PREFATORY NOTE 



IT has occurred to me that Dr John Brown's 

 delightful and picturesque story of the coming 

 of Rab in his youthhood to James and Ailie 

 might very appropriately be prefixed to this 

 edition of Rab and His Friends even although 

 the author himself kept them apart, having 

 included the earlier life story in his essay 

 " Our Dogs," in Hor<e Subseciv<e. 



All the other dogs whose lives are narrated 

 in that essay had belonged to Dr Brown or 

 members of his family, and were therefore 

 naturally called " Our Dogs " ; but Rab 

 appears among them as a stranger and, in- 

 deed, the author shows a consciousness of 

 this incongruity when, in the first sentence of 

 Rab's earlier life, he says, " 1 have little right 

 to speak of him as one of c our dogs,' but 



