THE MOOR 169 



kinds, but particularly the carcases of sheep. It has 

 been recognised from the earliest ages on record that 

 nothing leads more to pestilence than leaving dead 

 animal matter exposed to the air, and in contact with 

 the food and water-supply of mankind and other living 

 creatures. Accordingly, this recognised fact must be 

 borne in mind by the keeper in dealing with any dead 

 matter that may be found on the ground under his 

 control. Dead grouse, dead crows, dead vermin, are 

 dangerous enough in their power of contaminating the 

 air, the soil, and more particularly the watercourses, 

 but dead sheep are infinitely more capable of mischief, 

 not only to living sheep, but also to game. It will be 

 found, on careful observation, that a high death-rate of 

 sheep is due to two causes ( i ) To overcrowding, and 

 (2), and more specially, to the presence of, or the effect 

 of the former presence of, the rotting carcases of sheep. 

 Some years ago an experiment was made on a certain 

 moor in Scotland. The carcases of two sheep were 

 left to rot in the open. After decay had well set in, 

 two sheep (a two-year-old wether and a ewe) were 

 temporarily fenced in at different parts of the moor, each 

 sheep being given two acres of good hill ground. Both 

 the sheep died within six weeks, and there appears to 

 be no doubt that death resulted from their having eaten 

 grass contaminated by the carcases of the dead sheep. 

 In these latter days, when the destruction of vermin is 

 carried out with some thoroughness, the ravens and 

 hoodie-crows, the natural scavengers of the moors, have 



