If the dam turns round and approaches it from
even a very short distance, it will start back and run from her in fear,
and will not understand her voice when she bleats to it: at the same
time it will confidently follow after a man, dog, horse, or any other
animal moving from it. A very common experience on the pampas, in the
sheep-country, is to see a lamb start up from sleep and follow the
rider, running along close to the heels of the horse. This is
distressing to a merciful man, tor he cannot shake the little simpleton
off, and if he rides on, no matter how fast, it will keep up him, or
keep him in sight, for half a mile or a mile, and never recover its dam.
The gaucho, who is not merciful, frequently saves himself all trouble
and delay by knocking it senseless with a blow of his whip-handle, and
without checking his horse. I have seen a lamb, about two days old,
start up from sleep, and immediately start off in pursuit of a puff ball
about as big as a man's head, carried past it over the smooth turf by
the wind, and chase it for a distance of five hundred yards, until the
dry ball was brought to a stop by a tuft of coarse grass. This
blundering instiuct is quickly laid aside when the lamb has learned to
distinguish its dam from other objects, and its dam's voice from other
sounds. When four or five days old it will start from sleep, but instead
of rushing blindly away after any receding object, it first looks about
it, and will then recognize and run to its dam.
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