Ewes Neglecting their Lambs.

83

escape. The value of a dog in giving warning of the enemy on dark and windy nights cannot be over estimated. Times out of number when I have been asleep the dog has roused me, and even then I have not been able to hear any movement among the sheep until I have got outside the hut, when his eagerness to dash off in pursuit of the enemy has proclaimed the unerring acuteness of his ear. The extreme nervousness of sheep in the Australian bush at night gives the native or the dingo the opportunity for attack, against which the shepherd must always be on his guard. On the approach of the enemy, they rush wildy in a dense body to the opposite side of the inclosure, running over each other's backs, and crowding against the fence with great force. The next moment they are off to the opposite side, and so on, until some weak place is sure to yield to the repeated pressure. If this goes on for any considerable time, and the shepherd fails to hear it, he will wake up in the morning to find the fold empty, and must then trudge off to the head station to get help to collect the remnants of the scattered flock. He will not be likely to meet with a cordial reception from the superintendent; and when, after three or four days, or a week even, the wreck of the flock is collected and counted, he may find that he has no wages to take for a year's work, and is in debt to the squatter for a good round sum besides. Then he will wish that he had made a friend and companion of some sharp-eared dog to rouse him from that slumber which has proved so disastrous.

In many other ways a dog may be most useful to a shepherd in a new country; for instance, in finding lambs which have been deserted by their mothers. How it may be in England I do not know from actual experience, but, so far as I can ascertain, the ewes here do not evince the singular indifference to the fate of their young which is one cause of serious loss to the sheep farmer in Australia and South America. In some cases, especially with highly-bred stock, nothing that the shepherd can do will persuade a ewe to take to her lamb and suckle it,

although she may have abundance of milk. I have had half a dozen of these ewes at a time in my hut, trying every plan to induce them to feed their lambs, which seem to have no notion of the source of the supply, unless they are directed to it by the mother or the shepherd. Lying on my bunk and watching by the light of the fire the behaviour of the ewes towards the lambs, I have speculated in vain on the cause of their indifference.

How is it that the maternal instinct is so feeble as not to respond to the wail of the young? What is the influence of domestication on animals-this indifference must surely be unknown among wild animals-that these Belgravian mothers refuse to nurse their children? To the best of my recollection it is always, or generally, the first lamb that is so treated. Possibly the mother, regarding its young as the cause of the distress and pain she has lately suffered, determines to have nothing more to do with it. This is all the more probable, as much repugnance to her child for some little time after its birth is often evinced by the human mother. By much persuasion and patient manipulation the estrangement may occasionally be overcome; but one sometimes witnesses the astonishing spectacle of a ewe walking away from her new-born lamb and never taking the least notice of it afterwards. Even when indifference is not carried to this extreme, there is much" culpable negligence" on the part of the ewes, by which their lambs are lost in the bush ; and here an observant dog is really valuable. When, towards nightfall, the shepherd is moving his flock slowly homewards, numbers of lambs will be lying asleep hidden by tufts of grass or bushes, and many of their mothers will walk off without them as though they had no sense of responsibility whatever. On the lawn-like plains of the La Plata, even, where the grass is too short to hide a rat, a score of sleeping and deserted lambs may be picked up in the rear of a flock. There has been no hurry: no driving. The movement towards home has been determined by the spontaneous impulse of the flock rather than by any expression of the shepherd's will; yet there are mothers who go on cropping the grass as they wander quietly home, expressing

Dog Folding a Flock.

85

no concern for the young to which they gave birth but a few days before. Predatory birds and animals hanging about the feeding ground make short work of these derelicts unless they are recovered before night. My retriever took upon himself the duty of looking after these lambs, and he performed it in a highly benevolent and conscientious manner. He would quarter the ground systematically, and on finding a lamb give it a shove with his nose, driving it towards the flock. If, as was more likely than not, the stupid thing persisted in going off in the wrong direction, he would call my attention to the difficulty by barking, or occasionally endeavour to pick it up and carry it. Thus he saved, both in Australia and South America, enough lambs to make a pretty fair flock. Whether lambs thus neglected by their mothers are worth the trouble they give may be doubted, for they only maintain a precarious subsistence by snatching a little milk here and there from any ewes good-natured enough to allow them to draw on their supply for a few moments, and become weakly from semi-starvation and being compelled to eat grass before they are old enough to digest it.

