130 THE ANIMAL l CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS' 



The object was a squatting hare, which, as the dog 

 flew over in one direction, quietly scuttled off in the 

 other. It is difficult to find a reason for the liability 

 even of ' heather sheep,' as well as of the more domestic 

 varieties, to death by falls over clifls, and even by being 

 thrown and unable to rise. They seem to have lost 

 more of their inherited capacity for mountaineering 

 than could be expected from the slight structural 

 changes caused in the wild sheep by domestication. We 

 do not recollect a single recorded instance of accident 

 from falls in the case of the wild varieties of sheep, 

 though the domestic breeds seem to have been liable 

 to these and other accidents from the days of the ' ram 

 caught by the horns' on the mountain in the land of 

 Moriah. 



