Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/436

LEFT SHEEP 380 SHEERNESS conveniently divided into two classes; the first consisting of sheep without horns, and the second of sheep with horns. Of the first class are, the New Leicester sheep, the characteristics of which are fineness and fullness of form, an early maturity and propensity to fatten; the wool, not so long as in some breeds, but considerably finer. The Cotswold sheep, which have been long celebrated for the fineness of their wool, and which have been gradually improved by crossing with the Leicester sheep. Their mutton is fine- grained and full-sized. The Dartmoor sheep, which have white faces and legs, some with and some without horns, small in the head and neck, and generally small-boned, carcass narrow and flat- sided. The Southdown sheep have short wool, close and curled. The flesh is highly esteemed. The Romney-Marsh sheep have long but coarse wool, much internal fat, and much hardihood, and require no artificial food during the hardest winter but a little hay. The Cheviot sheep are a peculiar breed, which are kept on the extensive range of the Cheviot hills. They have the face and legs generally white, and the body long; their wool is short, thick, and fine; they possess very considerable fattening qualities, and can endure much hardship both from starva- tion and cold. Of the horned sheep, the chief varieties are: The Dorset sheep. They are a good folding sheep, and their mutton is well flavored, but their prin- cipal distinction and value is the forward- ness of the ewes, who take the ram at a much earlier period of the year than any other species, and thus supply the market with lamb at the time when it fetches the highest price. The Shetland sheep are small and handsome; hornless, hardy, feeding on even sea-weed, and with soft and cottony wool. The Hebridean sheep is the smallest of its kind, even when fat weighing only 20 pounds. The most important breed of sheep as regards the texture of the wool is the Merino (O. hispanica). The wool is fine, long, soft, twisted, in silky spiral ringlets, and naturally so oily that the fleece looks dingy and unclean from the dust outside, but is perfectly white underneath. They readily form cross breeds, called demi- merinos, which have been brought to great perfection in France, whence, as well as from Spain, they have been imported into the United States. Of the other re- markable varieties of the genus Ovis in different parts of the world, we may mention the fat-tailed sheep, common in Tartary, Arabia, Persia, and Egypt, the tail of which is so loaded with fat that it alone frequently weighs 20 pounds. The many-horned sheep of Iceland, and the most northern part of the Russian do- minions, has three, four, or five horns, sometimes placed with great regularity, and sometimes differing in proportion and situation. The Cretan sheep, chiefly found in the island of Crete, are kept in many parts of Europe on account of the strangeness of the appearance of its horns, which are remarkably large, long, and spiral; the fat-rumped tailless sheep are met with in all the deserts of Tartary ; the African or Guinea sheep, a native of all the tropical climates, both of Africa and the East. Different names are given to the sheep, according to its sex and age. The male is called a ram or tup. After weaning, he is said to be a hog, hogget, or hoggerel, a lamb-hog, or tup hog or teg; and if castrated, a wether- hog. After shearing, he is called a shear- hog, or shearing, or dimmort, or tup. After the second shearing, he is a two- shear ram; and so on. The female is a ewe or gimmer-lamb till weaned, and then a gimmer, or ewe-hog, or teg. After being shorn, she is a shearing-ewe or gimmen, or theave, or double-toothed ewe; and after that a two-, or three-, or four- shear ewe or theave. The age of the sheep is reckoned, not from the period of their being dropped, but from the first shearing. The total number of sheep in the United States on Jan. 1, 1920, was 48,615,000. Black sheep is a figurative term to denote a person who is, as it were, out- lawed from society, by reason of his mis- deeds or moral obliquities. SHEEP TICK, a well-known dipterous insect (Melophagns ovinus) belonging to the family Hippoboscidx or horse flies. The pupae produced from the eggs are shining oval bodies which become at- tached to the wool of the sheep. From these issue the tick, which is horny, bristly, of a rusty ochre color, and wing- less. It fixes its head in the skin of the sheep and extracts the blood, leaving a large round tumor. Called also sheep louse. SHEERNESS, a seaport and royal dockyard in Kent, England; 52 miles E. of London; occupies the N. W. angle of the Isle of Sheppey, and thus commands the mouths of the Thames and Medway. It consists of the four divisions of Blue Town, Mile Town, Westminster, and Ma- rine Town, the last of which has become a favorite watering-place, while the first contains the dockyard and is strongly fortified. Sheerness has two churches, a Roman Catholic chapel (1864), and large naval and military barracks. The dock- yard, covering 60 acres, comprises wet and dry docks. Captured by the Dutch under De Ruyter in 1667, Sheerness was shortly after fortified, but the dockyard