Sheep run

“ Often a sheep would get into the trail and run in front of the ponies for half an hour bleating in a frightened manner. This custom of making a needless run until exhausted and driven far from their companions speaks strongly for the small intelligence of these domestic animals. ”

“ If he looks towards the flock, ‘Ware sheep’ reminds him of his lessons. In a day or two I approach them; they begin to run: Don gets fidgety, but the warning and showing him the whip most probably controls him; if it does not, and he breaks away, I let him reach the end of the cord, and with a stentorian ‘Ware sheep,’ I pull him head over heels, haul him up, and getting hold of him, give him a second thrashing—a lesson or two more, and he, in nine cases in ten, will be broken of the habit. ”

“ They know no real mode of war, or skill in fight. Each has a poor lean horse, which is not fit to do good work. Our chief gave some of us leave to go out and hunt as they call it, and what was it but to hunt sheep! These sheep are wild and swift of foot, but they will not run far, and you are sure of sport when you start in the chase. They go in flocks of a score, or two, and like true sheep, keep close when they fly. In this sort of chase it was our hap to meet with some two score of the wild hordes, but what sort of prey they had come to hunt I know not. ”

“ Great mobs of travelling sheep constantly passed through the run, eating up the grass and vexing the soul of the manager. By law, sheep must travel six miles per day, and they must be kept to within half-a-mile of the road. Of course we kept all the grass near the road eaten bare, to discourage travellers from coming that way.
Such hapless wretches as did venture through Buckalong used to try hard to stray from the road and pick up a feed, but old Sandy was always ready for them, and would have them dogged right through the run. ”

“ He realized at once the truth of a fact he had heard long ago,—that sheep, above all other domestic animals, are dependent upon men for their very lives. A horse may run freely in the waste places, fighting off with slashing fore feet and terrible teeth such wild enemies as molest it. The cattle can range far in comparative safety: for even the great grizzly has been known to avoid the horned steer. ”

“ A perfect run out should be in the form of a good wide circle all the way until he gets well behind the sheep. Then he should double back behind the sheep when he sees he has them all rounded up, and he should be allowed to move them a little before you put him down. ”

“ Where one sheep leaps over the others leap after him, where one man rushes on shouting ‘Hurrah’ the others shout and rush after him, and where one dashes down his musket into the corn in order to run away the others run after him. ”

“ I saw two or three of them, in the course of this drive to Les Baux, meandering about, looking behind, and calling upon the sheep in this way to follow, which the sheep always did, very promptly, with ovine unanimity. Nothing is more picturesque than to see a slow shepherd threading his way down one of the winding paths on a hillside, with his flock close behind him, necessarily expanded, yet keeping just at his heels, bending and twisting as it goes, and looking rather like the tail of a dingy comet. ”

“ The water, running through wet places, could be heard distinctly trickling among roots and coarse grasses and patches of rush, as well as the quick cropping of sheep and occasional scuttering of their feet over muddy bits of path; and along the track from the direction of Llangarth came the dull thud of a horse’s advancing hoofs and the constant sneezing of the animal as he tried in vain to blow the clinging damp from his nostrils. ”

“ Over the field the bright air clings and tingles,
In the gold sunset while the red wind swoops;
Upon the nibbled knolls and from the dingles,
The sheep are gathering in frightened groups.
From the wide field the laggards bleat and follow,
A drover hurls his cry and hooting laugh;
And one young swain, too glad to whoop or hollo,
Is singing wildly as he whirls his staff.
Now crowding into little groups and eddies
They swirl about and charge and try to pass;
The sheep-dog yelps and heads them off and steadies
And rounds and moulds them in a seething mass. ”

“ And never for a moment had the sounds ceased, of the creaking of wagons, and the squish, squish of oxen-hoofs pressing glutinous mud. Sometimes my horse would stumble, in the dark, over a little flock of sheep that was being driven with a convoy for the purposes of food; or a scared and tiny shrew mouse, absorbed in its own affairs, would dart across the road and escape death by a miracle. ”

“ It certainly had horns, but the sight of half a dozen ordinary sheep huddled together in the background revealed to my obtuse consciousness the fact that my game was a ram, which was guarding a little flock of domestic sheep similar to those with which we are all familiar.
Shall victory be wrested from defeat? Our boys needed meat, and I could tumble a sheep's carcass down the mountain side. ”

“ There we rested awhile, now looking clown at the sunlight dancing in the shallows, and now gazing at the ruined farm and the mountain rising behind in steep crags of barren rock. Far up the valley to the west a flock of sheep was coming white from the shearing, bleating as they spread out along the hill-side. ”

“ The sheep are turned away from us here, and it is not necessary for the shepherd and his dog to hold them back. There is no young and tender grass to tempt them, and they are going home. There are many young lambs with the flock now, born since their mothers went out to pasture, and they lag behind the rest as if the journey were a long one. We can almost hear the shrill bleating of the little lambs mingled with the deeper calls of the sheep as they move along the road. ”

“ Sheep on the march have one invariable position, either among the leaders, middlers or tailers, and until each animal has found his exact post, nothing whatever can be done with him.
Until night fell the animals fed on the dry 46 bunch-grass, and then, under the trotting of the dogs, took position on the brow of a rising hill, as though bedding down for the night. But all did not rest, for perhaps fifty remained standing in the perpetual flock-watch. ”

“ As a flock of sheep, by all moving on regularly in one united mass, with their feet smooth down the roughnesses and entanglements of the way, breaking down the entrapping brambles, clearing away the furze and tripping briers, leaving behind them a plain and open track, trodden down and freed of obstructions, stones, and stumbling-blocks, so that the weak and crippled are not turned aside or overthrown ”

