Page:Amusing stories of animals.pdf/20

 But with regard to their natural affection, the instances that might be mentioned are without number, stupid and actionless creatures as they are. When one loses its sight in a flock of short sheep, it is rarely abandoned to itself in that hapless and helpless state. Some one always attaches to it, and by bleating calls it back from the precipice, the lake, the pool, and all dangers whatever. There is a disease among sheep, called by shepherds the Breakshugh, a sort of deadly dysentry, which is as infectious as fire in a flock. Whenever a sheep feels itself seized by this, it instantly absents itself from all the rest, shunning their society with the greatest care; it even hides itself, and is often very hard to be found. Though this propensity can hardly be attributed to natural instinct, it is, at all events, a provision of nature of the greatest kindness and beneficence.

Though this animal is sometimes found to f from the approach of man, it is at other tim found equally ready to attack the human specie as appears from the account of the loss of M Munro, son of Sir Hector Munro, bart. who shocking death carries a melancholy intere along with it, which will cause it long to be rmembered. This fatal occurrence happened Bengal, in the East Indies, in the year 179