SHEEP. 669 



dew and ram with wnich the grass is often moistened, supply almost 

 all the moisture that they need. 



Sheep, like other animals, are liable to various diseases. Water 

 often collects in the head, and produces a disorder which soon 

 proves fatal : the feet of whole flocks are often affected with a sort 

 of mortification, which makes them halt when they walk, and ren- 

 ders them almost unable to run ; they are subject to the scab, and 

 an eruptive disorder like the small. pox. 



The dropsy, consumption, jaundice, and worms in the liver, are 

 also annually destructive to considerable numbers of sheep. Seve- 

 ral sorts of insects infest this animal. A particular species of 

 oestrus, or gadfly, is very troublesome, by depositing its eggs above 

 the nose, in the frontal sinuses ; a tick and a louse likewise feed 

 on the sheep ; of which it is sometimes relieved by the undistin- 

 guishing appetite of the magpie ^nd the starling. The ordinary 

 term of the life of those sheep which escape disease and violence, 

 is twelve or thirteen years. 



The benefils which mankind owe to this animal are very nume- 

 rous. Its horns, its fleece, its flesh, its tallow, even its bowels are 

 all articles of great utility to human life. 



The horns are manufactured into spoons, and many other useful 

 articles. 



The manufacture of the wool into cloths has long formed the 

 principal source of the riches of England. We know not indeed 

 whether the simple Britons, and the rude Saxons, were acquainted 

 with the important uses of wool ; it is more probable that they 

 were not. But Henry the Second paid so much attention to the 

 manufacture and improvement of this commodity, as to forbid the 

 use of any other than English wool in the making of cloth. Yet, 

 the excellence of English wool was long known, before the English 

 paid much attention to the art of making woollen cloth, or attained 

 any superior skill in it. Wool was then a staple article for ex- 

 portation ; and the Flemings were our merchants. But in the reign 

 of Elizabeth, severable favourable circumstances, which the talents 

 and the patriotic spirit of that princess enabled her to take advan- 

 tage of, concurred to establish the woollen manufactory in Eng- 

 land, and to lay the foundation for that perfection it has since at- 

 tained. In Scotland this manufacture has never thriven greatly. 

 Yet, the bonnets, which, though now very much out of use, were 

 in former times very generally used as a covering for the head, and 



