animal. These sheep, though
ranked by Fitzinger as a distinct aboriginal form, seem to bear in their
drooping ears the stamp of long domestication. This is likewise the case
with those sheep which have two great masses of fat on the rump, with the
tail in a rudimentary condition. The Angola variety of {95} the long-tailed
race has curious masses of fat on the back of the head and beneath the
jaws.[220] Mr. Hodgson in an admirable paper[221] on the sheep of the
Himalaya infers from the distribution of the several races, "that this
caudal augmentation in most of its phases is an instance of degeneracy in
these pre-eminently Alpine animals." The horns present an endless diversity
in character; being, especially in the female sex, not rarely absent, or,
on the other hand, amounting to four or even eight in number. The horns,
when numerous, arise from a crest on the frontal bone, which is elevated in
a peculiar manner. It is remarkable that multiplicity of horns "is
generally accompanied by great length and coarseness of the fleece."[222]
This correlation, however, is not invariable; for I am informed by Mr. D.
Forbes, that the Spanish sheep in Chile resemble, in fleece and in all
other characters, their parent merino-race, except that instead of a pair
they generally bear four horns. The existence of a pair of mammae is a
generic character in the genus Ovis as well as in several allied forms;
nevertheless, as Mr. Hodgson has remarked, "this character is not
absolutely constant even among the true and proper sheep: for I have more
than once met with Cagias (a sub-Himalayan domestic race) possessed of four
teats."[223] This case is the more remarkable as, when any part or organ is
present in reduced number in comparison with the same part in allied
groups, it usually is subject to little variation. The presence of
interdigital pits has likewise been considered as a generic distinction in
sheep; but Isidore Geoffroy[224] has shown that these pits or pouches are
absent in some breeds.

In sheep there is a strong tendency for characters, which have apparently
been acquired under domestication, to become attached either exclusively to
the male sex, or to be more highly developed in this than in the other sex.
Thus in many breeds the horns are deficient in the ewe, though this
likewise occurs occasionally with the female of the wild musmon. In the
rams of the Wallachian breed "the horns spring almost perpendicularly {96}
from the