46 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



a thorough type of a collie, which I fancy would be useful 

 to cross with the somewhat effeminate-headed animals so 

 popular now. Black and tan in colour, with little white 

 about him, his coat was dense and close underneath, harder 

 on the surface ; he was a big dog, with moderate ears, rather 

 slow in his movements, a little sour in his expression, but 

 with a skull and face that denoted more than ordinary 

 intelligence, a stamp of animal more likely to be useful as 

 an assistant to the drover rather than to the shepherd. As 

 a fact, the best of these early-day sheep dogs were picked 

 up by their exhibitors in the cattle-markets of our country 

 and larger towns, whither the farmers and dealers had 

 brought them with their sheep or other live stock. They 

 had been bred without any idea as to pedigree, and when 

 anything more than usually good looking came to be 

 produced such was rather by reason of good luck than 

 otherwise. 



Allusion has already been made to that excellent dog 

 "Cockie/' from whom are descended almost all the best 

 collies of the present day, and what old Jock and Old Trap 

 were in fox terriers, old Cockie was certainly in sheep dogs, 

 well nigh the progenitor of the present race of his variety. 

 History does not tell us where he was bred. The Kennel 

 Club Stud-book makes pretence of doing so, but it is 

 quite as wrong in printing that he was bred by Mr. W. H. 

 Johnson, of Eccles, as it is in stating (a gross printer's 

 error) that he was born in 1368! Mr. W. White was the 

 first man who showed the dog, which he did with an extra- 

 ordinary amount of thoroughly deserved success, for Cockie 

 was certainly by far the best dog of his day, and were he 

 as young and fit now as when I saw him win in a large 

 class at Carlisle in 1870, there is no dog to-day who could 



