remains received represent two types, one with nearly upright horns, the other with large curved horns. The first apparently represents the race found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings characterised by 'thin tall legs and horns like those of a goat,' i.e. the 'turbary ' sheep (Ovis aries palustris) of Rutimeyer; the second apparently represents the large-horned sheep found in the pile-dwellings of Lake Bienne, i.e. Studer's sheep (Ovis aries studeri).
Up to about the end of the eighteenth century, the sheep all over the Highlands and Islands of Scotland were, according to Walker,[1] small, of a thin lank shape, with straight horns, an extremely short tail, and of a black, white, brown or deep russet colour, or 'blotched with two or three of these colours.' It is possible that the short-tailed sheep with straight horns common in the Western Islands and Highlands at the beginning of the nineteenth century belonged to the same race as the Newstead variety with goat-like horns.
In Neolithic times, there occurred in various parts of England the 'turbary' sheep (O. aries palustris), and Studer's sheep (O. aries studeri), and probably also a 'four-horned' sheep. When the 'turbary' race first found its way to Scotland it is impossible to say. Walker says the Caledonians probably acquired their straight-horned breed during the Roman invasion, or from Norway during the ninth century. These sheep may very well have found their way into the Highlands from England during the first or second century, and into the northern and western islands from Norway during later centuries.
The Newstead sheep with curved horns agree in their metacarpal (cannon) bones with Ovis aries studeri from the Swiss pile-dwellings and from deposits believed to be of Neolithic age in the Thames valley and other parts of England.
At the end of the eighteenth century a race of 'four-horned' sheep, with a short tail and slender limbs and coarse wool, occurred in the Hebrides (on certain 'mountainous islands'),[2] but there is no record of two-horned sheep of the O. aries studeri type for either the Hebrides or the mainland. But short-tailed sheep with large curved horns occurred in Orkney half a century ago, and some of the short-tailed, mooret-coloured sheep still found in Shedand, in their horns as well as their limbs, closely agree with Studer's race.
Of more interest still, the sheep on the small island of Soay, near St. Kilda, are identical in the skull and limb-bones with the large-horned race widely distributed over England and the South of Scotland in Roman times. Hence, we may assume that the Newstead sheep with curved horns occurred half a century ago, in a nearly pure form in Orkney, and are now faithfully represented by the Soay race, and, though in a less pure form, by some of the short-tailed mooret sheep of Shetland.
The chief points of the Soay sheep are brought out by Plate XCVII., Fig. 3. The uninhabited island on which these almost deer-like sheep have lived 'from time immemorial' is only about three miles in circumference, and owing to the difficulty of landing, this 'sheep' island is rarely visited. As alien blood has not reached Soay for over
1 History of the Hebrides, vol. ii. pp. 68 and 69.
2 Walker, loc. cit. vol. ii. p. 69.
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