366 THE COMMON SHEEP. 



bookbinders and saddlers. Of the entrails are made 

 the strings called catgut, which are used for different 

 kinds of musical instruments. 



The season at which the Ewes begin to produce 

 their offspring, commences generally a little after 

 Christmas. The number of young, in the British 

 islands, is seldom more than one or two ; but there 

 is, in the Netherlands, a peculiarly large breed of 

 Sheep, the Ewes of which produce three, often 

 four, and sometimes as many as five Lambs at a 

 birth. The period of gestation is twenty-three 

 weeks ; and the age of the animal is seldom known 

 to exceed fourteen or fifteen years. 



Sheep are liable to various diseases, such as rot 

 in the liver, the foot-rot, staggers, scab, and others 

 Some of these are so severe, as, when very preva- 

 lent in the flocks, to destroy considerable numbers 

 of the animals in a season. The rot is considered 

 one of the most dangerous. It is a decay in the 

 liver, occasioned, as many naturalists have asserted, 

 by a kind of flat worms, in shape not unlike the 

 seeds of a gourd, which the farmers call flukes or 

 flounders*. The glandular viscera of these animals 

 are likewise infested by two or three species of 

 tsenia; and in particular by one, tcenia granulosa, 

 the vesicles of which are from the size of a hazel 

 nut, to that of a hen's egg, and often contain many 



* Fasciola hepatica of Linnaeus. 



thousand 



