[Illustration: SARDINIAN MOUFLON (OVIS MUSIMON L.)]

[Illustration: BELOCHISTAN SHEEP (OVIS BLANFORDI HUME).]

Former authorities have been unwilling to admit that the domestic
sheep have come from any species of wild sheep of the present time.
They hold that they are the descendants of one or more species of wild
sheep that are now extinct. Recently, however, men have thought more
deeply and freely on such subjects, and Nehring and others have traced
the modern tame sheep back to the mouflon, but not to him alone. It is
thought that in this case, as with other domestic animals, there has
been a mixture of species, and in this connection attention was
directed to the Transcaspian arkal, the argalis of the interior of
Asia and the North African species. Dr. Heck, director of the Berlin
Zoological Garden, thinks that the horns of the tame ram, which are
turned outward, the points being directed away from the body,
constitute one of the strongest proofs that the blood of the argalis
and its extinct European ancestors--which are known only by the fossil
remains--flows in the veins of all domestic sheep.

The other characteristic marks of the domestic sheep--the wool and the
length of the tail--vary greatly. The heath sheep--the little,
contented, weather-hardened grazing sheep of the Lüneburg and other
heaths--belong to one of the oldest species, and their tails are as
short and their horns as dark as those of the moufflon. A cross
between these two breeds is not distinguishable, even in the second
generation, as has been shown by the interesting experiments in the
Düsseldorf Zoological Garden.

[Illustration: HEATH SHEEP.]