The sheep and its cousins
Year: 1912
Type: book
Abstract: Vil plants, on the other hand, display great changes within a few years.The perfection attained by breeders and gardeners in the art of selection enables them to produce entirely new forms in a short time.For this purpose it is only necessary to keep and propagate the animal or plant under special conditions, when, after a few generations, new species may be obtained, differing from the original form in a much higher degree than do many wild species, or even genera, from one another.The importance of this fact cannot be over-estimated in connection with the origin of species."from the Sanskrit 4a/, to be wanton, If this derivation be accepted, lamb is the frisking or sportive animal.An Old English plural was Zaméen.The Hebrew éaée, signifying a young unweaned lamb, comes apparently from a perfectly distinct root ; and the same is the case with £edes (feminine kebesa), properly signifying a sheep of more than a year old, but generally translated lamb.Wether, the term applied to the castrated male, is the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon wether or wedder, the Danish veder, and the German wzdder, all of which denote the ram.The modern French term for wether is moufon, and the Old French moton or molton, probably from the Gaulish mz/tos, which appears akin to the Welsh mo//t, the Old Irish molt, the Cornish mods, and the Breton maout, all of which refer to the ram.It has been suggested that the Middle Latin sultonem, or muttlonem, is the equivalent of the Latin meutzus and mutilare, so that souton, from which, of course, is derived the English mutton, signifies the mutilated, and so the castrated animal.In reference to this, it is stated in the Century Ductionary that "it seems very unlikely that the Celtic forms are unconnected ; if EARLY HISTORY AND NAMES v7] becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him.Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner ; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes a matter of enjoyment.'"Several terms are applied by farmers and breeders to immature sheep of various ages, among which it must suffice to refer to ¢eg, tag, tegg, or tagge, a name of uncertain origin, but perhaps connected with the Swedish ¢acka,a ewe.It indicates a sheep in its second year, or from the time it is weaned till its first shearing, or, in other words, a yearling sheep.Although formerly restricted to the female, it is now applied to both sexes, so that we have ewe and wether tegs.Hog, or hogget, is an equivalent term.Lastly, we have the French ééder, a ram, and brebis, a ewe, or a sheep generally, which appear to be unconnected with any of the foregoing terms.
Source: G. Allen eBooks
Author: Richard Lydekker
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Royal Society
OpenAlex ID: W575756149