130 
IRotes, Communications, anb 
IRcviews. 
PANICS IN SHEEP, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
TO THAT OF DECEMBER 4, 1893. 
Sheep are notoriously timid and nervous animals, and are not only 
highly susceptible of coming changes in the weather (as evidenced 
by their nervous activity and tendency, when folded, to jump the 
hurdles), but are apt to exhibit fright at purely imaginary dangers, 
or at all events at causes of supposed danger, which, whatever porten- 
tous shapes they may assume to the eyes of the sheep, are not apparent 
to human beings. Witness the behaviour exhibited by sheep on 
some occasions when passing through a gateway. 1 
We should accordingly expect sheep to be peculiarly liable to 
that form of unreasoning fear which has, for want of a better 
word, been generally known as panic. And, in point of fact, panics 
among sheep, extending over considerable tracts of country, have 
happened more than once in England. 
To mention the most recent instance previous to the one to be 
treated of in this paper : on the night of November 3, 1888, at 
about 8 p.m., tens of thousands of folded sheep were seized with 
sudden fright, jumped the hurdles, and stampeded. They were 
found by the shepherds early the next morning, under hedges and 
in roads, panting and terror-stricken. This panic took place in the 
country north-west and east of Reading, every large farm from 
Wallingford to Twyford being affected, and those on the hill- 
country north of the Thames most so. It was an intensely dark 
night, with occasional flashes of lightning. A suggestion was made 
that there had been a slight earthquake, which was not otherwise 
perceptible, but no evidence in support of the suggestion was forth- 
coming. 2 
Various causes for these panics have been suggested, but 
hitherto no reasonable one has been satisfactorily adduced. 
On the night of December 4, 1893, another very remarkable 
panic among sheep occurred in the northern and middle parts 
1 I particularly noticed this on Estancias in Uruguay, chiefly devoted to 
wool, among the large flocks of both Merino and English sheep, which, of 
course, live in a much wilder state than sheep in England. 
2 Annual Register, vol. cxxx. ; Science Gossip, March, 1889. 
