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Handbook of Nature-Study 



of each jaw. This arrangement of teeth on the small, delicate, pointed 

 jaws enables the sheep to crop herbage where cattle would starve; it can 

 cut the small grass off at its roots, and for this reason, where vast herds of 

 sheep range, they leave a desert behind them. This fact brought about a 

 bitter feud between the cattle and sheep men in the far West. In forests, 

 flocks of sheep completely kill all underbrush, and now they are not per- 

 mitted to run in government reserves. 



The sheep's legs are short and delicate below the ankle. The upper 

 portion is greatly developed to help the animal in leaping, a peculiarity to 

 which we owe the "leg of lamb" as a table delicacy. The hoof is cloven, 

 that is, the sheep walks upOx^ two toes; it has two smaller toes above and 

 behind these. There is a little gland between the front toes which secretes 



A sheep of pedigree, Shropshire ram. 



an oily substance, which perhaps serves in preventing the hoof from 

 becoming too dry. The ears are large and are moved to catch better the 

 direction of sound. The eyes are peculiar; in the sunlight the pupil is a 

 mere slit, while the iris is yellow or brownish, but in the dark, even of the 

 stable, the pupils enlarge, almost covering the eye. The ewes either lack 

 horns or have small ones, but the horns of wild rams are large, placed at the 

 side of the head and curled outward in a spiral. These horns are perhaps 

 not so much for fighting the enemy as for rival rams. The ram can strike 

 a hard blow with head and horns, coming at the foe head on, while the 

 goat always strikes sidewise. So fierce is the blow of the angry sheep, that 

 an ancient instrument of war was fashioned like a ram's head and used to 

 knock down walls, and was called a battering ram. A sheep shows anger 

 by stamping the ground with the front feet. The habit of rumination 

 enables the sheep to feed in a flock and then retire to some place to rest 

 and chew the cud, a performance peculiarly funny in the sheep. 



