With wild times, the wild habits have returned, and the grey boar is at
once the most difficult of access, and the most ready to encounter
either dogs or men. Although the first, or thorn-hog, does the most
damage to the agriculturist because of its numbers, and its habit of
haunting the neighbourhood of enclosures, the others are equally
injurious if they chance to enter the cultivated fields.

The three principal kinds of wild sheep are the horned, the thyme, and
the meadow. The thyme sheep are the smallest, and haunt the highest
hills in the south, where, feeding on the sweet herbage of the ridges,
their flesh is said to acquire a flavour of wild thyme. They move in
small flocks of not more than thirty, and are the most difficult to
approach, being far more wary than deer, so continuously are they hunted
by the wood-dogs. The horned are larger, and move in greater numbers; as
many as two hundred are sometimes seen together.

They are found on the lower slopes and plains, and in the woods. The
meadow sheep have long shaggy wool, which is made into various articles
of clothing, but they are not numerous. They haunt river sides, and the
shores of lakes and ponds. None of these are easily got at, on account
of the wood-dogs; but the rams of the horned kind are reputed to
sometimes turn upon the pursuing pack, and butt them to death. In the
extremity of their terror whole flocks of wild sheep have been driven
over precipices and into quagmires and torrents.

Besides these, there are several other species whose haunt is local. On
the islands, especially, different kinds are found. The wood-dogs will
occasionally, in calm weather, swim out to an island and kill every
sheep upon it.