THE COMMON SHEEP. 501 



would be sure to imitate the example. Christ, in reference 

 to himself as the Good Shepherd, says, " The sheep hear 

 his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them 

 out ; and he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him - } for 

 they know his voice." (John, chap. x. verses 3 and 4.) This 

 custom still exists in some places. The Rev. John Hartley, 

 who travelled as a missionary in Greece, found that the 

 practice was usual in that country. " Passing by a flock 

 of sheep," he says, " I bade the shepherd call one of them 

 by name. He did so, and it left its pasturage and its com- 

 panions, and ran up to the hand of the shepherd, with signs 

 of pleasure, and with the most prompt obedience. It is also 

 true of the sheep in Greece, that ' a stranger will they not follow, 

 but will flee from him j for they know not the voice of the 

 strangers.' The shepherd told me that many of his sheep are 

 still wild; that they had not yet learned their names, but that 

 by teaching they would all learn them. Those which knew 

 their names, he called tame." In a work entitled, Instructions 

 pour les Bergers, we are told that in some parts of France they 

 teach certain sheep of the flock to come when called, by, at 

 first, offering them a piece of bread. " When the shepherd 

 wishes to lead his flock through a defile, or to make them 

 alter their course, he calls to him one of the tame sheep, 

 which is immediately followed by the whole flock," (p. 15). 

 At Thames Ditton, in Surrey, Captain White's shepherd leads 

 his flock to and from pasture, every morning and evening, by 

 calling two of the rams by name. 



In the mountainous or wild countries, over which the flocks 

 wander dispersedly, it has been usual from a very early period 

 to teach them to obey signal-notes from the horn or the pipe. 

 Even in our days, when the shepherd- and -shepherdess-life is 

 rarely the envy of sentimental lovers and poets, the tobacco-pipe 

 has not entirely abolished the musical one. In many parts of 

 the Alps, and in certain provinces in France, the shepherd and 

 his sweet music continue with true antique simplicity. He 

 returns homeward at sunset, with his sheep following him, 