“ The third operator has almost finished his sheep, which, as its dark gray fleece slips away from its pink-and-white neck and shoulders, suggests a rather décolletée dowager in the act of removing her theatre-cloak in the stalls. Sheep, already shorn, lie and pant in shamed and shivering bewilderment, one or two nibble the blades of grass, as if to assure themselves that that resource is still open to them. ”

“ Running at top speed, Shep circled around the flock to Hugh's side. The man was standing up to receive him. He had seen his speeding form a long way off through the dim clouds of smoke: the only creature that moved in the whole breadth of the forest. The sheep themselves were making no further effort to flee from the flames. ”

“ A sound of human and canine voices comes now to the ear; and turning an outstanding rock, we come immediately to a busy scene. It is a sheep-washing; to the clamour of dogs, and the whistling and shouting of shepherds, are added the bleatings of two thousand sheep. One drove is on the hillside above marshalled by a pair 114 of collies, another is below, threading an almost unseen track toward some distant holding. A shepherd is in charge of these, his dogs scouting to right and left. No straggler can bolt into the confusion of sheep in the little glen. ”

“ The latter comprehending that the game was up, vaulted upon their mustangs and sped away like an arrow over the prairie, firing as they rode. In a few minutes, the entire body of sheep was in motion to the northward. ”

“ Thousands of sheep, brought back by the shepherds and urged on by the dogs, are anxiously and haphazardly and breathlessly scurrying about towards the folds. I am overrun by them and they barge into me as I am caught up in a maelstrom of woollen curls, and bleating. It was an ocean swell of sheep that seems to carry away the shepherds on leaping waves of wool.... Behind the flock, friendly footsteps and joyful voices are heard. The shack fills up, and becomes lively, and boisterous. The kindling blazes on the fire. The more tired they are; the more they laugh. ”

“ When low-lying lightning-flashes cracked across the heaths, one saw flocks of sheep stand motionless, their heads hidden between their fore-feet, presenting their tails tucked in and their shaggy quarters to the showers of rain and hail beaten up by the wind. ”

“ The opponents race at each other, leaping into the air for the final, powerful crash of horns, which may be heard a mile away. After a number of such encounters, the smaller or weaker sheep gives up and walks away. ”

“ When the horns grow to a great length, forming a complete curve, the tips project on both sides of the head so as to prevent the ram from feeding. This, with their great weight, causes the sheep to dwindle to a mere skeleton and die. ”

“ When the flock is taken to the Alps, the sheep, instead of being driven before the shepherd, regularly follow him as he marches majestically in front,—tall, thin, sunburnt, and dirty,—armed with his long iron-pointed stick. ”

“ The white sheep did not stop to think. He gave a great jump, and leaped in too. Down, down, down he fell, on to a heap of great sharp stones. Both he and the black sheep were much hurt. They could not get out, and were forced to lie there in great pain. By and by some men came by, and saw the sheep in the pit. The men got them out, and took them back to the field, and sent for some one to see what could be done for them.
The horse and the cow, in great grief, came and stood by the side of the white sheep as he lay on the grass. ”

“ Sheep are all alike, but cattle are all different. The drovers on the road get to know the habits and tendencies of each particular bullock—the one-eyed bullock that pokes out to the side of the mob, the inquisitive bullock that is always walking over towards the drover as if he were going to speak to him, the agitator bullock who is always trying to get up a stampede and prodding the others with his horns. ”

“ He sinks to his waist in mud. At certain times, when no high tides are expected, sheep are driven upon these marshes and thrive. They manage to leap the runnels, and the shepherd is aware when danger threatens, and they must be driven off. ”

“ At times this drift brought with it a sound or two: sheep bleated far aloft, harness leather creaked near by, a plowman upbraided his trampling horses, a dog barked in the distance, a sea gull miaowled overhead. ”

“ Most accidents appear to befall them while they are fleeing through territory with which they are unacquainted. In strange places they are likely to have trouble with loose stones, or they may be compelled to leap without knowing the nature of the landing-place.
A sheep, like a rabbit or a fox, does his greatest work in evading pursuers in territory with which he is intimately acquainted. ”

“ I got them strung out beautifully half a mile long, and they were making good time, when suddenly a confounded sheep herder and his dog met the lead steers and the procession was at once a scene of the most utter confusion. It should be explained here that, in the case of a small herd thus strung out, its guidance, if left to only one man, may be done from the rear by simply riding out sharply to one side or the other and calling to the lead cattle. How I did curse that wretch and his dog. A man on foot was bad enough; but a man on foot with a dog! ”

“ Aside from the fact that the horse breeders and cattle men were pioneers on the old open range, and naturally resented the coming of the lowly sheep herders, there is another reason for the hatred. Sheep, as I have said, nibble the grass to its very roots. And then the small and sharp feet of the sheep cut into the turf and so chop what few roots that are left as to prevent a new crop of grass from growing—the fodder dies off. ”

“ While I have been thinking, a flock of sheep has stolen quietly into the space enclosed by the entrenchment. With the iron head of his crook placed against his breast, and the handle aslant to the ground, the shepherd leans against it, and looks down upon the reapers. He is a young man, and has a bright intelligent expression on his features. ”

“ Or, if he climbs higher yet, and overlooks the rounded shoulders which stretch up from the passes toward the highest pinnacles of all—he will very likely see far below him, lying on the hill and commanding a view miles in extent in every direction, a group of nine, ten or a dozen sheep peacefully resting in the midday sun. Those that he sees will be almost all of them ewes and young animals. Perhaps there may be a young ram or two whose horns have already begun to curve backward, but for the most part they are females and young. ”

“ The Sheep eating the acorns, inadvertently frayed and tore the cloak. The Shepherd coming down, and seeing what was done, said, "O you most ungrateful creatures! you provide wool to make garments for all other men, but you destroy the clothes of him who feeds you. ”