352 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



The laivibs are shorn without being previously sweated. The shearing lasti 

 twenty or thirty days ; during which time the sheep are draughted, and those 

 which are old, feeble, or sick, are given as food to the workmci), in the propor- 

 tion of one sheep to eighteen persons. 



The flock now again begins its route among the mountains, where it continues 

 in the manner above described, till the latter end of September, or beginning of 

 October ; when it sets off again on its return to the valleys. The ewes having 

 received the ram in the month of July, and being now consequently pregnant, 

 travel more slowly than on their former journey ; and, for the purpose of accom- 

 modation to the various crops, often return by different roads from those through 

 which they had before advanced. They are driven into the newly harvested fields, 

 and, if food be scarce, even into the vineyards after the vintage, where they are 

 allowed to crop the luxuriant and succulent leaves of the vine. It appears, also, 

 that they are suffered, during their journey, to brouze on all the young trees, shrubs, 

 and newly felled wood ; and in the winter, when herbage is scarce, the shepherds 

 cut down for them those branches of the evergreen trees, which are out of the 

 reach of the sheep. 



It is customary to give all the Merino sheep in Spain, whether Trashumantes or 

 Estantes, a certain quantity of salt ; but the former have it only when in the 

 mountains, and, as we are told by Lasteyrie, in the proportion of six or seven 

 hundred grammes each per month. A gramme is 18.841 grains French. Accord- 

 ing to Ferrault, the French grain is smaller than the English, in the proportion of 

 134.5, to 158. One gramme is, therefore, equal to 16.0387 English grains; and 

 as our avoirdupois ounce contains about 438 grains, 700 grammes, are 11227.09 

 grains, or somewhat less than 25^^ ounces avoirdupois for thirty days. If we reckon 

 only 600 grammes, the quantity will be about 2i\ ounces. In the first case, the 

 daily allowance to each sheep will be three quarters of an ounce, and about 43 

 grains; in the second case, half an ounce and 96} grains, or nearly three quarters of 

 an ounce. This daily proportion of salt to such an animal as a sheep is so great, 

 that I think there must be some error ; unless it be meant to include the con- 

 sumption by the shepherds, and all other kinds of waste. 



A more minute account of this practice is given in the Annual Register, for 

 1764, in a letter from a gentleman in Spain, to the late Mr. Peter CoUinson. 

 *' The first thing" says this writer, " which the shepherd does when the flock returns 



