(97.) _Early Lambs._ Though in the greater number of our breeds the arrival of the rutting season is fixed and regular, yet there are several in which pregnancy may, by proper management, be induced at any period. Of these the Dorsetshire and Wicklow varieties are the most noted, and are on this account selected for the rearing of house-lambs in the vicinity of towns, the inhabitants of which are opulent enough to create a demand for so expensive an article. The beginning of June is the time chosen for the admission of the rams, so that by the month of January the greater proportion of the ewes have yeaned. According to the plan pursued in Middlesex, "The sheep, which begin to lamb about Michaelmas, are kept in the close during the day, and in the house during the night, until they have produced twenty or thirty lambs. These lambs are then put into a lamb-house, which is kept constantly well littered with clean wheat straw; and chalk, both in lump and in powder, is provided for them to lick, in order to prevent looseness, and thereby preserve the lambs in health. As a prevention against gnawing the boards, or eating each other's wool, a little wheat straw is placed, with the ears downwards, in a rack within their reach, with which they amuse themselves, and of which they eat a small quantity. In this house they are kept with great care and attention until fit for the butcher. "The mothers of the lambs are turned, every night at eight o'clock, into the lamb-house to their offspring. At six o'clock in the morning these mothers are separated from their lambs, and turned into the pastures; and, at eight o'clock, such ewes as have lost their own lambs, and those ewes whose lambs are sold, are brought in and held by the head till the lambs by turns suck them clean: they are then turned into the pasture; and at twelve o'clock, the mothers of the lambs are driven from the pasture into the lamb-house for an hour, in the course of which time each lamb is suckled by its mother. At four o'clock, all the ewes that have not lambs of their own are again brought to the lamb-house, and held for the lambs to suck; and at eight, the mothers of the lambs are brought to them for the night.