64 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



therefore, becomes one of the most painful tasks of 

 the shepherd, in such circumstances, to keep his 

 sheep steadily in the very brunt of the blast. So 

 at least we were told by an old shepherd, whom we 

 encountered at night-fall the end of December, 1808, 

 in a wild mountainous pass, near Douglas, on the 

 borders of Lanarkshire, who was actually engaged in 

 thus guarding- his flock in as heavy a fall of snow as 

 we recollect ever witnessing*. The Ettrick Shep- 

 herd, in a most interesting narrative, entitled ' Snow 

 Storms,' in his Shepherd's Calendar, does not allude 

 to this propensity in sheep ; though it may be inferred 

 that they had acted upon it on one of the occa- 

 sions which he describes, from his having found a 

 number buried under the snow by the side of a high 

 bank, to which no doubt they had fled for shelter 

 at the onset of the storm. Though sheep, from their 

 mode of life, ought to be hardy, they exhibit an 

 anxiety for procuring shelter well worthy of remark. 

 It is mentioned by Lord Kames-f, that the ewe, 

 several weeks before yeaning, selects some sheltered 

 spot where she may drop her lamb with the most 

 comfort and security; and Mr. Hogg, in the volume 

 just referred to, gives an instance in which a ewe 

 travelled over a great distance to the spot where she 

 had been accustomed to drop her lambs ; but what 

 was still more remarkable, a ewe, the offspring of 

 this ewe, though removed to a distance when a few 

 days old, returned to the same spot to drop her first 

 lamb J. 



It is a very curious and remarkable circumstance, 

 that many species which are solitary at one period of 

 the year, are gregarious at another ; and though it is 

 possible to account for this in some instances, it be- 

 comes not a little difficult in others. It is obvious, 

 * J. R. f Gentleman Farmer, p. 15. 



J Shepherd's Calendar, Chapter ou Sheep. 



