Ram

“ RAM, a male sheep, one kept for breeding purposes in domestication and not castrated, as opposed to the castrated “ wether ” (see Sheep) . For the ram as one of the signs of the zodiac, see Aries. The word may be connected with O. Nor. ramme, strong, or with Sansk. ram, to sport. The butting propensities of the ram have given rise to the many transferred senses of the word, chief and earliest of which is that of a battering implement used before the days of cannon for beating in the gates and breaching the walls of fortified places (see Battering Ram) . ”

“ The momentum of a battering ram 28 inches in diameter, 180 feet long, with a head of cast iron of one ton and a half, the whole ram with its iron hoops, &c. weighing 41,112 pounds, and moving by the united strength of 1000 men, will be only equal to that of a ball of 36 pounds, when shot point blank from a cannon.
RAMMER, an instrument used for driving down stones or piles into the ground in military works; or for beating the earth, in order to render it more solid for a foundation. ”

“ This ram is slung in the air by ropes passing over its middle, and is hung like the balance in a pair of scales from another beam, and braced by strong beams that pass on both sides of it, in the nature of a cross. When this ram is pulled backward by a great number of men with united force, and then thrust forward by the same men, with a mighty noise, it batters the walls with that iron part which is prominent. ”

“ To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a special enclosure where there are oats—that this very ram, swelling with fat, is killed for meat. ”

“ The most important point to guard is that your flock is headed by a good sire. The quality of a ram can usually be determined from his conformation and from his get. So far as concerns conformation, a ram should have a face well covered with wool, horns twisted and converging on the muzzle, tawny eyes, woolly ears, a deep chest, wide shoulders and loin, a long and large tail. You should see also whether he has a black or a spotted tongue, for such rams usually get black or spotted lambs. You may judge them by their get, if their lambs are of good quality. ”

“ This would give one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds of wool for the use of a ram for a single season; and every lamb subsequently got by him adds a pound to this amount. Many a ram gets, during his life, eight hundred or one thousand lambs. Nor is the extra amount of wool all. He gets from eight hundred to one thousand half-blooded sheep, worth double their dams, and ready to be made the basis of another and higher stride in improvement. A good ram, then, is as important and, it may be, quite as valuable an animal as a good farm-horse stallion. ”

“ Behold, A ram caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son. ”

“ The 'bodily magnetism' is a pure rationalisation and beyond discussion, but the story of the pipe and the ram is different: a ram is a pump worked by a stream of water and the noise of it is carried a long way, especially along any pipe connected with it, and if I told this gentleman that he had heard the noise of the ram he would strenuously deny the possibility, and might challenge me to test whether I could hear the noise; but I have no dissociated water-divining personality unhampered by my conscious efforts and trained to pick up such indications. ”

“ One ram is sufficient to attend 25 or 30 ewes; he should be chosen from the strongest and handsomest of his species; he should have horns, for there are some rams in our climate which are without, but they are less vigorous, and less proper for propagation [I] . A good and handsome ram should have a large thick head, a wide forehead, large black eyes, broad nose, big ears, thick neck, long high body, large loins and crupper, and a long tail. The best rams are the white ones, well covered with wool on the belly, the tail, the head, the ears, and quite up to the eyes. ”

“ But when black-faced lambs began to grow common in the hornless and immaculate flocks, the feelings of the valley folks changed, and word went around that the strain of the white-faced must be kept pure. Then it was decreed that the great horned ram should no longer sire the flocks, but be hurried to the doom of his kind and go to the shambles. ”

“ When the ewe comes in while the sign is at Aries or Taurus, and the ram is not given until the second day, the ram will strongly predominate the sex. This is also especially true where the ram is a little the oldest and in a somewhat better physical condition.
Close attention shows us this law of nature very clearly, yet we have much to learn regarding it. ”

