THE FEMALES OF THE SPECIES

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 3

THE FEMALES OF THE SPECIES

Maternity is 'an .interesting .phenomenon, but to study it at its most exuberant you must visit the country in spring. There it runs riot; in the farmhouses it is the topic qf conversation—for does not the lambing percentage mean the difference between poverty and sufficiency in autumn?— and the whole air is loud with the laments of mothers torn from their children or of seeking, over-anxious parents. On a <lairy. farm tue nitisic swells to a full-throated and relentless chorus that sometimes lasts with scarcely an interval for sleep for days at a time: on a sheep ; farm, except when , the house cows are deprived ot their calves, the noise is of a milder and more intermittent variety. . But how it speaks of spring! Yearly, enthusiasts write t 6 the papers about the advent of the shining cuckoo or the changing note of the tui; but to the country dweller spring must be tor ever associated with the bleating or lambs—so pathetically like the wail ot a very voung baby—and the evenings with their lengthening light bring even to city streets memories of the awkward, stiff-legged creatures prancing earnestly in little kindergarten groups on the top of gome grassy knoll, while their mothers gossip and crop the grass not far away. . Mother-love is supposed to endow its possessor with all'sorts of splendid attributes. Certainly it gives even the most nervous sheep temporary courage, so that the animals that usually scatter and flee before the onslaught ot dogs will show fight for their young. An old ewe will become particularly war-like, stamping and storming, keeping her lamb well behind her and advancing upon the attacker; she null even at times square; up to a man. and it is only a reckless shepherd that will turn His hack and bend to fasten his bootlace when an ancient ewe is feeling quarrelsome. But never could you have a worse example of the possessive type of love that stops very short of other people’s children; . the same sheep that'fusses and worries over its own lamb will butt away a poor little inoffensive stranger with persistent cruelty. ' And yet these Assorted or orphaned lambs, whose mothers have found twins not to their liking and so have-discarded one, or who have themselves perished in some hole or swamp and thrown their offspring upon a hard world, have been known to survive remarkably. A lamb that has lost its mother at a month, will yet grow into a fairly presentable sheep—not, perhaps, with a figure that either fashion or the sheep farmer admires in youth—but still it will survive and become a, hardy, undersized creature that starvation will find it hard to kill. How they do it is a mystery to the, onlooker, who sees them buffeted and chased by ewe after ewe; yet they snatch a drink here and there, waiting till tho ewe is busy with her own lamb and off her guard, living partly on grass and partly on this stolen milk, and leading a miserable, pirate existence, too feeble and too anxious to join the kindergarten parties at play, always on the look-out‘for a chance to drink. I once owned a beloved pet goat that had survived its mother’s death in this way; a party of hunters had shot the mother in the bush, but had been unable to find the kid; three months later they saw what they imagined to be the blackest lamb ever born running with a mob of ewes; closer inspection showed i it to be the missing kid, who had lived precariously all that time by stealing the lambs’ meals. They caught her and gave her to me to rear; she proved the wisest and most charming of pets;

Written by M.E.S., for the * Evening Star'

but her early hardships had left their mark, and she died, greatly lamented and sincerely mourned, at a regrettably ear ly Sho concealed a. 110*11 1 ot gold beneath an appearance so satanic that her effect upon casual drovers, whose latest port of call had been a bush pub, was chastening m the extronio. It is, of course, the custom to consider sheep proverbially as the most foolish and brainless of animals. Certainly their vacant expressions and light glassy eyes show no evidence ot intelligence, and their behaviour -at mustering time is enough to exasperate man and dog. But they have a curious intelligence about their young; in fact, so great is the miracle performed by maternity that they become for the time being almost wise. In this they are in striking contrast to human beings—at least, judged by the standards of the average head master or head mistress. Although you may be normal enough until you become a mother —even intelligent enough to he, for example, a school teacher it is a well-recognised fact that once you have produced an infant common sense and intelligence alike go by the board and vou become merely one of “ these parents ” whose shortcomings have no end. There, at least, the sheep is more fortunate; for even a hardened shepherd allows her a certain measure of wisdom when it comes to producing or rearing her young. The Bpartan behaviour of the ewe during a severe storm is well known. If her lamb is born at such a moment and is too weak or too numbed to get oil its legs, she will 'rouse it to unhappy consciousness by biting off the end of its tail. Hence the percentage of lambs with half-tails seen in any flock after stormy weather. But, having revived it in this simple but severe fashion, the mother becomes solicitous and devoted to a degree. She protects it with her own body from cold and rain, and often, if it should meet with disaster, will herself carry an SOS to the shepherd as he goes his rounds in the morning. Perhaps the lamb has been too adventurous and has fallen down a hole, or perhaps she has herself been careless, crossing a creek at a spot that is impossible for the lamb ; it has tried to follow her and been marooned on a tiny inland of shingle; siie waits anxiouslv beside it until she sees the shepherd coming and then runs bleating towards him. leading him fussily to the spot, watching the work of salvage, and then probably turning upon him or his dog for their pains, and leading the lamb away with every appearance of indignant and outraged care. Sheep vary, perhaps, more than any other animals in their care of their young. In this matter appearances are peculiarly deceptive, for often the large, well-nourished owe proves a poor or fickle mother, while the skinny, ill-conditioned creature that looks unfit to rear a lamb will .present the farmer with a splendid specimen at the end of the season. Naturally it is with the young ewes that most of the trouble occurs, for some of them make frivolous and indifferent mothers; they will walk away and leave a new-born lamb without a backward glance, or neglect it as soon as feed becomes short. But these unattractive tricks are by no means confined to the young mothers: some, ewes behave in exactly the same way vear after vear. and you will hear tho shepherds sav disgustedly that “ That old fool wouldn’t rear her lamb last, rear, and she’s up to her tricks again.” Then she is usually given a brand sign of shame and uselessness—and fattened and old in the autumn, having failed

in her primal purpose, she expiates her inefficiency in the slaughtr-house. “ But how do you remember what one sheep did? ” I have heard strangers ash the shepherd,' “You' have a thousand or two ewes to look alter, and they all look exactly alike; how can you possibly know them apart? ” The shepherd usually scratches hi.s head, looks foolish and mumbles some indistinguishable reply; for it would be rude to remind the lady that she has four children and yet manages to know one from another. For. generally speaking, a shepherd, while not. of course, knowing all his charges or eveu s half of them, by sight, can tell the ewes that show certain peculiarities—the good mother and the poor one, the ewe that always has twins, the one that produced a black lamb last year, and the old >-hecp that lambs year after year in the same hollow log. It is a mystery to the onlooker, and will remain so, but. that is because he does not spend dav after day, month after month, in the constant core of the sheep. The care is at its most strenuous in spring and particularly in the high country, where sudden storms, swollen rivers, slippery precipices, and attractively green swamps take their daily toll of the flock. Small wonder that maternity is the burning topic in the farm house or that, owing perhaps to the force of example, one meets with more large families in the country than in the town. As one harassed farmers’ wife remarked when a stranger commented on the fact that her children were none of them more than a year apart “Somehow it seems the habit in the country!