DOMESTIC ANIMALS "WILD" 



357 



the same pangs as Tutira : the number of sheep "short" after winter 

 was a constant anxiety. Wild sheep were hardly mentioned ; there was 

 certainly no talk then of wild black sheep. 



It was not until about 1892 that rumours began to circulate as to 

 black sheep on Opouahi : a passing shepherd had noticed a mob of four 

 or five ; natives pig-hunting had seen black long- tailed rams. There 

 could, however, have been but few as late as 1895, for during that 

 excessively dry season I leased for six weeks the grass of the Opouahi 

 block, still the property of Mr Macandrew. There during autumn we 

 tupped our ewes, a step Stuart and myself would never have taken had 



Ravines OpouahL 



we considered that there might have arisen therefrom damage to our 

 Lincoln-Komney ewe flock. It could not have been done, moreover, 

 without the strongest possible protests from Harry Young, protests 

 which would have been given full consideration. He, Stuart, and myself 

 knew, as I have told, of a very few wild sheep, but judged that, as 

 had happened on eastern Tutira in the 'eighties, their numbers were 

 not sufficiently large to make them a menace, and that they would 

 remain in their own haunts and not intermingle with the ear-marked 

 stock. Our conjecture was justified, for when five months later the 

 lambs were dropped, in none of them appeared any admixture of merino 



