100 EEMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN". 



absent. On the second or third day the dog returned, 

 and taking Mr. TNIacarthur's father by the coat, pulled 

 him towards the door, but without being attended to. 



" He then went to his grandfather, and pulled him in 

 the same way by the coat, but without being attended to ; 

 he next went to one of the men-servants, and tugged him 

 also by the coat. Conceiving at last there was something 

 particular which the dog wanted, they agreed to follow 

 him ; this seemed to give him great pleasure, and he 

 ran barking and frisking about before them till he led 

 them to a cow-shed in the middle of a field. Thert- 

 they found the cow fixed by the horns to a beam, from 

 which they immediately extricated her and conducted 

 her home, much exhausted for want of food. It is ob- 

 vious that but for the sagacity of this faithful animal she 

 certainly would have died." Blaine gives the following 

 description of the colley of Scotland, which he says is 

 a dog deservedly prized, though much smaller than 

 either the English sheep dog or the drover's cattle dog. 

 " The ears are never wholly pendent in any of the race ; 

 but in the British varieties, and many others also, they 

 are half erected or half pricked, as it is called. The 

 colour also is very generally grey, more or less dark. 

 The natural tail of the British breeds is bushy, some- 

 what pendent and recurved, such as is seen in the colley ; 

 but in England the custom has so long prevailed of 

 cutting off the stern that many of these dogs are now 

 actually born with less than half a tail * : which 

 serves to show that even the bony structure, in other 

 instances the most permanent of the whole, bends to 



* I had a breed of pointers which, when horn, never had tails more 

 than two inches or two and a-half inches in length, which, I must con- 

 fess, did not add to their beauty. 



