OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 407 



the spot where plum-trees grow, and that he had seen it with 

 somewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty ; these 

 were the stones of damsons. The Latin ornithologists call this 

 bird Coccothraustes, i.e. , berry-breaker, because with its large homy 

 beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone-fruits for the sake of 

 the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are rarely seen in England, 

 and only in winter.' WHITE. 



I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest cold of 

 the hardest winters ; at which season of the year I have had in 

 my possession two or three that were killed in this neighbourhood 

 in different years. MARKWICK. 



OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



SHEEP. 



THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and 

 their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces 

 with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that way 

 in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice. 



After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and 

 bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish 

 one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much 

 to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an altera- 

 tion in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, 

 discriminating each individual personally ; which also is confounded 

 by the strong scent of pitch and tar wherewith they are newly 

 marked ; for the brute creation recognise each other more from 

 the smell than the sight ; and in matters of identity and diversity, 

 appeal much more to their noses than their eyes. After sheep 

 have been washed there is the same confusion, from the reason 

 given above. WHITE. 