“ It is only the female sheep, the ewe, that is so dull. We all know that the male sheep, the ram, is much more wide-awake. These often have very large horns, and the wild ram knows quite well how to take care of himself and his family. They will run from danger if they have to, but if cornered can make a very good fight. Even one of our field rams has at times shown itself a good match for a bull. While much smaller in size, it is far more active and can hit a very hard blow with its bony head and big horns. ”

“ Pales herself teaches me how to breed my flocks and tells me how the black ram transforms the fleece of the white ewe in the lamb that comes to birth, that cannot reproduce the colour of its sire, so different from that of its dam, and by its ambiguous hue testifies to either parent. ”

“ Some of our greatest authorities consider that nothing can exceed the power of the ram of [pg 156] a modern ironclad, properly applied. Admiral Touchard, of the French Navy, says: “The ‘beak’ (i.e. ‘ram’) is now the principal weapon in naval combats—the ultima ratio of maritime war.” Captain Colomb, a distinguished English authority, says: “Let us just recall the fact that the serious part of a future naval attack does not appear to be the guns, but the rams.” Yet again another authority, Captain Pellew, says: “Rams are the arm of naval warfare to which I attach the chief importance. ”

“ Ralph, ralf, n. (slang) the imp of mischief in a printing-house: a raven.
Ram, ram, n. a male sheep, a tup: (astron.) Aries (q.v.) , one of the signs of the zodiac: an engine of war for battering, with a head like that of a ram: a hydraulic engine, called water-ram: a ship-of-war armed with a heavy iron beak for running down a hostile vessel.—v.t. to thrust with violence, as a ram with its head: to force together: to drive hard down:—pr.p. ram′ming; pa.t. and pa.p. rammed.—n. Ram′-head, an iron lever for raising great stones: a cuckold. ”

“ MidHG. (MidG.) ramme, f., ‘rammer, pile-driver,’ prop. identical with MidHG. ram (gen. rammes) , m., ‘ram,’ OHG. ram, rammo, m., ‘ram’ (comp. Bock, Krahn) ; corresponding to Du. ram, ‘ram, battering-ram,’ AS. ramm, E. ram. No connection with Gr. ἀρήν is possible; it is more probably allied to OIc. ramr, rammr, ‘strong, sharp, powerful.’ See the following word.
rammeln, vb., ‘to buck, rut, ram, force in,’ from MidHG. rammeln, OHG. rammalôn, ‘to rut’; akin to Rammler, ‘buck rabbit,’ from MidHG. rammeler, ‘ram during the rutting season.’ A derivative of the cognates discussed under Ramme. ”

“ A convolution of the horn of a ram sometimes so presses in upon the side of the head or neck that it is necessary to shave or rasp it away on the under side, to prevent ultimately fatal effects. The point of the horn of both ram and ewe both frequently turn in so that they will grow into the flesh, and sometimes into the eye, unless shortened. The toe-nippers will often suffice on the thin extremity of a horn ”

“ Then men went forward, carrying timbers like battering rams. They hit one machine and had their ram jerked from their grasp and hurled into the air behind the line of machines and attacked them with fists. ”

“ The skulls of rams are well adapted to the terrible beating they take in battle. The top front of the skull is double, having a layer of bone, then a space, then another layer of bone surrounding the brain case. In addition, the rams have a one-inch or more layer of shock-absorbing cartilage on the skull in back of the horns, joining the head and the backbone. Ram horns are not lost each year as are the antlers of deer and elk. Rather, they furnish a good indication of the age of the sheep, as they add a definite ridge or ring to the horn in its lengthening growth each fall season. ”

“ Each is admitted once to the ram for which she is marked, and then goes out at the opposite end of the alley from which they entered, into a field separate from that containing the flock from which she was taken. A powerful and vigorous ram, from three to seven years old, and properly fed, can thus be made to serve from one hundred and fifty to even two hundred ewes, with no greater injury than from running loose with fifty or sixty. ”

