74 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



now this way, now that way, or breaking out squib- 

 like where you might least expect them ; while ever 

 and anon a grey-faced pet, so low and lengthy ! 

 would advance softly alongside peering in my face 

 from beneath the luxuriant tuft which adorned her 

 head, with an imploring air that wins at once the 

 anticipated acknowledgment in the shape of a small 

 bunch of clover, or a saucerful of oats from my 

 jacket-pocket. 



What the original type of the sheep was, it is 

 difficult to say. How fashion and care, and culinary 

 requirements, subvert and recast Nature's primary 

 organization in the various species of domesticated 

 animals ! The points of excellence to a butcher's 

 eye are the very opposite of those which we find in 

 the wild state. Curious is it to contemplate the 

 broad, level back, sustained on rounded girders 

 springing wide, well padded with thick prime meat, 

 and to remember that this comes of ah original 

 shape not unlike the house-top with flat sloping 

 sides, apparently to let the rain run off, and a great 

 development of offal. 



It is easy to understand how the moufflon that 

 haunts the far-off snow-clad peaks of Corsica and 

 Sardinia, or peers upon you from the brown rock as 

 you glide by through the bright blue waters of the 

 glorious Mediterranean, may have a common origin 

 "with the wild flock that never needs a fold," 

 coursing there before the faithful colly, as antelopes 

 across the scraes of Cheviot side ; or with the pretty 

 scared Welsh specimen, that springs with unerring 

 step from point to point up the apparently perpen- 



