INTRODUCTORY 3 



wears the unmistakable stamp of distinguished 

 ancestry. 



If, by the breathing of some magic incantation, this 

 pair might be recalled to life, they would furnish 

 abundant evidence that the human race, in matters of 

 outward adornment, has lost considerably in picturesque- 

 ness ; but the heavy overcoat of the sheep dog, in all its 

 wayward shagginess, remains to a hair the fashion of 

 to-day. 



This engraving, the earliest pictured record of a 

 sheep dog with which I am acquainted, is here 

 reproduced. 



Some thirty years later, in the Sportsman's Cabinet, 

 published by W. Taplin in 1803, ma y be seen the re- 

 production of a painting by Philip Reinagle of a 

 shepherd's dog. 



The animal it depicts, judged by his surroundings 

 and measured against the sheep beside him, must have 

 been a very big one. He stands high off the ground 

 and is massive in every respect, deep in the brisket and 

 heavy in bone above the knee. His body is far too 

 long for modern ideas, his loin not nearly stout enough, 

 and he is furnished with a long, well-feathered tail. But 

 he has a broad muzzle and shapely head and a long 

 arched neck set on a capital pair of shoulders. From 

 his expression I should judge him to have been wall-eyed. 



In general appearance he resembles the giant Hima- 

 layan sheep dog rather than our bob-tail, and conveys 



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