Occasional Notes. 365 
bably by sight. For each of its senses is probably much 
more minutely acute than the corresponding senses in 
ourselves ; so that it distinguishes differences far too 
minute to be distinguished by us. It is said — I don't 
know on what authority — that the difference of facial 
expression in a flock of sheep, even if all are of the 
same breed, are as marked in each individual as they 
would be in an equal number of human beings. The 
shepherd, too, knows each sheep of his flock by its 
facial expression — not, it may be, in a flock maintained 
on the modern system by the constant importation of 
new and better blood, but in the old-fashioned flock in 
which generation uncrossed succeeded generation. Nor 
is it too much to suppose that the sheep, thus able to 
distinguish each individual of its fellows by the family 
features, is also able to recognise certain, also minute, 
features common and peculiar to the family ; so that, on 
seeing a sheep of its own flock, or at any rate of close 
kindred with itself it can recognise the kinship and ex- 
press its recognition at least by not evincing the aversion 
which it would show to a strange sheep of less close 
kinship. 
And so it is with men. In modern civilized society 
the intermixture of various men, and their going and 
their coming, is so complex that it is quite easy to 
imagine — perhaps many will even be able to mention 
particular cases — in which a son might not recognise at 
first sight his father, or a brother his brother ; but critics 
would undoubtedly dwell on the improbability of the 
plot of that novelist who should represent a son failing 
through a long period to recognise the relationship of his 
father, or a brother the relationship to his brother. But 
ZZ 2 
