THE SHEEP. 175 



as newspapers ; and certainly such objects were 

 never common enough to be taken account of in 

 the formation of habits of self-preservation. 



However white the fleeces of their elders may 

 be, young lambs are usually of a brownish or 

 dirty-grey colour (as indeed are all wild sheep), 

 so as to harmonise with the rocks of their ances- 

 tral home. When at play they always seek the 

 steepest parts of the field, and, if there is a rock 

 or a log lying about, they will skip on to it and 

 butt at one another, as if playing " King of the 

 Castle." If mountain or moorland sheep on a 

 hillside are attacked by a dog, they will always, 

 from choice, run diagonally up-hill. Should a 

 flock of Southdowns take alarm and break out 

 from the fold at night, the shepherd knows that 

 the place to find them is the highest ground in 

 the neighbourhood. 



If a dog enters a field where there are ewes 

 and lambs, he is watched in the most suspicious 

 manner, and at once attacked if he comes too 

 near. Many a valiant puppy, who thought that 

 sheep were poor spiritless things, has received 

 treatment which astonished him when he strolled 

 into the sheep -pasture in the lambing season. 

 Now dogs are rarely dangerous to domestic 



