ON QUADRUPEDS. 365 



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 be- 

 fore. This embarrassment seems not so much to 

 arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion 

 an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect 

 of that notus odor, discriminating each individual per- 

 sonally : which also is confounded by the strong scent 

 of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly 

 marked ; for the brute creation recognize 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. 



RABBITS. Rabbits make incomparably the finest 

 turf, for they not only bite closer than larger quad- 

 rupeds, but they allow no bents to rise ; hence warrens 

 produce much the most delicate turf for gardens. 

 Sheep never touch the stalks of grasses. WHITE. 



