104 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



variety of dog of which, as stated earlier on, the Queen 

 is a great admirer. Other gatherings are held at times in 

 various parts of the country, sometimes in connection with 

 the Dublin Dog Show, and once at the Alexandra Palace 

 in 1876, under the auspices of the Kennel Club. This was, 

 however, not altogether successful, and a chance was thus 

 lost that might have led to such meetings being made 

 annual. The only dog that did really good work here was 

 Mr. J. Thomas' red bitch Madie who won the champion 

 cup against all comers, including several from North of 

 England as well as from Wales. The representatives of 

 the latter, however, took all the honours. Colonel le Gendre 

 Starkie and Mr. John Williams were the judges. But 

 Wales and the North of England are the centres from 

 which collie trials spring, owing, no doubt, to the facilities 

 the shepherds on the hills possess of bringing their dogs 

 to a state of perfection. The wild, active, diminutive 

 Welsh sheep are excellent material upon which to train 

 the dogs, and equally good in this respect are the black 

 faces and Herdwicks of the English Lake district. 



The big, heavy sheep of the Sussex Downs, the Lincoln- 

 shire Wolds, and the Shropshire Pastures require little 

 driving or looking after. Kept in inclosed land, they have 

 not the opportunities afforded them of straying, such as 

 fall to the lot of their more plebeian cousins, who find their 

 living on the extensive commons and vast moorlands quite 

 necessary for the existence and proper preservation of 

 those mountain sheep which give us such excellent mutton. 

 Yet it is always possible to send a good flock of the proper 

 sort of sheep into any county, an example of which Mr. 

 Price set at the Alexandra Palace trials, already alluded to, 

 when one of his shepherds brought about a hundred all the 



