THE SHEPHERD OF THE PYRENEES," 

 Rosa Bonheur called this picture, but the 

 lover of her work knows well that it was not 

 the shepherd who was the central figure in her 

 mind. For she loved animals, and brought to 

 the delineation of them a sympathy and an 

 understanding almost unmatched in the history 

 of art. She has not made of her sheep and cattle 

 mere soulless brutes, nor has she erred on the 

 other side and given them too many human 

 characteristics; but she has caught the very 

 nature of the animals and transferred it to the 

 canvas, so that every animal-lover may see it. 

 The care and affection with which she painted 

 her favorite subjects are evident in every detail. 

 The sheen on a horse's coat, the tangled roughness 

 of a lion's mane, the softness and thickness of 

 a sheep's curled wool these she loved to bring 

 out as accurately as possible. All in all, so suc- 

 cessful was this greatest of woman animal painters 

 that the person who would learn more of animals 

 could not do better than to use her pictures as 

 his text-book. 



In this picture she has made it evident that 

 the shepherd loves his sheep just as she does. 

 He must spend his days high in the mountains, 

 where week after week he sees no human being, 

 but he is not lonesome, for he has the companion- 

 ship of his flock. Even the glory of the softly 

 tinted mountain peaks cannot draw his attention 

 from the sheep, which in turn show their affection 

 by clustering about him as he sits to rest. 



L. J. B. 



