OCR Text |
Show English Skylarks Attack Sheep Edward Lisle, in Observations in Husbandry, tells, in the quaint lan-, lan-, guage of his time, of the effects of ' an encounter of a skylark's nest by a sheep. "I had an ewe in June i (anno 1701) that broke out moft mif-: mif-: erably about her eyes, and had a watery running, with a swelling, with which fhe was blind, and continued con-tinued for fix weeks; we could not Imagine what was the matter with :her. My fhepherd faid, he believed fhe had been lark-spurred. I afked what that was; he faid, at this time of the year, when the larks build their nefts, if a sheep fhould come to near to a lark's neft as to trod on it, the lark would fly out, and fpur at the fheep, and if the fpur made a fcratch any where on the eye or note, it was perfect poifon, and would rankle in fuch manner as this ewe's eye did; this, faid he, is certainly cer-tainly true, and other fhepherds would tell me the fame." |