The sheep of Exmoor are of a horned variety; we all know what excellent mutton they make from its praises in "Lorna Doone," and John Fry's lyrical outburst over the saddle of mutton "six year old, and without a tooth in mun head," and sure to eat as soft as cream. John Fry was referring to the custom among the farmers of not killing their sheep until the teeth begin to go. Their coats are exceedingly thick, and their wool a very valuable asset to the whole county; it was more particularly so in the Middle Ages, when cloth-making was the staple industry of England. There is a woolpack in the coat-of-arms of Minehead, and the most striking feature of the little mediaeval town of Dunster is the yarn-market in the centre of the main street. Wolves were plentiful on Exmoor at that time, and doubtless did much damage among the sheep; in hard winters, even, they would have come down into the little villages of Simonsbath and Parracombe, but the last of them was killed in the reign of Elizabeth. In her reign, also, wild-pigs could be hunted here, while the existence of such names as Crane Tor, Lynx Tor, Bear Down, is evidence of an even greater variety of game in Saxon times than now. Yet there is abundance still, hares and foxes, badger and otter; the otter, indeed, makes grievous depredations among the salmon that come up the river to spawn, for, like a dingo among sheep, he slays promiscuously what he does not eat. It is, I suppose, a lingering tradition of our old stern game laws that imposes a severe penalty for poaching when a man picks up a salmon which an otter has killed and left. Birds abound on Exmoor; snipe and woodcock, partridge and black-game, plover and wild-duck. Nothing could more exactly express the loneliness and wildness of this great open country than, when you are walking solitary, to hear the harsh, melancholy cry of the bittern from the reedy, desolate bogs, or in the falling daylight of a cloudy February afternoon to see the plover rise from the tussocks of brown grass at your feet, and go flying and wailing above you, in that broken-winged, broken-hearted way of theirs, or to watch the duck flying home across the sunset, with their strange honk-honk!