BOOK VII. III. 26-iv. 3 



manding elevation from which the eyes can see as 

 from a watch-tower, so that he may prevent the 

 slower, pregnant ewes, through delaying, and those 

 which are active and have already borne their young, 

 through hurrying foi'ward, from becoming separated 

 from the rest, lest a thief or a wild beast cheat the 

 shepherd while he is day-dreaming. These precepts 

 are of general application and apply to sheep of all 

 kinds ; we will now deal with some points which are 

 peculiar to the best breeds. 



IV. It is scarcely advantageous to keep the Greek " Coated ' 

 breed, which most people call the Tarentine, unless ^^^®^p* 

 the owner is constantly on the spot, since it requires 

 more care and food than other kinds. For, while all 

 the sheep which are kept for their wool are more 

 delicate than the others, the Tarentine breed is 

 particularly so, for it does not tolerate any careless- 

 ness on the part of the owner or shepherd, much less 

 niggardliness, nor can it stand heat or cold. It is 2 

 seldom fed out of doors but generally at home, and is 

 most greedy of fodder and, if the bailiff fraudulently 

 abstracts any of the food, disaster overtakes the flock. 

 During the winter, when the sheep are fed in their 

 pens, a satisfactory diet per head is three sextarii of 

 barley or of beans crushed with their pods, or four 

 sextarii of chickling-vetch provided you also supply 

 them with dried leaves or lucerne, dry or fresh, or 

 shrub-trefoil ; also seven pounds of hay of the second 

 crop is to their liking or plenty of pulse-chaff. Only 3 

 a very small profit can be made by selling the lambs 

 of this kind of sheep and no return from the ewes' 

 milk; for the lambs which ought to be taken away 

 from their mother a very few days after birth, are 

 generally slaughtered before they reach maturity, and 



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VOL. 11. K 



