It may be asked, Does not the usual impulse of natural feeling induce the mother to prevent the destruction of her offspring? In reply, it may be said, That the poor, helpless, timid creature bleats, but makes no effort to defend her young one from the furious attacks of the “mob.” The poorest and leanest ewes are those remarked as being most eager to devour the lambs of others; they have been brought into that miserable state, from having previously been fine fat ewes, merely from the custom of devouring the saline earth. The head shepherd of Mr. Dutton’s flocks told me that there was not a finer flock of sheep in the country than those, previous to their devouring the salt clay and earth; after which they “fell off in condition,” until they became in the miserable state in which I now saw them. The following is another, among too many instances of their voracity. An ewe had just commenced lambing, was in labour, but no portion of the young one had yet been born, when from fifteen to twenty ewes were seen running towards her; the shepherds perceiving this, rescued the ewe, and remained near her until she had done lambing; the other ewes kept at a short distance, occasionally advancing to make an attack upon the young one. The lamb was brought forth, and when perfectly cleaned and dry, was placed in the sheep-fold, in the evening with the mother, as usual, but the other ewes then took no notice either of the mother or young one. Although the breeding ewes suffer both in health, and acquire this morbid appetite of devouring the progeny of others, and their own cleanings, yet rams, wethers, and ewes, _not breeding_, fatten to an astonishing degree upon the same pasturage, where breeding ewes had become miserably lean, and died in numbers from being in so low a condition. On one of these spots, I saw a wether killed from a flock, which was so fat as to render the meat almost uneatable; and Mr. Manton, who, from the cause before-mentioned, had been obliged to remove all his breeding ewes from his pastures about the Murrumbidgee, would, nevertheless, send his rams and wethers on the luxuriant pasturage, as the best place to fatten them; indeed, all concurred that rams, wethers, and even the ewes, if not breeding, thrive and fatten upon that pasturage land about the Murrumbidgee country, which proves so destructive to breeding-ewes and their lambs. Mr. Manton had sheep on the limestone ranges, near the banks of the Murrumbidgee river; they became impoverished, and acquired the morbid appetite for devouring the young lambs; but when he removed them to a granite soil, in the vicinity of Yas Plains, they speedily recovered their former good condition, and the morbid appetite left them, more probably from there being no “water holes” containing saline earth about the place, than from the change of strata; however, they never returned to the unnatural practices, as was so frequent on the sheep-runs at the former place.