4 
THE SHEEP. 
HISTORY. 
sensible creature which some represent him to be. When entirely subdued, indeed, his natural instincts are blunted, and he 
loses the providence and sense of danger which are natural to him; but when left nearly in a state of liberty, as on the mountains 
of Scotland and Wales, he shows that, though comparatively feeble, he is not without the power of guarding himself from danger. 
When attacked by Dogs or Foxes, the flock forms a circle, with the rams in front, and presents a face to the enemy. The 
rams rush forward on the assailant, and strike him with their powerful horns; and in their contests with one another for the pos¬ 
session of the females, they fight with amazing determination, stunning one another with the violence of the shocks. The Sheep 
is an exceedingly hardy animal with respect to temperature, his close covering of wool defending him well from cold. ITe fore¬ 
sees an impending fall of snow, and takes shelter from its violence. When buried underneath the snow, as he sometimes is, he 
often survives for many days, and even weeks, and may be digged up without injury, provided he has escaped suffocation; for in 
such a situation, his thick fleece, which, as well as the snow, is a slow conductor of heat, retains the natural warmth of the body 
in such a degree as to preserve life. The ewe bears that affection to her offspring which Nature has imprinted in every animal. 
Should mishap befall her young one, she mourns over it, and will not be comforted: should it wander from her side, her anxious 
bleatings are every where heard; and the little creature rewards her cares with surprising fondness. Who that has seen the 
shearing of the flock, has not marked the startled aspect of the lamb when the mother first runs toward it divested of her covering, 
and how quickly it is reassured, and how sensibly it expresses its joy, when it hears the well known voice, and receives the wonted 
caresses ! The Sheep appears insensible and stupid, because it is rarely attached to us by acts of familiarity and kindness. But 
let the orphan lamb be brought up at the shepherd’s cot, and fed from his hand, and we shall find it to be nearly as familiar as a 
dog,—fond of being caressed, and unwilling to leave its protector to join its fellows of the flock. In countries where the shepherd 
guides his flock, and does not herd it by dogs in the manner practised in other places, the docility which the animals acquire is 
wonderfully great. Where the shepherd leads they follow; they observe his motions and hear his voice, and when he uses a pipe 
or horn, they listen to the well known sound, and obey the signal. In the Alps of Switzerland, and in the mountainous parts of 
Italy, in Greece, and elsewhere, we are yet charmed with this remnant of pastoral simplicity and innocence. The shepherd boy 
knows all his little favourites, —he remembers their names, and, when called, they leave the flock and come to him. When the 
numbers are great, he selects a few, teaches them their simple lesson, and they become the guides of the rest to their allotted 
pastures, and learn to collect the wanderers. The music of the mountain shepherd we find to be no poetic fiction. In the 
mountains of the South, we yet hear the soft and artless tones of his pipe. In the morning he leads forth his little flock, and 
plays as he marches at their head, and at sunset returns in the like manner to the fold, where he pens them, that they may be 
kept from the wolves. 
The fur of the Sheep consists partly of hair, but essentially of wool. In cold, moist, and elevated countries, the hair often be¬ 
comes so long as to cover the wool; and when the wool falls off in the early part of summer, the covering of hair remains to protect 
the animal: in other cases the hairs are only partially mixed with the wool, taking, however, from the value of the fleece by rendering 
it less suitable for being spun, and woven into cloth. In warm countries, the wool is often scarcely developed, and nearly the 
whole coat is of hair, just as in the case of the Deer, the Antelope, and the Goat; yet this is not always the case, even in the 
warmer countries, in which the fur is sometimes fleecy, soft, and thin. Often the wool is long, and the filaments thick, without 
being hairy, as in the case of the Sheep of the richer plains of England: sometimes it is short, fine, and curling, as in the case of 
the Mountain Sheep of Spain. We can sometimes trace the influence of climate in modifying the characters of wool, but often it 
is affected by causes which we are unable to discover. It is also affected by domestication and artificial treatment. The difference 
in the character of wool renders it more or less valuable, and more or less suited to different manufactures. Thus the long thick 
wool of the Sheep of the plains of England, is suited to the manufacture of flannels; that of the Southdown, Ryeland, and Merino 
breeds, to the fabrication of cloths; that of the Blackfaced Heath Sheep of Scotland, to the making of carpets and coarser stuffs. 
The colour of the wool of Sheep is yet less dependent upon any known causes than its texture, length, or fineness. Some¬ 
times it is black, sometimes it is grey, sometimes it is brown, and in other cases it is white, or partly black and partly white. We 
know no law which determines these colours. There is reason to believe that the colour of the fleece in the earlier Sheep tended 
to the darker colours rather than to the white, as it yet does in Sheep that are left long in their natural state. But the white 
colour came to be more valued, as being more agreeable to the eye, but chiefly because white wool is better fitted to receive those 
bright and beautiful colours which we are enabled to communicate by the dyeing process. But the desire to obtain it being formed, 
it was easy to procure white Sheep, by using males and females for breeding which were possessed of that colour. 
The Sheep of Asia and Europe are wonderfully diversified. A remarkable character which distinguishes the Sheep of several 
regions is the accumulation of fatty matter on particular parts of the body. Fat, we know, is a secreted tissue, which intermingles 
with and surrounds the muscular substance, and which envelopes the viscera within the body. A large part of it is usually found 
