MORBID APPETITE IN SHEEP. 349 



but if the little animal has been licked clean by 

 the mother, and is dry, it may be placed in the 

 hurdles amongst the other ewes, without their 

 being attacked or injured. Thus showing that 

 the salt nature of the liquor amnii, which at 

 that time covers the young one, is the principal 

 exciting cause for this extraordinary propensity to 

 destroy, that appetite being excited by having 

 previously eaten the saline earth from the 

 " water holes." 



At the places where this destruction to the 

 hopes of the wool-grower takes place, the pas- 

 turage is luxuriant ; and the situations would be 

 selected, by a person ignorant of the before- 

 mentioned circumstances, as some of the finest 

 sheep-runs in the colony. 



The mother will not devour her own progeny, 

 but will sometimes (which is not unfrequent in 

 maiden ewes) not take to the lambs, but forsake 

 them ; until the shepherds hurdling the mother 

 and young one together, the mother at last ac- 

 knowledges her young. 



It is not uncommon, however, for them to 

 follow other ewes, attack and devour the lambs 

 brought forth by them, in as ravenous a manner 

 as the others would have devoured their young. 



The ewes will not even wait until the young 

 lamb is born, but when they see an ewe yearn- 



