OBSERVATIONS 



ON 



VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE, 



FROM MR WHITE'S MSS. 



WITH 



REMARKS BY MR MARKWICK AND THE EDITOR. 



OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



SHEEP. The sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are 

 very ragged, and their coats much torn ; the shepherds say, 

 they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and 

 they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being teased 

 and tickled with a kind of lice. 



After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion 

 and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to 

 distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment seems 

 not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may 

 occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect 

 of that notus odor, discriminating each individual personally ; 

 which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and 

 tar wherewith they are newly marked ; for the brute creation 

 recognize each other more from the smell than the sight ; and 

 in matters of identity and diversity, appeal much more to their 

 noses than their eyes. After sheep have been washed, there 

 is the same confusion, from the reason given above. 



RABBITS. Rabbits make incomparably the finest turf, for 

 they not only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they 

 allow no bents to rise ; hence warrens produce much the most 



