Page:Acclimatisation; its eminent adaptation to Australia.djvu/12

10 has been introduced by the tribes who carried hither the germs of civilisation in their migrations westward from Asia. Abel was a keeper of sheep, and of their antiquity we have the beautiful pastoral picture portrayed in the following few and simple words from Isaiah xl. 11:—"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young."

Western Asia was probably the original habitat from whence it was spread by the agency of man, and, influenced by climate, food, treatment, and different wild species commingled, have ramified into numerous varieties for the thousands of years the sheep has been subject to man. Professor Owen also observes that natural history "as yet possesses no facts or principles adequate to the satisfactory solution of the question—whether the domesticated sheep was created as such in special relation to the exigencies of man, or whether it was the result of man's interference with the habits and wild mode of life of the argali (ovis ammon), or other untamed or unsubdued species of sheep." He also states that "the most ancient records of our race, both sacred and profane, tell us of the sheep as already an animal domesticated for the food and clothing of man; and it is a significant fact that both the Scythians of the elevated plains of Inner Asia, and the patriarchal shepherds of the plains of Mesopotamia—the earliest instances of pastoral life—dwelt in that part of the earth where the wild argali still exist in greatest numbers."

In 1854, the Zoological Society of London received a fine pair of the wild sheep of the Punjaub, allied to the argali just mentioned. It is the orial or ovis cycloceros, of which drawings are exhibited of this and the shapoo, or ovis vignii. The female has twice bred in the gardens, in 1858-59, and on each occasion produced two female kids, so that the society now possesses a male and five females of this animal, all in a robust state of health, and we may expect that this rare species of sheep will soon become acclimatised in England. There are several other species of wild sheep also found within the limits of our Indian possessions, all of which are capable of acclimatisation in various parts of Australia. These animals are interesting from its being suspected that they may be the type of the first races of the sheep, which, intermingling with other species distributed over the globe, have produced the fine fleeces which have been improving for so many ages, yet have not, especially in this wool-producing colony, attained the perfection it has even done in Europe; and