Generally, the oldest ram is distinguished by a bell, and, when the flock moves over the hilly slopes, the Sheep walk in file after the leader, making narrow paths, which are very distinct from a distance, but are scarcely perceptible when the foot of the traveller is actually upon them. From this habit has arisen an ancient proverb, "As the sheep after the sheep, so the daughter after the mother," a saying which is another form of our own familiar proverb, "What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh." We now come to the Sheep considered with reference to its uses. First and foremost the Sheep was, and still is, one of the chief means of subsistence, being to the pastoral inhabitants of Palestine what the oxen are to the pastoral inhabitants of Southern Africa. To ordinary persons the flesh of the Sheep was a seldom-tasted luxury; great men might eat it habitually, "faring sumptuously every day," and we find that, among the glories of Solomon's reign, the sacred chronicler has thought it worth while to mention that part of the daily provision for his household included one hundred Sheep. No particular pains seem to have been taken about the cooking of the animal, which seems generally to have been boiled. As, however, in such a climate the flesh could not be kept for the purpose of making it tender, as is the case in this part of the world, it was cooked as soon as the animal was killed, the fibres not having time to settle into the rigidity of death. Generally, when ordinary people had the opportunity of tasting the flesh of the Sheep, it was on the occasion of some rejoicing,--such, for example, as a marriage feast, or the advent of a guest, for whom a lamb or a kid was slain and cooked on the spot, a young male lamb being almost invariably chosen as less injurious than the ewe to the future prospects of the flock. Roasting over a fire was sometimes adopted, as was baking in an oven sunk in the ground, a remarkable instance of which we shall see when we come to the Jewish sacrifices. Boiling, however, was the principal mode; so much so, indeed, that the Hebrew word which signifies boiling is used to signify any kind of cooking, even when the meat was roasted. The process of cooking and eating the Sheep was as follows. The animal having been killed according to the legal form, the skin was stripped off, and the body separated joint from joint, the right shoulder being first removed. This, it will be remembered, was the priest's portion; see Lev. vii. 32: "The right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings." The whole of the flesh was then separated from the bones, and chopped small, and even the bones themselves broken up, so that the marrow might not be lost.