Page 4 Advertisements Column 1

New Zealand Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1899, 16 February 1870, Page 4

1 Antiquity of the Sheep as aDomestic Animal.—One high honor seems to belong to the sheep. It was probably the earliest animal brought under subjection to man, and thus became the first link between the human and the brute creation. Abel was *' a keeper of sheep," and the ancient Sabseans exalted this first shepherd to the rank of a deity. The Egyptian divinities, immon and Cnepli, are represented with rams' heads, the statues of Jupiter Ammon have rams' horns,-and the flatterers of Alexander the Great placed the same symbols on the heads of liis statues. The starry zodiac does honor to this animal; for almost every one knows the rank which Aries (the ram) holds among the'•nnstellations. Then we have the mysterious voyage of the Argonauts to recover the golden fleece a siory which is yet a puzzle to historian and geographer. Thus, if the slreep has nnfc received tlic honors of heathen worship paid to the ox, it lias been highly i exalted by the reverence of early ages.