24 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



there is a fair quantity of coat, a broad white collar, the 

 blaze down the face; and had this shepherd's dog been 

 given a milder and more intelligent expression of coun- 

 tenance, his form appears quite good enough to have 

 taken a prize at modern shows had he lived to-day. 



Unfortunately, the painstaking Bingley is woefully meagre 

 in his letter-press description, and all he does is to give 

 the shepherd's dog a character for instinct and sagacity 

 "superior to all others, for, whilst the rest require great 

 care and attention to train them to labour, this animal 

 applies himself, without any difficulty, to that which he is 

 usually appropriated. His usefulness alone has been the 

 recommendation to preserve the species, since no dog can 

 go through a more extensive variety of duty, nor does any- 

 one perform more services to his master than this." 



This is not altogether complimentary to the handsome- 

 ness of our friend, whose actual beauty at the present day 

 places him on quite a fashionable basis, and makes him one 

 of our most popular varieties of the dog. Nor is Bingley 

 quite correct as to a shepherd's dog requiring no training. 

 Some strains there are that do require less than others, 

 but both training and continued work are required to make 

 even the most sagacious of his race perform his difficult 

 duties in a proper fashion. Had working trials for sheep- 

 dogs been in practice when the " Memoir of British Quadru- 

 peds" was compiled, its reverend and respected author 

 would not have written as he has done. He does not 

 allude in any case to the shepherd's dog as the collie, so 

 here again we have proof that, excepting, perhaps, locally 

 in parts of Scotland and in the extreme north of England, 

 where Thomas Bewick dwelt, the shepherd's dog was not 

 known by such a name at that time. 



