SHEEP. 



PLATE XV. THE SHEEP. 



THOSE animals that take refuge under the protection of 

 man, in a few generations become indolent and helpless. 

 Having lost the habit of self-defence, they seem to lose 

 also the instincts of nature. The sheep, in its present do- 

 mestic state, is, of all animals, the most defenceless and. 

 inoffensive. With its liberty, it seems to have been de- 

 prived of its swiftness and cunning ; and what in the ass 

 might rather be called patience, in the sheep appears to 

 be stupidity. With no one quality to fit it for self-pre- 

 servation, it makes vain efforts at all. Without swiftness, 

 it endeavors to fly ; and without strength, sometimes offers 

 to oppose. But these feeble attempts rather incite than 

 repress the insults of every enemy ; and the dog follows 

 the flock with greater delight upon seeing them fly, and 

 attacks them with more fierceness upon their unsupported 

 attempts at resistance. Indeed, they run together in flocks 

 rather with the hopes of losing their single danger in the 

 crowd, than of uniting to repress the attack by numbers. 

 The sheep, therefore, were it exposed in its present state 

 to struggle with its natural enemies of the forest, would 

 soon be extirpated. Loaded with a heavy fleece, deprived 

 of the defence of its horns, and rendered heavy, slow, and 

 feeble, it can have no other safety than what it finds from 

 man. This animal is now, there fore, obliged to rely solely 

 upon that art for protection, to which it originally owes its 

 degradation. 



But we are not to impute to nature the formation of an 

 animal so utterly unprovided against its enemies, and so 

 unfit for defence. The moufflon, which is the sheep in a 

 savage state, is a bold, fleet creature, able to escape from 

 the greater animals by its swiftness, or to oppose the 



