32 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



wretched to contemplate, not only because of the 

 angularity of outline, and the cavernous depressions 

 where fat and flesh should be, but because the associa- 

 tions of many generations have given the sheep a 

 peculiar claim upon humanity. They hang entirely 

 on human help. They watch for the shepherd as 

 though he were their father ; and when he comes he 

 can do no good, so that there is no more painful spec- 

 tacle than a fold during a drought upon the hills. 



Once upon a time, passing on foot for a distance of 

 some twenty-five miles across these hills and grassy 

 uplands, I could not help comparing the scene to 

 what travellers tell us of desert lands and foreign 

 famines. The whole of that long summer's day, as I 

 hastened southwards, eager for the beach and the scent 

 of the sea, I passed flocks of dying sheep : in the hol- 

 lows by the way their skeletons were here and there 

 to be seen, the gaunt ribs protruding upwards in the 

 horrible manner that the ribs of dead creatures do. 

 Crowds of flies buzzed in the air. Upon the hurdles 

 perched the crow, bold with over-feasting, and hardly 

 turning to look at me, waiting there till the next lamb 

 should fall and the " spirit of the beast go down- 

 wards." Happy England, that experiences these 

 things so seldom, and even then so locally that 

 barely one in ten hears of or sees them ! 



The cattle, of course, suffer too ; all day long files 

 of water-carts go down into the hollows where the 

 springs burst forth, and at such times half the work 

 of the farm consists in fetching the precious liquid 



