226 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



name a disease, the symptoms of which are similar. Of 

 course I was obliged to look out for a lamb to replace 

 the pet. I had not long to consider whither I should 

 bend my steps, for the little ones themselves, observing 

 a dead ewe upon the hill above my farm, at once ascer- 

 tained the fact that there was an orphan behind. On 

 my riding up, however, to propose the purchase, I found 

 that the owners had found a foster-mother for the infant. 

 Close adjoining lives one of my men, who has been long 

 laid up with the effects of a bad cold, or rheumatism in 

 the blood, as the doctor tells him, from cider drinking. 

 His father feeds a few mountain sheep upon the hill- 

 side. This last winter, he told me, a number of them 

 died, and now a fatality has arisen amongst the lambs 

 of the survivors. Of course I was anxious to know why. 

 He explained that the effects of the late excessive heat 

 was to drive the ticks off the ewes on to their offspring, 

 on which they crowded in such numbers as to weaken 

 them excessively, if not deprive them wholly of life. 

 " They suck their vitals out," the man said. Besides 

 which, in biting to relieve the torture of their limbs, 

 they manage to swallow locks of wool, which is fatal in 

 itself. 



He said he had the skin of one at home which had 

 been literally eaten through by these pests. I was in- 

 credulous, and so he fetched it. I never saw such a sight. 

 Although it had been stripped nearly a week, there were 

 the parasites, weakly crawling about as thick as currants 

 in a school Sunday dumpling. Ugh ! it makes one 

 shudder to recall them. Of course the dams had never 

 been dipped in the autumn. Such a prudential process 

 had never entered the head of the fatalist owner. 



This morning I stepped down to see how they got on 



