LESSON XXXIV.
1. We will now take a look at our friend, the sheep. See it stand there, looking so kind, and harmless, and innocent!
2. The sheep is much smaller than a cow, and in size is like a large dog. Its nose is more pointed, and its ears are smaller, than those of a cow. It has small, cloven hoofs, and it eats grass and chews its cud in the same way that a cow does.
3. Its jaws are like those of a cow, with no teeth in its upper jaw in front, and with broad, flat chewing teeth back. Like a cow, it feeds upongrass in the summer, and upon hay and grain in the winter.
4. The rams have large horns that twist about in a very curious way. Lambs are playful, like kittens, and they hop and frisk about, and they sometimes have great games with old Rover or with the cat.
Head of Merino Ram.
Head of Merino Ram.
5. Sheep are covered with a thick coat of wool, and this keeps them warm, so that they can live out-of-doors in the coldest weather. In summer their “fleece” of wool is sheared off. The wool is made into cloth, and the cloth is made up into clothes for folks to wear, so that the coat of a sheep makes the coat for a boy.
6. Besides our clothes and blankets, the sheep gives us fine, thin leather to bind books and make gloves, and tallow to make candles and soap. The flesh of sheep, which we eat, is called mutton.