136 
Panics in Sheep, 
Farmhouse, there was not the slightest sign of any disturbance to 
the flocks. He adds that the subsoil on the farm is of an entirely 
different nature from the Ditchley land. But I do not attach any 
importance to the question of geological formation, the red land (a 
marlstone, holding a good deal of water and iron) of the northern 
portion of Oxfordshire being so very different from the stone-brash 
and limestone of West and Mid-Oxon and East Gloucester, although 
the panic extended equally over both. On a farm at Fairspeir the 
ewes were out, but the fatting sheep (half a mile away) were not, 
though the troughs were overturned. The ewes on Adderbury 
Manor Farm broke out, while the tegs on a slope of the Cherwell 
Valley did not. Mr. Alfred Neild, of Bean, while sending us some 
valuable information, and saying that his sheep at Chalford Green 
had broken the hurdles down as if chased by dogs, adds : — 
I have heard that sheep in the hollows were not so universally out as on 
the hills, especially about Tew and beyond. 
A slight earthquake has been suggested as the cause of the 
panic. Mr. A. Hayley Gregson writes : — 
I cannot help thinking that the sheep, which no doubt were lying down, 
heard or felt a slight rumbling or tremor of the earth, caused possibly by 
an earthquake too slight for anyone standing upright to observe, and yet 
sufficient for an animal lying down to feel. 
If this was the cause we ought to find that sheep panics of a very 
violent character have taken place on those occasions when earth- 
quakes very perceptible to human beings have affected England in 
the night during that period of the year when sheep are usually 
penned on the arable land. But I do not remember ever hearing 
or reading anything to that effect. 
Various meteorological causes (in addition to the causes of dogs, 
foxes, boys, &c., which were at once dismissed when the extent of the 
panic was realised) have also been advanced. Mr. Neild writes : 
“ Another man at Finstock is said to have seen a wonderful meteor 
at the same hour.” Mr. Calvert thought it might have been caused 
by a sudden electrical or phosphorescent light playing fitfully on the 
ground — a sort of will-o’-the-wisp. Mr. J. Clowes, of Dunthrop, 
Chipping Norton, thought it was an electric disturbance, “ as we 
had strong lightning during the night afterwards.” There were 
also other reports of this phosphorescent light, but I have met with 
no thoroughly satisfactory evidence of it, and it may be pointed out 
that if it was the general cause of the panic all over the great 
affected district, it would certainly have been actually seen by 
many of the numerous people who must have been out of doors 
during the early part of the night the panic took place. The same 
may be said of the supposed meteor ; and upon this point it is instruc- 
tive to observe that the extraordinary and brilliant meteor which 
attracted so much attention on the night of January 26, 1894, and, as 
noticed in the papers, even when the sky was covered with dense 
clouds, illuminated the whole landscape with a light so bright that 
