82 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



reckon upon something being amiss with it. You 

 should delay not a moment in having your shepherd 

 up, and seeing what the matter can be, so as to 

 adopt the fitting remedy ; either to bleed or remove 

 to shelter, and a dose of salts. Or look yourself at 

 once, for minutes are invaluable when inflammation 

 threatens ; and you should know how to let blood 

 with your penknife, or pocket lancet, if requisite. 



When cattle or sheep stretch themselves on rising 

 from the ground, you may know that they are well 

 and hearty. When they chew the cud, too, they are 

 well. If their coats stare, however, and their eyes 

 are dull ; if the nose be dry and scurfy, and espe- 

 cially if the hide stick close and hard to the ribs, 

 then pass your hand with something of pressure 

 along the back. If they shrink down from your 

 touch you may rely upon it they are ill ; have either 

 caught cold, or have internal disorder coming on, 

 which, taken in time, may be checked by warm 

 nursing and a dose of salts, well seasoned with 

 some cordial mixture, an addition that animals 

 ovine and bovine, but especially the latter, require 

 in a greater degree than their equine and porcine 

 compatriots. 



Remember that sheep will follow always where 

 the leader goes, even to destruction ; timid as they 

 are reckoned, there are no forces so steady in their 

 approach to a breach. Alas ! that the cause is not 

 courage, but its opposite. I have known them follow 

 one upon another into a ditch, until they had choked 

 a great piece up, and dozens were suffocated beneath 

 the superincumbent weight of their entangled com- 



