صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[graphic]

OVIS BURUAL

The Barwal Sheep.

THE LIBRARY
OF THE

VERSITY DE ILLINOIS

or indigenous breed of sheep, and a terror even to the bulls. The Barwal in measures of extent, that is, in length and height, is inferior to the Húniá, but superior to that breed in massiveness of entire structure and in weight, and upon the whole, equal in size. Length from snout to vent 3 to 4 feet. Height 24 to 23 feet. Head, to jut of occiput, 11 inches of straight measure, 14 by the curve. Ears 2 to 3 inches. Tail only 7 inches. Tail and wool, 8 inches. Girth behind the shoulder 3 to 3 feet. Length of horns, along the curve, 2 feet. Their basal girth 13 to 14 inches.

The Barwál is singularly remarkable for his massive horns, huge Roman nose and small truncated ears. But this breed, like all the others, possesses without exception all the characteristic marks of the genus, as above defined, and none others denied to that genus, whilst the extraordinary massiveness of its horns, though a deviation from the other tame races, is a normal approximation to the wild type, leaving the high curve of the nasals or chaffron as the only anomaly of the Barwál breed in comparison with its wild prototype, and an anomaly of which the other tame races exhibit marked, though not equal, degrees. The head is large, with a small golden brown eye, a horizontal tiny and truncate ear, pressed down in the old males, by the horn, and seeming as if the end were cut off, a Roman nose such as the Iron Duke might envy, narrow oblique nostrils, showing some faint symptoms of the nude muzzle in the manner of the wild Argalis of Tibet, a short thick neck, a compact deep barrel, rather elevated strong, and perpendicular limbs supported on high short hoofs, and having largish and salient conical false hoofs, behind them, and lastly a short deer-like tail, cylindrico conic, almost entirely nude below, and reaching to about the middle of the buttock.

Both sexes have horns, not a tythe of the females being void of them, and the males scarcely ever without them. The horns are inserted without obliquity, and in contact on the crest of the frontals or top of the head which they entirely cover, and they are directed to the sides with a more or less tense and perfect circular curve, which is sometimes in old age repeated on a smaller scale; but ordinarily the spherical twist is single and leaves the flattened smooth tips of the horns directed outwards and forwards. The form of the horns is trigonal and compressed, as in the other tame and in the wild breeds; and as in the

There is less

latter especially, presents a broad surface to the front. compression in the Barwál than even in the wild sheep, so that sometimes, but not usually, the breadth is in excess of the depth at the bases of the horns. The frontal aspect of the horns in the Barwál is, however, always ample, if not quite equal to the lateral aspects, and the three faces, though, in general, flat, have more or less of curvature which is usually convexed, but sometimes rather concaved on the inner lateral aspect and the cross furrows or wrinkles of the Barwál's horns are as decided and heavy as in its wild prototype. The flesh and fleece are both very abundant but coarse, well suited to the wants of the lusty, rude and unshackled population of the Cachar, but not adapted probably for foreign exportation or exotic rearing. By far the largest number of the Ráhris or coarse blankets and serges, manufactured in the subHimalayas, and extensively exported therefrom for native use, in the plains of India, are made from the wool of the Barwál, which, likewise, entirely and exclusively clothes the tribes who rear it, and make the rearing of it their chief and almost sole occupation. The Gúrúngs especially are a truly shepherd, though not a nomadic, race, and they, it is principally, who breed the Barwál, feeding their immense flocks nearer the snows in the hot weather, and further off the snows in the cold weather, but never quitting their own proper habitat as well as that of their flocks, and which is the northern division of the subHimalayas. Coarse as is the wool of the Barwál, it is very superior to that of the sheep of the Indian plains, and being of the long stapled kind, the animal might possibly prove a valuable addition to our European stores, either for the wool or for the flesh market, the Barwal being of a hardy constitution, averse only from excessive heat, and feeding and fattening most kindly. The colour of this breed is almost invariably white: but reddish or tan legs and face are sometimes found, and it may even be said Rara Ovis in terris, nigroque simillima,' of this as of the other breeds.

:

The seasons of rutting and breeding are winter and summer respectively the gestation is of 5 months, and but once a year, pampering and high feeding alone ever causing two broods in the year, or deviation from the customary times of female amativeness and of delivery, though the male be toujours prêt et beaucoup suffisant pour une troupe des dames.* This extreme sexual energy is sustained by proportionate organic development. I do not see how we are to reconcile it with the "fitness of things," unless many more females than males are produced.

The feet, groin and eye pits are all conspicuous in the Barwál. Intestines 121 feet; whereof the small are 91, and the great 27 feet. Cœcum 12 inches long, and 3 wide. Several inches of the gut below it, nearly as wide. Rest 21 to 2 inches in diameter down to anal end. Liver with two principal and five total divisions besides the lobulus and the large gall-bladder loosely attached to the largest lobe in a very partial cleft and at its lower edge.

4. Ovis Cágia.-The Cágo or Cágya. This is the especial breed of the central region of the sub-Himálayas, so far as that region can be said to have a breed, for, in sooth, its very rank pasture and high temperature together are very inimical to Ovine animals. There are few sheep in the central hilly region, and none in the lower, till you reach the open plain, and there is found a widely diffused breed, quite different in its superficial characters from any of the hill ones. What sheep are reared in the central region of the hills are of the Cágia breed, but rather by householders than by shepherds, and rather for their flesh than for their wool. The Cágia is a complete Barwál in miniature: yet, like as the two breeds are, each has its own region, nor does the great difference of size ever vary or disappear. Nor are there wanting other differential marks such as the full sized pointed and pendant ears of the Cágia and its shorter stapled and finer wool.

Length from snout to vent 3 to 3 feet. Height 2 to 24 feet. Head to occiput by the curve, 13 inches, straight 10 to 11 inches. Tail only, 61 to 7 inches. Tail and wool, 7 to 8 inches. Ear 44 to 4 inches. Girth behind the shoulder 2 to 23 feet.

The Cágia is a small, stout and compact breed, possessed of great strength and soundness of constitution, impatient only of heat, and that much less so than the preceding breeds, eminently docile and tractable, affording mutton of unequalled quality, and wool not to be despised, yet to be praised with more qualification than the meat. Men of rank in Nepaul, who eat mutton, always prefer that of the Cágia, which is certainly superior both for tenderness and flavour to the mutton of any other breed of sheep in these regions. The wool is of short staple but considerable fineness, though inferior much to that of Silingia, somewhat to that of the Húniá, but superior to the wool of the Barwál in fineness, though not equal to it in length of fibre. The people of the central region of the sub-Himálayas, to which region the Cágia sheep

« السابقةمتابعة »