28 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



together that there is barely room for each to feed. 

 At the moment of writing this, we can see from our 

 study-window seven out of a flock of a score feeding 

 so closely crowded as to have their fleeces in actual 

 contact. And yet the field is by no means small, and 

 other parts of it have grass equal in goodness to the 

 corner where these seven sheep are nibbling it to the 

 very root, while the rest of their companions are only 

 at a few feet distance, in the same quarter of the 

 field. 



In order to arrive at the cause of this sociality, 

 which seems not only to be without any reason- 

 able motive arising from mutual advantage, but to 

 be rather disadvantageous from the pasture being 

 exhausted by the crowd of feeders, we must con- 

 sider these sheep as domesticated, and, of course, 

 in different circumstances from the species in their 

 original state of wildness and freedom, in which 

 such sociality may serve some important purpose. 

 The sheep of mountainous countries, where they 

 are in a state of comparative wildness, though un- 

 confined by fences, like those in the meadow just 

 alluded to, are observed to keep together in bands, 

 and to pass from one mountain platform to another 

 in regular ranks, one deep, always headed by a 

 leader. The duty of this leader is to give warning 

 of the approach of danger to his troop, both when 

 on a march of removal to a different pasture and 

 also while they are feeding. This fact, which has 

 often been recorded, we have had more than once 

 an opportunity of witnessing in Wales. On as- 

 cending Snowdon, for example, our attention was 

 attracted by the deep harsh krroup of a raven sail- 

 ing about on the air, looking out, no doubt, for 

 some luckless sheep enfeebled by accident or disease 

 upon which he might pounce. Immediately from 

 the shoulder of the mountain above us the note of 



