Domestic Animals: History and description of the horse, mule, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry and farm dogs; with directions for their management, breeding, crossing, rearing, feeding, and preparation for a profitable market; also their diseases and remedies. Together with full directions for the management of the dairy.Allen, Richard Lamb
Science
Domestic Animals: History and description of the horse, mule, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry and farm dogs; with directions for their management, breeding, crossing, rearing, feeding, and preparation for a profitable market; also their diseases and remedies. Together with full directions for the management of the dairy.
Allen, Richard Lamb
Domestic animals
The _Rocky Mountain Sheep_, (_O. Montana_,) frequently called the
_Big-horn_ by our western hunters, is found on the prairies west of the
Mississippi, and throughout the wild mountainous regions, extending
through California and Oregon to the Pacific. They are larger, but in
other respects resemble the Argali, of which they are probably
descendants, as they could easily cross upon the ice at Behring's
Straits, from the northeastern coast of Asia. Like the Argali, when
caught young they are easily tamed; but we are not aware that they have
ever been bred with the domestic sheep. Before the country was overrun
by the white man, they probably inhabited the region bordering on the
Mississippi. Father Hennepin, a French Jesuit, who wrote nearly two
hundred years ago, often speaks of meeting with goats in his travels
through what is now the territory embraced by Illinois and Wisconsin.
The wild, clambering propensities of these animals, occupying the giddy
heights far beyond the reach of the traveller, and the outer coating of
hair (supplied underneath, however, with a thick coating of soft wool)
gives to them much of the appearance of that animal. In summer they are
generally found single; but when they descend from their isolated, rocky
heights in winter, they are gregarious, marching in flocks under the
guidance of leaders.
The _Bearded Sheep of Africa_ (_O. Tragelaphus_) inhabit the mountains
of Barbary and Egypt. They are covered with a soft, reddish hair, and
have a mane hanging below the neck, and large locks of hair at the
ankle.
The Domesticated Sheep (_O. Aries_)
Embraces all the varieties of the subjugated species. Whether they have
descended from any one of the wild races, is a question yet
undetermined among naturalists; but however this may be, many of the
varieties apparently differ less from their wild namesakes than from
each other.
The _fat-rumped_ and _the broad-tailed sheep_ are much more extensively
diffused than any other. They occupy nearly all the southeastern part of
Europe, Western and Central Asia, and Northern Africa. They are supposed
to be the varieties which were propagated by the patriarchs and their
descendants, the Jewish race. This is inferred from various passages in
the Pentateuch, Exodus xxix. 22; Leviticus iii. 9; viii. 25; ix. 19, and
some others, where "the fat and the rump" are spoken of in connection
with offerings, in which the fat was always an acceptable ingredient.
Dr. Boothroyd renders one of the foregoing passages, "the large, fat
tail entire, taken clear to the rump." It is certain this variety gives
indisputable evidence of remote and continued subjugation. Their long,
pendent, drowsy ears, and the highly artificial posterior developments,
are characteristic of no wild or recently-domesticated race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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