298 TOUR IN SUTHERL AN DSHIRE. 



and in poor condition. The length of time that sheep will 

 exist under snow is astonishing, particularly when a number 

 are buried together ; the warmth of their breath and bodies 

 keeping an open space round them sufficient for breathing- 

 room. Floods occasionally carry them off from the low lands 

 near the mountain streams ; and yet they are by no means 

 bad swimmers. I have seen black-faced sheep actually swim 

 into a creek of the sea to escape the pursuit of a dog ; but in 

 rapid currents they soon get subdued and drowned. 



Amongst other instances of sagacity in sheep, I have often 

 been amused by the perfect knowledge which they have of 

 the boundaries of the farm to which they belong. From 

 being frequently driven back when found wandering, they 

 soon learn the exact boundary lines within which they are 

 left in peace both by the shepherd and his dog. 



It is a mistake to suppose that the black-faced sheep taken 

 from the mountains are so very difficult to keep in enclosed 

 fields. In the case of my own small flock, which I keep for 

 the use of my family, I find that if brought from the open 

 mountain the sheep never attempt to get over the fences, 

 and content with their improved keep, and unused to w.alls 

 or palings, they do not seem to think it possible to get out of 

 the field. If, however, they come from an enclosed farm, they 

 generally have already found out that fences can be sur- 

 mounted : and then nothing will keep them in ; once out, 

 they go straight off, wandering to considerable distances, 

 sometimes, indeed, making direct for their former home. 

 Broken walls and ill-kept palings have taught them the use 

 of their legs, and this once learned, they are active enough to 

 get over anything. 



However wild the black-faced sheep may be when first 

 brought down from the mountains, those which I had very 

 soon became quite tame, and not only crowd round their 

 daily barrows of turnips in the winter, snatching them out of 

 the hand of the old man who feeds them, but soon, after a 

 little shy coquetry, will eat biscuits and apples from the 

 hands of the children, will follow them into the house, and 

 sometimes become such pets, that their destined fate at the 

 hands of the butcher is often deferred sine die. 



Though Highlanders are scarcely yet reconciled to sheep 

 as inhabitants of their mountains, they know full well how 

 to benefit by that most useful product of their fleece the 

 plaid. Summer or winter, the Highlander will scarcely ever 



