Reinagle's Sheep Dog. 25 



One would not expect to find much information on this 

 subject in the " Sportsman's Cabinet," two handsome volumes 

 admirably illustrated, by P. Reinagle, R.A., published in 

 1803 at seven guineas, and now worth considerably more 

 than that sum. Still, several pages are devoted to a 

 description of the shepherd's dog, and John Scott engraves 

 from one of Reinagle's pictures a portrait of that animal. This 

 is an old-fashioned semi-bobtailed sheep dog, grey or blue and 

 white in colour, strong in limbs, long and broad in ears, and 

 with a hard wiry-looking coat. Not a bad dog of the stamp 

 of the old-fashioned drover's dog still seen, but unpleasantly 

 light yellow eyes produce a ferocious and treacherous 

 expression which would be quite wrong at any time in an 

 animal of this variety. This dog, although usually used 

 for driving cattle, is here on the hills Welsh hills, pro- 

 bably looking after a flock of sheep, more like South- 

 downs than anything else. They are certainly neither the 

 small black-faced Welsh or Scotch sheep, nor the Herd- 

 wicks of the north of England. But artists will at times 

 take liberties with their subjects, often enough, as in this 

 instance, to the extent of quite spoiling the truthfulness 

 of what otherwise would have been a pleasant engraving. 



The writer of the article is most eulogistic in his praises 

 of the dog which he calls " a peculiar breed," now known 

 as the sheepdog in every rural district of the kingdom. It 

 is the " most timid, obedient, placid, serene, and grateful in 

 creation ; he seems studiously conscious of the purposes 

 for which he was formed, and is never so perceptibly 

 gratified as when affording the most incessant proofs of his 

 unsullied integrity. Instinctively prone to industry, he is 

 alive to the slightest sensation of his employer, and would 

 rather double and treble the watch-line of circumspection 



