SMALL-POX IN SHEEP. 247 



contact of flocks with the diseased sheep driven through 

 the province. I observed the malady at Den Oond and in 

 two farms at Schalwijk. When the malady was raging at 

 Den Oond in the month of August, twenty-six sheep, 

 apparently in health, were sold to passing dealers for the 

 English trade. The twenty-six sheep were the only ones of 

 a flock of about ] 20 that had not taken the disease at the 

 time of their sale. They were, of course, infected sheep. 

 Before I left Utrecht on the 28th of October, I learned that 

 the disease had spread to Gooij, and other farms near Hol- 

 itein. 



I am now led to consider the outbreak of small-pox in 

 Wiltshire, in 1862. 



Mr Joseph Parry, of Allington, owned, at the commence- 

 ment of the year 1862, one of the choicest flocks in Wilt- 

 shire. It was exclusively home-bred, and consisted of 992 

 ewes, 9 rams, and 710 lambs. Such a flock in the centre 

 of the North Wiltshire downs might justly be regarded as 

 not likely to suffer first from any contagious disorder. 



But the district turns out to be one not unfrequently 

 visited by contagious disorders, and my attention was spe- 

 cially directed to the peculiarities of that portion of country 

 which render it liable to invasions of scab and the foot-and- 

 mouth disease, as well as the sheep pox. 



The farm of Allington, about six miles north-east of 

 Devizes, stretches over St Anne's Hill, or Tanhill, which is 

 the centre of an extensive sheep district. It is also the 

 locality in which there is an extensive sheep fair, held 

 annually on the 6th of August. Skirting this hill, and 

 through the heart of the district about to be described, is the 

 celebrated "Wan's, or Devil's dyke/' one of the divisions 

 of the old Saxon heptarchy, and now levelled in some parts, 

 but prominent at others. The Wan's dyke takes a somewhat 



