THE MASTIFF. 



would be almost impracticable. It has been forcibly said by a competent 

 authority that, if the work of the Dog were to be performed by men, theii* 

 maintenance would more than swallow up the entire profits of the llock. They, 

 indeed, could never direct the sheep so successfully as the Dog du'ects them ; 

 for the sheep understand the Dog better than they comprehend the shepherd. 

 The Dog serves as a medium through which the instructions of the man are 

 communicated to the flock ; and being in intelhgence the superior of his charge, 

 and the inferior of his master, he is equally capable of communicating with either 

 extreme. 



One of these Dogs performed a feat which would have been, excusably, thought 

 impossible, had it not been proved to be true. A Large flock of lambs took a 

 sudden alarm one night, as sheep are wont, unaccountably and most skittishly, to 

 do, and dashed off" among the hills in three different directions. The shepherd 

 tried in vain to recall the fugitives ; but finding all his endeavours useless, told his 

 Dog that the lambs had all run away, and then set off" himself in search of the 

 lost flock. The remainder of the night was passed in fruitless search and the 

 shepherd was returning to his master to report his loss. However, as he was on 

 the way, he saw a number of lambs standing at the bottom of a deep ravine, and 

 his faithful Dog keeping watch over them. He immediately concluded that his 

 Dog had discovered one of the three bands which had started off" so inopportunely 

 in the darkness ; but on visiting the recovered truants he discovered, to his equal 

 joy and wonder, that the entire flock was collected in the ravine, without the loss 

 of a single lamb. 



The memory of the Shepherd's Dog is singularly tenacious, as may appear 

 from the fact that one of these Dogs, when assisting his master, for the first time, 

 in conducting some sheep from Westmoreland to London, experienced very 

 great difficulty in guiding his charge among the many cross-roads and bye ways 

 that intersected their route. But on the next jom-ney he found but little 

 hinderance, as he was able to remember the points which had caused him so 

 much trouble on his former expedition, and to profit by the experience which he 

 had then gained 



MASTIFF. 



The Mastiff, which is the largest and most powerful of the indigenous 

 Enghsh Dogs, is of a singularly mild and placid temper, seeming to dehght in 

 employing its gi-eat powers in aff'ording protection to the weak, vvhelhcj- they be 



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