16 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



judicious crossing other exaggerated properties, which have 

 come to the neglect of other, possibly equally important, 

 points. So the changes are brought about. 



With the exception of the shepherd's dog, deerhound, 

 foxhound, and greyhound, there is not one strain of 

 British dog at the present time which bears much more 

 than a great resemblance to his variety as it was known a 

 hundred years ago. If such changes as these can be made 

 in a comparatively short time, in the first instance, brought 

 about, as I have said, almost accidentally, one may take 

 for granted that thousands of years can have produced 

 proportionate variations. Varieties have grown and are 

 still increasing. Germany has of late given us the 

 Leonberg dog; America the Chesapeke Bay dog; Britain, 

 not to be behind, has produced the Paisley terrier ; the 

 Airedale terrier, too, is a comparatively new variety, and 

 one that produces its puppies true to type and thoroughly 

 distinct in appearance from any of our other terriers. A 

 hundred years hence more changes in our dogs will have 

 been wrought, and may-be the so-called fancy varieties 

 will come to be " improved " until past recognition. 



In an earlier volume, " The Fox Terrier," published by 

 Horace Cox, 346, Strand, I showed, I fancy, pretty plainly 

 that this fashionable little dog, now white in colour, with 

 black and brown, or tan, or yellow markings, was originally 

 a pure black and tan in hue, this change having so far 

 been produced accidentally. Take our modern sheep dog, 

 the collie in fact, and examine him carefully, he will not be 

 found very far removed in expression from some of the 

 semi-wild dogs still known. The dingo for instance, the 

 ordinary Esquimaux, and some of the handsome domesti- 

 cated Chinese dogs, so-called Chow-Chows, which they are 



