44 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



all come to play. There is a difference, moreover, 

 in the ridges. While three of them are flat-topped 

 throughout their length, and bordered by ruts scarcely 

 a foot deep, the outside one for a space of ten yards, 

 where the cart-track has been raised over a slight dip 

 in the ground, has a narrow sloping summit and a 

 fall on the outside varying from one to three feet. 

 This is the only " precipice " in the field, and the 

 number of lambs that are always pushing for foot- 

 hold upon it is amazing. 



NATURE'S WISDOM IN SHEEP. 



When the precipice is tightly packed with lambs 

 they all start in a jumping procession one way, those 

 that are squeezed out jumping across the rut and 

 back again, bumping others down the "precipice" 

 on the other side. But the procession never goes 

 far on the comparatively flat and uninteresting track 

 beyond. It soon halts, and, the rearmost lamb be- 

 coming the leader, they all come back jumping along 

 the ridge again. When the sheep were wild animals 

 of rock and cliff, this jumping exercise on miniature 

 precipices was almost all the training which the lambs 

 needed to fit them to face the perils of their moun- 

 taineering life. And what a wise provision of nature 

 it is that the young should unwittingly rehearse the 

 actions of their ancestors ! Nature proceeds by such 

 slow change as to seem almost changeless ; and in a 

 state of nature it is almost certain that any marked 

 alteration in the conditions of any creature's life must 



