reeder, the tribes he founded maintained to the last those
distinguishing qualities which gave them such pre-eminence over all
other sheep bearing the general name of the Sussex race. So
valuable and distinctive were these qualities regarded by the best
judges in the country, that the twelfth ram-letting, which took
place at the time of the Cambridge Show, brought together 2,000
visitors, constituting, perhaps, the most distinguished assembly of
agriculturists ever convened. On this occasion the Duke of
Richmond, an hereditary and eminent breeder of Southdowns in their
native county, bid a hundred guineas for a ram lamb, which Mr. Webb
himself bought in.

Having attained to such eminence as a sheep-breeder, Mr. Webb
entered upon another sphere of improvement, in which he won almost
equal distinction. In 1837, he laid the foundation of the Babraham
Herd of Shorthorn cattle, made up of six different tribes, purchased
from the most valuable and celebrated branches of the race bearing
that name. An incident attaching to one of these purchases may
illustrate the nice care and cultivated skill which Mr. Webb
exercised in the treatment of choice animals. He bought out of Lord
Spencer's herd the celebrated cow, "Dodona." That eminent breeder,
it appears, had given her up as irretrievably sterile, and he parted
with her solely on that account. Mr. Webb, however, took her to
Babraham, and, as a result of the more intelligent treatment he
bestowed upon her, she produced successively four calves, which thus
formed one of the most valuable families of the Babraham herd. When
I visited the scene of his life and labors, all his sheep and cattle
had been sold. But two or three animals bought by an Australian
gentleman were still in the keeping of Mr. Webb's son, awaiting
arrangements for their transportation. One of these, a beautiful
heifer of fourteen months, was purchased at the winding-up sale, for
225 guineas. It was called the "Drawing-room Rose," from this
circumstance, as I afterwards learned. When it was first dropped by
the dam, Mr. Webb was confined to the house by indisposition. But
he had such a desire to see this new accession to his bovine family,
that he directed it to be brought into the drawing-room for that
purpose. Hence it received a more elegant and domestic appellation
than the variegated nomenclature of high-blooded animals often
allows.

When the last volume of the "English Herd-Book" was about