Of the North China Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Soc., XXXVII., 1906, p. 196: "Touching the fat-tailed sheep
of Persia, the Shan-hai-king says the Yueh-chi or Indo-Scythy had a
'big-tailed sheep' the correct name for which is hien-yang. The Sung
History mentions sheep at Hami with tails so heavy that they could not
walk. In the year 1010 some were sent as tribute to China by the King of
Kuche."
"Among the native products [at Mu lan p'i, Murabit, Southern Coast of
Spain] are foreign sheep, which are several feet high and have tails as
big as a fan. In the spring-time they slit open their bellies and take out
some tens of catties of fat, after which they sew them up again, and the
sheep live on; if the fat were not removed, (the animal) would swell up
and die." (CHAU JU-KWA, pp. 142-3.)
"The Chinese of the T'ang period had heard also of the trucks put under
these sheep's tails. 'The Ta-shi have a foreign breed of sheep (hu-yang)
whose tails, covered with fine wool, weigh from ten to twenty catties; the
people have to put carts under them to hold them up. Fan-kuo-chi as quoted
in Tung-si-yang-k'au." (HIRTH and ROCKHILL, p. 143.)
Leo Africanus, Historie of Africa, III., 945 (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), says he
saw in Egypt a ram with a tail weighing eighty pounds!:
OF THE AFRICAN RAMME.
