58 SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



required in a first improver of stock. It is a faculty which 

 must be implanted by nature, and comes to few. He is 

 described as a fine-looking man, a capital public speaker, a 

 keen man with the gun, and an excellent shot. He was a kind 

 master and good neighbour. 



The following is a statement made to me recently by Abra- 

 ham Hopkins, who lived as shepherd with Mr. Humphrey 

 from 1842 to 1868, and, therefore, from the date at which the 

 Babraham Southdowns were first used down to Mr. Hum- 

 phrey's death: "When Mr. Webb's sheep came master 

 would stand and look at him for two or three hours ; or when 

 a good lamb fell from a favourite ewe, he would stand and 

 look at it, and move it about, for an hour or more. 



" He took first prize with a West Country Down ewe at 

 Oxford in 1840. It was not, however, till 1842 that he hired 

 his first sheep from Mr. Jonas Webb, and he had, in all, 

 three sheep from Babraham, for which he paid 60 gs. each 

 for the hire. He had them at intervals of about two years, 

 and these were all the rams he ever bought or hired from Mr. 

 Jonas Webb or anyone else one of them was named Thick- 

 thorn but, with these exceptions, he used his own rams all 

 the time. The ewes were drawn to these rams with the 

 greatest possible care. 



" He only once bought ewes. They were bought in a lot of 

 100, and of these Mr. Humphrey had twenty-five, Mr. 

 Rawlence twenty-five, and a neighbour fifty. The ewes were 

 picked one by one, and Mr. Humphrey had the first pick. 

 The ewes were just outside the house," and Abraham Hopkins 

 says "he had noticed the best beforehand, and when he was told 

 to go in and pick one he went for her first. She was a per- 

 fect sheep, and she bred John Bull, which beat All England, 

 and he was the father of Comet, which took first prize as a 

 shearling at Chester, and also at Warwick as a four-tooth. 

 Kettledrum was another son of John Bull, and took first prize 

 as a shearling at Leeds, and first at Battersea in 1862. 



" Besides these ewes, no others were bought, unless it 



