MORBID APPETITE IN SHEEP. 347 



" The disadvantages which I have thus to 

 detail to you, arise from the novel disease with 

 which the sheep are affected. It appeared after 

 the first lambing, and within four months from the 

 time of my occupation of the land in question. Its 

 unaccountable and destructive nature renders my 

 selection utterly useless. The nature of the dis- 

 ease, as far as I have yet remarked, is as follows : 

 — The sheep, in the first place, devour the earth 

 ravenously, the pasture being at the same time 

 luxuriant, principally rib-grass, and other suc- 

 culent herbs ; they become speedily emaciated, 

 from this unnatural diet, more particularly as 

 the lambing season advances, and when lambing 

 commences : the other ewes surround the one 

 lambing, and devour the young as they emerge 

 from the mother. The lambs saved through the 

 care of the shepherds become poverty stricken, 

 from the low condition of the mothers, and ge- 

 nerally die before they become a month old. 

 Thus, instead of having twelve hundred lambs 

 this season, as my regular increase, I do not 

 count four hundred ; besides a very great de- 

 crease from mortality in the maiden sheep, origi- 

 nally purchased at high prices. The number of 

 shepherds required being at the same time thrice 

 beyond the proportion usual in the colony." 

 —November 1832. 



