e side of the head, in situation. The fleece of the sheep
is of two sorts, either short and harsh, or soft and woolly; the wool
always preponderating in an exact ratio to the care, attention, and
amount of domestication bestowed on the animal. The generic
peculiarities of the sheep are the triangular and spiral form of the
horns, always larger in the male when present, but absent in the most
cultivated species; having sinuses at the base of all the toes of the
four feet, with two rudimentary hoofs on the fore legs, two inguinal
teats to the udder, with a short tail in the wild breed, but of varying
length in the domesticated; have no incisor teeth in the upper jaw, but
in their place a hard elastic cushion along the margin of the gum, on
which the animal nips and breaks the herbage on which it feeds; in the
lower jaw there are eight incisor teeth and six molars on each side of
both jaws, making in all 32 teeth. The fleece consists of two coats, one
to keep the animal warm, the other to carry off the water without
wetting the skin. The first is of wool, the weight and fineness of which
depend on the quality of the pasture and the care bestowed on the flock;
the other of hair, that pierces the wool and overlaps it, and is in
excess in exact proportion to the badness of the keep and inattention
with which the animal is treated.

680. THE GREAT OBJECT OF THE GRAZIER is to procure an animal that will
yield the greatest pecuniary return in the shortest time; or, in other
words, soonest convert grass and turnips into good mutton and fine
fleece. All sheep will not do this alike; some, like men, are so
restless and irritable, that no system of feeding, however good, will
develop their frames or make them fat. The system adopted by the breeder
to obtain a valuable animal for the butcher, is to enlarge the capacity
and functions of the digestive organs, and reduce those of the head and
chest, or the mental and respiratory organs. In the first place, the
mind should be tranquillized, and those spaces that can never produce
animal fibre curtailed, and greater room afforded, as in the abdomen,
for those that can. And as nothing militates against the fattening
process so much as restlessness, the chief wish of the grazier is to
find a dull, indolent sheep, one who, instead of frisking himself,
leaping his wattles, or even condescending to notice the butting gambols
of his silly companions, silently fills his paunch with pasture, and