280 
OBSERVATIONS 
ON 
QUADRUPEDS. 
SHEEP. 
The 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 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 distin- 
guish 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 individual personally; which also is 
confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith 
they are newly marked ; for the brute creation recognize each 
other more from the smell than the sight; and in matters of 
identity and diversity appeal much more to their noses than their 
eyes. After sheep have been washed there is the same con- 
fusion, from the reason given above. 
RABBITS. 
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. 
CAT AND SQUIRRELS.* 
A BOY has taken three little young squirrels in their nest, or 
* The changes of appearance which the common squirrel undergoes have not been noticed i» 
any work that 1 have met with. They shed their covering twice in the year, and in summer tiie 
