1807.]("287

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS RESPECTING- THE SIZE OF MALE AND FEMALE SHEEP.

To the Editor of the Agricultural Magazine. SIR,

F the method of improving the breed of domestic animals cannot be reduced to Scientific certainty, and if the laws of the animal economy are in many instances 80 obscure, that it is imposSible they ever Should be placed in an intelli- gible point of view, or that anatemy Should remove the diff- Culties with which the Subject is Surrounded, still the plain evidence of nature will be tound no less wortby of our atten- tion.

It will not be vecessary on the present occasion, to exa- mine all the theoretical conjectures, with which Mr. Cline has thought proper to embellish his vew opinions, having pre- viously given a general reply, under the title of“ Anatomi- cal Reflections," to whatever appeared interesting on that part of the Subject; for as anatomy and pbysiology, make two very important branches of that profession in which we are both engaged, I thought it would be right, in the first place, to expose the fallacy of that part of the subject, with which it was reasonable to Suppose we were both the best ae- quainted.

As for many of those who call themselves philosophers, I could display a number of brilliant examples, but it must have long been evident, that one of the firszt principles of mo- dern philosopby, has been to amuse the credulous with hy= pothetical speculations; but it philosophy is to be established on the evidence of nature, it is on practical observation that we must depend for the light of truth. If we want a know- ledge of the external parts, we must make those parts the object of our attention; the question before us would have been plain and Self-evident, ii it had not been enveloped in anatomical obscurity. But the misrepresentation of one party aPPears as inexplicable as the mis-construction of the other, and that I may not add to the present difficulties, or make their“ confusion worse conſounded," 1 Sball limit this inquiry to one part of the Subject, and oply attempt to Set the queg« tion respecting the Size of the male and female, in an intelli- gible point of view. If on a careful examination of the evi- dence of nature, we find that one principle generally prevails, it is reasonable tv conclude, that it is ove of the established Jaws by which nature regulates the just proportion of the animal world. 1do not pretend to assert, that it would be