en plain with its rare clumps of dwarf box. If dingoes
were reported to be about I kept my eyes open, of course, but they were
very rare in the Lachlan back blocks, and I was never able to earn the
five shillings reward for the tail of this yellow marauder. But in Texas
there are more wild animals--the coyote, the bear, the "panther" or
puma--and it is impossible to leave the sheep entirely to their own
devices, even in pastures which prevent them wandering. Nevertheless,
looking after them on fenced land is very different from being with them
daily and hourly, sleeping with them at night, following and directing
them by day, being all the time wary lest some should be divided from
the main flock by accident, or lest the whole body should spy another
sheep-owner's band and rush tumultuously into it.

But the new and unaccustomed shepherd on the prairie is apt to give
himself much unnecessary trouble. It takes some time to learn that a
flock of sheep is like a loosely-knit organism which will not separate
or divide if it can help it. It might be compared with a low kind of
jelly-fish, or even to a sea-anemone, for under favourable conditions of
sun and sky it spreads out to feed, leaving between each of its members
what is practically a constant distance. For when the weather changes
they come closer together, and any alarm puts them into a compact mass.
I have heard a gun fired unexpectedly, and then seen some 2000 sheep,
spreading loosely over an irregular circle, about half a mile in
diameter, rush for a common centre with an infallible instinct. And
then they gradually spread out again like that same sea-anemone putting
forth its filaments after being touched.

The new shepherd, however, is in constant dread lest they should
separate and divide so greatly that he will lose control of them. I have
walked many useless miles endeavouring to keep a flock within unnatural
limits before I discovered that they never went more than a certain
distance from the centre. And this distance varied strictly with the
numbers. At night time they begin to draw together, and if they are not
put in a corral or fold will at last lie down in a fairly compact mass,
remaining quiet, if undisturbed, until the approach of dawn. But if they
have had a bad day for feeding they sometimes get up when the moon rises
and begin to graze. Then the shepherd may wake up, and, finding he is
alone, have to hunt for them. As they usually feed with their h