NATURAL, HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 119 



among them, but the dogs recognised him by the smell and 

 barked at him. 



As many as thirty to forty thousand sheep are sometimes 

 assembled at the Carlisle sheep-markets, on a plain known as 

 Scars. The shepherds seem to know their sheep by their faces. 



WEATHER. Apropos of sheep foretelling sudden changes in 

 the weather, I have heard the following : A Professor, learned 

 in meteorology, was examining Stonehenge ; a shepherd came 

 up and told him if he did not make haste home he would get 

 wet through. There being no sign of rain at the time, the 

 professor gave him a fee to tell him how he knew. He 

 answered, " Now, ye see that when that old ram rubs his ear 

 against yon big stone, I always know it's going to be wet." 



GOATS. Mr. A. Sutherland, who has lived a long time in Cali- 

 fornia, informs me that goats are kept in the runs with the sheep, 

 the reason being that wherever goats are, no infection of scab or 

 anything else will attack the sheep. In Australia they do not 

 use goats, but there is a sheep's scab- inspector, and if any sheep- 

 farmer removes his infected sheep to another run he is fined 

 50/. for the first offence and WOl. for the second. 



Sheep often resemble goats very much in external appearance. 

 My friend, Air. Wolff, the well-known animal-painter, told me 

 that the best test to know the difference between a goat and a 

 sheep is that a goat always cocks his tail up in the air, whereas 

 a sheep carries it depressed. 



As regards the wild type of goats, " Zoophilus," in Land 

 and Water, remarks that the original parentage of the race of 

 tame goats is the Capra Caucasia ; he remarks, that the original 

 subjugation of this animal is ante-historical as usual, and the 

 numerous representations of goats and sheep on the Nineveh 

 sculptures exhibit the breeds of them much as we find them 

 still in the same countries. 



VIRGIL'S HIKUNDO, p. 156. My friend, Mr. Edward Karslake, 

 writes : " I agree with White in thinking that ' hirundo ' is 

 a swallow, not a martin. It is metaphorically a flying-fish 

 rondine (hirundo hirondine rondine) and according to the 

 descriptions of flying-fish which 1 have read, they turn and twist 

 about like a swallow. 



"Virgil would naturally think 'nigra' a sufficiently accurate 

 description as to colour. If you had found fault, he would have 

 said, ' I'm a poet, not an ornithologist.' 



" It is perhaps a little singular that so accurate an observer as 