When the shepherd has brought his flock home to the fold, his work is by no means over. On the contrary, the most tiresome business of the day begins there. The ewes walk in at the gate without ado, but their lambs consider this the time for high jinks. They will race round and round the fold, taking excursions now and then in a long stream to some distance, and coming back to pass the gate again and again, as if no opening existed. This wearisome game is often kept up for an hour, to no little annoyance of the shepherd, who wants to get to his supper. Time after time, when he has laboriously collected the stragglers and brought the whole lot quietly up to the gate, they divide into two streams and race off in opposite directions. I have seen three or four men thus engaged with a thousand lambs, not a score of which were driven into the fold in half an hour. One evening on the La Plata I was riding by an

"Estancia" where the owner and five or six mounted men were hard at work at this troublesome job, galloping about and shouting maledictions in the names of all the saints in the Calendar on the heads of the frolicsome creatures who refused to join their mothers in the "corral."

The Spanish language is peculiarly rich in expletives, and it was somewhat amusing to watch the fruitless efforts of the men, and hear the burst of anathemas that accompanied every failure, when I knew that the dog at my side would soon do more than the whole posse of horsemen to direct that stream of living quicksilver into the right channel. After looking on quietly for some time, I rode up to the owner and politely offered my help, requesting, if he accepted it, to leave the affair entirely to my dog. He assented with very evident scepticism, remarking that it would give his men a rest at all events. A wave of the hand and a nod to the dog was enough, for he had all along been eager to go to work, and no doubt had watched with contempt the blundering efforts of the men. By this time the lambs were careering round in two divisions at some distance from the corral, and he knew that he must first bring them into one mob. Having done this, he bustled them sharply towards the gate, and as they were about to race past it, dashed ahead, turned the leaders, and pressing up against the checked mass, shouldered a number through the entrance.

66

Que mira!" exclaimed the owner. Round the corral again went the mob, the dog keeping outside them, cutting off stragglers, and pressing them close to the walls. Then, as they came to the entrance, he again headed them and forced nearly half the mob into the inclosure. Some ewes

had now come out to look after their lambs, which did not improve matters, but in a few turns more he had folded the whole flock, and stood at the gate until I went up and shut it. The natives had never seen such an example of firstrate shepherding as that, as could be guessed by their expressions of satisfaction and surprise. The owner, after

Attack by Sheep-dogs.

87

thanking me for my assistance, offered to exchange a couple of good horses for my dog; but I had to explain that nothing would buy him, and he would, besides, refuse to do any work except at my bidding. A flock of sheep soon becomes accustomed to obey such a dog. I never had any trouble in getting my own flock of ewes and lambs into the field with him. When drafting out the lambs for marking the sexes, he could do the work of two or three men, by bringing up a dozen lambs at a time to the gate of the pen reserved for them, and hustling them through without letting one break back to the main flock. I never knew him lose his temper but once, when a ram took him by surprise by a broadside charge, and knocked him over. On recovering himself he raced after his assailant, and, catching him cleverly by the fore-leg, threw him upon his back, giving him what must have proved a severe shock. Dogs that acquire a habit of nipping the hind legs of sheep never compensate by the best work for the injury they do. I can suggest no remedy for this, for I have not, personally, been obliged to deal with it. It is probably induced by encouraging them to worry and kill other animals, a practice which should never be allowed with dogs intended for work among such timid and stupid creatures as sheep.

In some districts of the La Plata the natives train a large breed of dogs to shepherd a flock entirely unassisted. They are brought up with the sheep from their puppyhood, and even, I have been assured, often nursed by ewes whose lambs have died; but this does not abate their savage disposition. In order to prevent them leaving their charges they are, it is said, emasculated. After breakfast every morning, three or four of these powerful dogs are sent out to take the sheep to the pastures, where they remain all day and bring the flock home in the evening. It is extremely dangerous for any one but their masters to go near a flock thus guarded. I happened one day to ride too close to a flock, when three of these savage dogs rushed to the