10 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



which lies all night on the doorstep." In the old days, 

 amongst the Romans, wolves increased to such an extent 

 that owners of sheep were obliged to keep a pack of fifty 

 dogs to guard the flocks. Conradus Heresbach selected 

 males to perform these duties in preference to females, 

 although, the same writer says, u splayed bitches are equally 

 as watchful and most ready with their teeth." Heresbach, 

 contrary to Aldrovandus, preferred white as the desirable 

 colour for a sheep dog, in order that he might better be 

 distinguished from a distance by wolves and thieves, and 

 avoided. Varro recommends a sheep dog of large size, 

 and loud in his bark. Niphus, like Virgil, calls the sheep 

 dog " mastivus," and the shepherds' dogs of Epirus were 

 celebrated for their excellence. 



Aldrovandus proceeds to say that as dogs of this class 

 have to spend most of their lives along with flocks and 

 herds, they are to be entirely fed on whey. Sometimes 

 they are given barley meal cooked in milk and water, and 

 occasionally beans are mixed therewith. Columella, another 

 ancient authority on the matter of sheep dogs, forbids them 

 touching the flesh of the animals they look after in order 

 that they may not become savage towards them ; and 

 a third writer, at a little later period, says it is " very 

 difficult to call in sheep dogs that have once acquired a 

 taste for raw meat." 



Although some of these notes from Aldrovandus do not 

 bear very closely upon my subject, others do, and collec- 

 tively they prove that the shepherd's dog of his day and 

 preceding it, was more or less a powerful, savage animal, 

 to be feared by marauders either biped or quadruped. 

 Not a word is said as to his sagacity in driving his flocks 

 or herds, or collecting the stragglers which fresh sweet 



