m) 



IMPROVEMENT OF THJ? BREEDS. 



the eroded appearance which the inner coat occasionally 

 presents. This phenomenon is owing to the action of the 

 gastric juice, which, if competent to turn at once from 

 the food with which it is mingled to attack the texture 

 which has secreted it, will also be^ during life; capable 

 of digesting with tolerable ease, such dead animal 

 matter as may be brought into contact with it. 



In regard to vegetable food, they will, when neces- 

 sary, devour such as is even of an acrid nature, and 

 calculated to poison any animals but themselves. 

 Thunberg, while in Southern Africa, frequently noticed 

 sheep eating, with impunity, the Mortimia acris, the 

 Rhus lucidum, and the Lycium afrum, which are all 

 of a poisonous nature ; and, in this country, hemlock 

 is known to be quite innocuous to sheep. What is 

 poison to one animal often constitutes a wholesome 

 food for others, and that which will, when given in im- 

 mediate large doses, destroy an animal, will, when 

 taken in a gradually-increasing allowance, prove ex- 

 tremely salutary. 



(80.) Influenceofthefoodonthe quality of Mutton. 

 — Diet has a powerful influence on the constituents of 

 the body. A rank succulent pasture taints the flesh, 

 or renders it insipid and unpleasant, while a dry aro- 

 matic herbage communicates a delightful flavour, and 

 enables people versed in the pleasures of the table 

 easily to discriminate between turnip. fed and grass-fed 

 mutton ; and again, between the latter, and that which 

 has spent its existence on the hills. In Touchwood's 

 Syllabus of Culinary Lectures, appended to the Cook 

 and Housewives Manual, by Mistress Dods, we are 

 briefly informed, that '* the black-faced, or short-sheep. 



