"About the month of September, when they intend to dispose of their draught ewes, they put all their sheep into a fold, and draw them by the hand, that is, they catch them all, viz. the ewes they design to sell any of, and clapping their hand upon the small of the back, they rub the flesh backwards and forwards between their fingers and thumb and the ends of the short ribs: if the flesh be solid and firm, they consider her as sound; if they find it soft and flabby, and if, when they rub it against the short ribs, it ripples, as we term it, that is, a sort of crackling is perceived, as if there were water or blubber in it, they are certain she is unsound. This is the most certain of all symptoms, but is not to be discerned with any degree of certainty but by an experienced hand; for although, as I have here related it, it seems a very simple affair, and easily acquired, yet it is well known that many shepherds, who have followed sheep all their lives, never arrived at any thing like certainty in judging by the hand, whilst men of superior skill will seldom be mistaken, and will draw by no other rule. Yet still it must be acknowledged that the seeds of this disease will sometimes lie so occult, as to baffle all skill, and that no man can with absolute certainty draw a stock tainted with the rot. There is another method, to which men of inferior skill resort, which is more easily acquired. They take a sheep's head between their hands, and press down the eyelids, they thereby make the sheep turn its eyeball so that they get a view of the vessels in which the eyeball rolls: if these are thin, red, and free of matter, they consider the sheep as sound; but if they are thick, of a dead white colour, and seem as if there was some white matter in them, they are confident she is rotten. This is a pretty general rule, and easily discerned; but I think it is not so certain as when they are judged by the back; for in firm healthy lands the eye of a sheep is far redder than it is in sheep upon grassy lands. And in some boggy lands the eye is never very red, be the sheep ever so sound, so that there you cannot so well judge by the eye; but when you see the eye of a sheep a good deal whiter and thicker, and more matter in it (I mean the vessels in which the eyeball rolls) than the run of the flock amongst which it feeds, you have reason to suspect it is not sound. "There is another method by which I have seen some men attempt to judge of the soundness of sheep. It is a well known fact, that when sheep are rotten the lungs swell to a greater size; they therefore lay the sheep down upon its broad side, and pressing the skin in at the flank, up below the ribs, _pretend_ to feel the lungs. But if there is anything to be learned by this I could never perceive it, and have seen some men, who pretended to know most by it, very often mistaken.