186 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



for miles with her nose close to tlie lamb, and may be led wherever the 

 shepherd chooses. 



The Substitute Lamb. — The bereaved and affectionate ewe is induced 

 to follow the remains of her little one to the lambinp; pound, or to some 

 other convenient place. A lamb that has lost, or been abandoned by- 

 its mother is then selected. The head, tail, and legs of the dead lamb 

 are cut off; an incision is made along the belly, and the body turned 

 out, and this skin is then drawn over the substitute lamb. The body 

 of the dead lamb is opened, the liver taken out, and the head and legs 

 of the living lamb, and what other parts the skin does not cover, are 

 smeared with blood. In the darkness of the night, and after the skin 

 has been warmed on it, so as to give something of the smell of her own 

 progeny, the substitute is put to the bereaved ewe. In the majority of 

 cases the fraud is altogether successful, and the impostor is at once 

 received, and fondled, and suckled. This being effected, the shepherd 

 hastens to remove the false clothing; the lamb is returned to her, and 

 " whether it is from joy at this apparent reanimation of her young one, 

 or because a little doubt remains on her mind, which she would fain dis- 

 pel, cannot be decided ; but for a number of days she shows more fond- 

 ness by bleating over and caressing this one, than she did formerly over 

 the one that was really her own." 



If she docs not take to it at first, she must be compelled to suckle it, 

 and confined so that she shall not be able to kick or otherwise hurt it. 

 In two or three days she will generally own it, and then they may be 

 turned together into the field without any apprehension or trouble. 



Care, however, should be taken that the 'age of the substitute lamb 

 and that of the true one should correspond as much as possible. If a 

 lamb lately dropped is put to a ewe whose young one would have been 

 a week or two old, the milk will be too strong, and a purging wnll be 

 set up, which, probably, no medicine can arrest. On the other hand, if 

 the substitute lamb is a week or two old, and the foster-mother had lost 

 hers in the act of yeaning, her milk will be injurious on account of that 

 purgative quality by which the intestines of the newly-dropped lamb 

 are first excited to action. Sometimes the foster-lamb, frightened or 

 exhausted, will not readily take the teat, how^ever disposed the ewe may 

 be to adopt and feed it. Care should be taken to ascertain whether this 

 is the case, and, if necessary, the lamb should be held while a little of 

 the milk is pressed into its mouth from the udder. This will rarely 

 need to be repeated, for instinct will teach it where to seek and how to 

 obtain its proper nutriment. 



Aftpr-l'are of the Lambs. — In the course of a little more than a week, 

 the great majority of the ewes will have produced their young, and the 

 laniber will have more leisure for those cases which particularly require 

 his attention. The twin field will particularly demand his care. He 

 will seldom enter it on the morning without finding some degree of con- 

 fusion. Some of the lambs will have strayed from or been abandoned 

 by their mothers; and these twin-mothers are sometimes not a little ca- 

 pricious-,and especially wlicn, not having sufticient milk for the two, they 

 are teased and worried by the incessant sucking of the twins. In such 

 case they will, in the most determined and furious manner, repulse one 



