204 DOGS 



professed to deplore, that he owed the competency 

 which made his old age comfortable to the sagacity 

 of one particular dog. '' Bless you, sir/' he used to 

 say, " Solomon, with all his wisdom, was a fool to 

 him. If he came back to you with a wink and 

 wag of his tail, you might take your 'davit that 

 the road was clear, and mind you, he would never 

 speak unless he was sure. Blest if I don't be- 

 lieve he would have smelled out a policeman if 

 he had turned out in a surplice, and he would wind 

 a watcher from half a mile." 



I daresay, like veterans telling of their wars, 

 the old gentleman may have exaggerated the many 

 anecdotes he related of that dog's sagacity. Yet 

 I do not know, for nothing he said could surpass 

 the well-authenticated stories of the almost super- 

 human intelligence of the shepherd's dog. Read 

 the autobiography of James Hogg, the Ettrick 

 Shepherd, and his recollections of the feats of 

 his famous collies. It may be said that seeking 

 and gathering hundreds of scattered sheep in dark- 

 ness, storm, and blinding snow-drift, or that 

 ^'shepherding" in the stragglers to the folds over 

 trackless hill pastures cut up by innumerable gills 

 or gullies, is only the result of instinct developed 

 by education for generations. The dog, whether 

 trotting ahead on the hill or blinking and half 

 dreaming on the sheepskin in the chimney-corner, 

 is ever in touch with his master's mind, and turns 

 naturally to his eye. From puppyhood he has 

 been initiated in all his ways. But what is to be 



