not a Sheep in all Australia, and it was not until 1793 that about thirty of the Indian breed reached Sydney, their number being shortly augmented by the importation of breeding-stock from England and the Cape of Good Hope, principally Merinos. The progeny soon spread towards the interior, where the growing of wool became a lucrative pursuit. Sheep were first imported into New Zealand in 1840. It is estimated there are now one hundred million sheep in Australia, and nearly thirty million in New Zealand. The following table of the number of bales of wool imported into Great Britain at twenty-year intervals, that is, in 1836, 1856, and 1876, gives a better idea than can be otherwise obtained as to the changes in the sources of wool as well as to the richness of each colonial district:-- IMPORTATION OF COLONIAL AND FOREIGN WOOL INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM (IN BALES).