“The most singular instance that I know of, to be quite well authenticated, is that of a black ewe, that returned with her lamb from a farm in the head of Glen-Lyon, to the farm of Harehope, in Tweeddale, and accomplished the journey in nine days.  She was soon missed by her owner, and a shepherd was despatched in pursuit of her, who followed her all the way to Crieff, where he turned, and gave her up.  He got intelligence of her all the way, and every one told him that she absolutely persisted in travelling on,—­she would not be turned, regarding neither sheep nor shepherd by the way.  Her lamb was often far behind, and she had constantly to urge it on by impatient bleating.  She unluckily came to Stirling on the morning of a great annual fair, about the end of May, and judging it imprudent to venture through the crowd with her lamb, she halted on the north side of the town the whole day, where she was seen by hundreds, lying close by the road-side.  But next morning, when all became quiet, a little after the break of day, she was observed stealing quietly through the town, in apparent terror of the dogs that were prowling about the street.  The last time she was seen on the road was at a toll-bar near St. Ninian’s; the man stopped her, thinking she was a strayed animal, and that some one would claim her.  She tried several times to break through by force when he opened the gate, but he always prevented her, and at length she turned patiently back.  She had found some means of eluding him, however, for home she came on a Sabbath morning, early in June; and she left the farm of Lochs, in Glen-Lyon, either on the Thursday afternoon, or Friday morning, a week and two days before.  The farmer of Harehope paid the Highland farmer the price of her, and she remained on her native farm till she died of old age, in her seventeenth year.

“With regard to the natural affection of this animal, the instances that might be mentioned are without number.  When one loses its sight in a flock of sheep, it is rarely abandoned to itself in that hapless and helpless state.  Some one always attaches itself 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 deadly sort of dysentery, which is as infectious as fire, in a flock.  Whenever a sheep feels itself seized by this, it instantly withdraws 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.