249 



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 distin- 

 guish one another as before. This embar- 

 rassment seems not so much to arise from 



