are entirely distinct from those which are brought chancingly into existence through the accidents and caprices of culture; the former being inventions of God for the attainment of definite ends.  Like the modifications of limbs—­the fin for swimming, the wing for flying, the foot for walking—­so the fine wool for warmth, the hair for additional warmth and to protect the wool, and both together for a fabric to wear well in mountain roughness and wash well in mountain storms.

The effects of human culture upon wild wool are analogous to those produced upon wild roses.  In the one case there is an abnormal development of petals at the expense of the stamens, in the other an abnormal development of wool at the expense of the hair.  Garden roses frequently exhibit stamens in which the transmutation to petals may be observed in various stages of accomplishment, and analogously the fleeces of tame sheep occasionally contain a few wild hairs that are undergoing transmutation to wool.  Even wild wool presents here and there a fiber that appears to be in a state of change.  In the course of my examinations of the wild fleeces mentioned above, three fibers were found that were wool at one end and hair at the other.  This, however, does not necessarily imply imperfection, or any process of change similar to that caused by human culture.  Water lilies contain parts variously developed into stamens at one end, petals at the other, as the constant and normal condition.  These half wool, half hair fibers may therefore subserve some fixed requirement essential to the perfection of the whole, or they may simply be the fine boundary-lines where and exact balance between the wool and the hair is attained.

I have been offering samples of mountain wool to my friends, demanding in return that the fineness of wildness be fairly recognized and confessed, but the returns are deplorably tame.  The first question asked, is, “Now truly, wild sheep, wild sheep, have you any wool?” while they peer curiously down among the hairs through lenses and spectacles.  “Yes, wild sheep, you have wool; but Mary’s lamb had more.  In the name of use, how many wild sheep, think you, would be required to furnish wool sufficient for a pair of socks?” I endeavor to point out the irrelevancy of the latter question, arguing that wild wool was not made for man but for sheep, and that, however deficient as clothing for other animals, it is just the thing for the brave mountain-dweller that wears it.  Plain, however, as all this appears, the quantity question rises again and again in all its commonplace tameness.  For in my experience it seems well-nigh impossible to obtain a hearing on behalf of Nature from any other standpoint than that of human use.  Domestic flocks yield more flannel per sheep than the wild, therefore it is claimed that culture has improved upon wildness; and so it has as far as flannel is concerned, but all to the contrary as far as a sheep’s