OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 
SHEEP. 
HE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) 
are very ragged, and their coats much torn; 
the shepherds say they tear their fleeces 
with their own mouths and horns, and that 
they are always in that way in mild wet 
winters^ being teased and tickled with a kind of lice. 
After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion 
and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to 
distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment 
seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, 
which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as 
from the defect of that notus odor, discriminating each indi- 
vidual personally ; which also is confounded by the strong 
scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly 
marked ; for the brute creation recognise each other more 
from the smell than the sight ; and in matters of identity 
and diversity appeal much more to their noses than to their 
eyes. After sheep have been washed there is the same 
confusion, from the reason given above. 
BABBITS. 
Rabbits make incomparably the finest turf; for they not 
only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no 
bents to rise : hence warrens produce much the most 
delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of" 
grasses. 