“ They had not all been drowned.
You parents all that children have,
And you, too, that have none,
If you would have them safe abroad,
Pray keep them safe at home.
[302]
THE WONDERFUL DERBY RAM.
As I was going to Derby all on a market day,
I met the finest ram, sir, that ever was fed upon hay;
Upon hay, upon hay, upon hay;
I met the finest ram, sir, that ever was fed upon hay.
This ram was fat behind, sir, this ram was fat before;
This ram was ten yards round, sir; indeed he was no more;
No more, no more, no more;
This ram was ten yards round, sir; indeed he was no more. ”

“ Again, sometimes, combined with the ram and its framework was a moveable tower containing soldiers, who at once fought the enemy on a level, and protected the engine from their attacks. Fire was the weapon usually turned against the ram, torches, burning tow, or other inflammable substances being cast from the walls upon its framework, which, wherever it was of ozier or of wood, could be easily set alight and consumed. ”

“ The chief heraldic difference between the ram and the sheep, to some extent, in opposition to the agricultural distinctions, lies in the fact that the ram is always represented with horns and the sheep without. The lamb and the ram are always represented with the natural tail, but the sheep is deprived of it. ”

“ Ram was used to the business, and he went off at a trot, breasted the hill, dived down into the hollow, and then passing men going and coming, made for the Hoze, entered by the side door, made his way along a stone passage, and then down into a huge vault with groined roof lit by a couple of lanthorns hanging from hooks. ”

“ Aries, the first sign in the zodiac, A 8, F 386.
Rammish, adj. ramlike, strong-scented, G 887. Cf. Icel. ramr, strong, fetid; which is probably related to A.S. ramm, a ram.
Rampeth, pr. s. (lit. ramps, romps, rears, but here) rages, acts with violence, B 3094. We should now say—'She flies in my face.' The following quotation, in which rampe means an ill-conditioned woman, a romp, is much to the purpose. ”

“ The thunder was an old mother sheep, and the lightning was her son, a ram. Whenever the ram got angry he used to go about and burn houses and knock down trees; he even did damage on the farms, and sometimes killed people. ”

“ The ram will be favorable to speed, without destroying the nautical qualities of a ship. As soon as one power shall have adopted this terrible weapon, all others must accept it, under pain of evident inferiority, and thus combats will become combats of ram against ram. ”

“ As the ram gives his blow from the summit of the parietal and the posterior portion of the frontal bones on the top of his head, and not from the forehead, he is obliged to crouch his head so low when he makes his onset that he does not see forward well enough to swerve suddenly from his right line, and a few quick motions to the right and left enable one to escape him. ”

“ A ram should receive the equivalent of from half a pint to a pint of oats daily, when worked hard. They are much more conveniently fed when kept in huts. If suffered to run at large, they should be so thoroughly tamed that they will eat from a measure held by the shepherd. Careful breeders thus train their stock-rams, from the time they are lambs. ”

“ A ram lamb should not be altered until he is five months old, nor yet in very hot or very cold weather. Those which you wish to keep for rams should be chosen as far as possible from dams who are in the habit of having twin lambs. ”

“ The ram was resting on a ledge of rock elevated above the level of the valley. Even at a distance of half a mile it was evident to Art that the ram had seen him, so Young studied the sheep and the country carefully before deciding what plan to pursue.
From the lay of the land it was plain that no concealment was possible and no detour or ambush could be employed. The glasses showed that the ram was a fairly old specimen and had a very sophisticated look. In fact, to Art he looked conceited and had an expression that said: "There is a man, but I am a pretty wise old sheep ”

“ To protect those who were operating it, a wooden roof was built over it and the whole mounted on wheels. The ram varied in length from 60 to 120 feet, the head sometimes weighing over a ton, and as many as a hundred men were needed to manage it. ”

“ Newton, "to observe the low estimate which is made of the qualities of the ill-fated sheep. In his wild state, he is as respectable for strength and courage, as his size entitles him to be. I lately saw a ram in Piccadilly, much taller than the common ones, measuring nearly three feet four inches, to the top of the head, exclusively of the horns, covered with hair, every where strong and coarse, but long and shaggy at the mane. ”