yo THE SHEEP. 



then the maternal feeling seems to become extinct. But this 

 latter accident is of partial occurrence, and it is rare that the 

 mothers altogether abandon their young. Sometimes the 

 lambs, at their birth, are so weak that they cannot rise from 

 the ground, and thus perish. In such cases, the shepherd is 

 at hand to assist the young to the teat, and often he takes 

 the ewe with her young to a place of shelter, where they can 

 be more carefully tended. When a ewe dies, and it is wished 

 to give her lamb to one that has lost her own young, or when 

 a ewe has twins, and it is wished to give one of them to be 

 suckled by another whose own lamb has perished, some art 

 is often required to induce the ewe to adopt the stranger. 

 The most common method is to confine them together to a 

 narrow space, holding the lamb to the teat until it has been 

 suckled. In certain cases, when the lamb of any ewe has 

 perished, its skin is taken off and put on the lamb to be 

 adopted. The ewe, deceived by the smell of her own off- 

 spring, suffers herself to be sucked, and from that time for- 

 ward adopts the little orphan, and treats it with all the kind- 

 ness of the natural parent. It is of painful interest to see a 

 ewe, whose lamb has perished, mourning over its little one, 

 and refusing to leave it or be comforted. If the dead body 

 is dragged along the ground, the poor mother will follow it 

 even into the cot of the shepherd, fiercely driving away the 

 dogs or sheep that approach it. Even when the ewes them- 

 selves are in the agonies of death, they will be seen calling 

 piteously to their young ones, and offering them the last store 

 of milk with which Nature has furnished them. When the 

 ewes have twins, and thus have two lambs to nurse, it is 

 usual to give them a more liberal supply of food. It is held 

 to be convenient to have an enclosure of early grass near the 

 place of lambing or the shepherd's cottage, to which ewes 

 with twins, such as have too little milk, and such as are sick 

 and infirm, or from any cause require more careful attend- 

 ance than the rest of the flock, may be taken. Though va- 

 rious ewes produce twins, it is regarded as a favourable cir- 



