288 COLLIES 



whose whole ambition and consuming desire is to be help- 

 ful to man, ought to be shielded from such humiliation. 

 It is dishonouring enough to a dog to be kept merely as a 

 pet. A few years ago, fashionable young men conceived 

 a craze for collies ; many a time has one's heart burned to 

 see a collie all his potential talent lulled to indolence 

 loafing about London parks and streets at the heels of a 

 master as idle and overfed as himself. One longed to 

 give the beast a chance of putting to the test his fleet 

 sagacity, his consummate understanding of a hereditary 

 vocation. How the author of Rob and his Friends would 

 have scorned the standard of excellence decreed by modern 

 committees for the judging of collies at shows. No money 

 is spared to produce a perfect article ; more than one 

 fashionable sire has been sold for a thousand guineas. 

 But it is not the noble qualities of the race that secure a 

 prize; that goes to the animal which conforms most 

 nearly to arbitrary and trivial distinctions of colour and 

 shape. Far more satisfactory, and very interesting to 

 watch, are the trials of sheep-dogs which have been 

 instituted by some of the agricultural societies. 



Reference has been made to Rob and his Friends, a 

 little volume so well appreciated as to bar quotation ; but 

 here is a delightful paragraph from one of Dr. John 

 Brown's less-known writings, a note made as he came off 

 his beloved Minchmoor 



'We now descended into Yarrow, and forgathered with a 

 shepherd who was taking his lambs over to the great Melrose 

 fair. He was a fine specimen of a Border herd young, tall, 

 sagacious, self-contained, and free in speech and air. We got 

 his heart by praising his dog " Jed," a very fine collie, black and 

 comely, gentle and keen. " Ay, she 's a fell yin ; she can do a' 



