And Jacob did separate the lambs
The ringstraked, speckled, and spotted; and set the faces
of the flocks,
that were all white, towards the ringstraked, and all the
brown in the flock of Laban;
either to go before those that were all white, that they by
looking at them might conceive and bring forth such, which was
another artifice of Jacob's to increase his own sheep; or else he
set at the water troughs the white sheep on one side of them, and
on the opposite side the speckled ones that the same effect might
also be produced the more successfully both by the rods and by
the speckled lambs: and he put his own flocks by
themselves, and put them not unto Laban's
cattle;
partly that they might not be mixed together, but kept distinct,
that what was his property might be discerned from Laban's; and
partly, lest his spotted ones, being mixed with Laban's white
sheep, by continual looking at them, should conceive and bring
forth such likewise, and so his flocks be lessened.
Genesis 30:40
