Essay on Sheep. 27 



Spain every lamb of the migrating flock has, 

 besides his natural, a foster mother. In order 

 to induce the last to take the lamb, the skin of 

 that which has been killed is put upon the one 

 to be raised, and, in this disguise, she mistakes 

 it for her own, and gets familiarized to it in a 

 few days. This does not, indeed, always suc- 

 ceed. When it does not, the shepherd compels 

 her to admit the lamb by tying her. 



The race of sheep thatl shall next notice, is 

 one that is more extensively diffused than any 

 other, since it is found throughout Asia, and a 

 great part of Africa, as well as through the 

 north-eastern parts of Europe. I refer to the 

 broad -tailed sheep.* These differ, as the ordi- 

 nary European race, in the nature of their co- 

 vering. In Madagascar, and some other hot 

 climates, they are hairy; at the Cape of Good- 

 Hope they are covered with coarse harsh wool; 

 in the Levant their wool is extremely fine, or, 

 in other words, they are adapted to the neces- 

 sities of the people by whom they have been 

 changed from their wild to their domestic state. 

 These sheep are generally larger than those of 

 Europe, in which circumstance only, and the 

 form and size of their tails, they differ from 



* Ovis Aries Laticandata. 



