io6 Modern Dogs. 



it is spelled " colley," as it is sometimes even now- 

 adays. As a fact, there is no rule for spelling the 

 word, and as " colley " in many parts of the country 

 is the name of a small fresh-water fish, the loach, the 

 spelling " collie " for a sheep dog I take to be best. 

 Shakespeare uses the word in one or two instances 

 with the meaning of dark or black, thus 



Brief as the lightning in the collied night. 



The word collie is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 

 " col," black, so the black-faced sheep of the North 

 came to be called " colleys," and the dog that drove 

 or preceded them came to be a colley dog. In due 

 course the word dog was dropped, so, by easy trans- 

 formation, " colley" grown out of use as applied 

 to the sheep was adopted as a euphonious word for 

 a variety of the dog, and so remains to this day. 

 Bewick, the great wood engraver, calls this dog 

 the " coaly." 



But before Bewick gave us his charming illus- 

 trations the sheep dog or ''shepherd's hound," Cam's 

 pastor alis, was held in esteem, and in the sixteenth 

 century duly described by Dr. Caius. He says : 



Our shepherd's dog is not huge, and vast, and big, but of an 

 indifferent stature and growth, because it has not to deal with 

 the bloodthirsty wolf, since there be none in England. . 

 This dog, either at the hearing of his master's voice, or at the 

 wagging of his fist, or at his shrill and hoarse whistling and 



