VARIETIES OF THE DOG. 65 



mountain sheep from Westmoreland, and took with him a young sheep- 

 dog who had never made the journey before. From his assistant being 

 ignorant of the ground, he experienced great difficulty in having the flock 

 s topped at the various roads and lanes he passed in their way to the neigh- 

 bourhood of London. 



In the next year the same shepherd, accompanied by the same dog, 

 brought up another flock for the gentleman who had had the former one. 

 On being questioned how he had got on, he said much better than the 

 year before, as his dog now knew the road, and had kept the sheep from 

 going up any of the lanes or turnings that had given the shepherd so much 

 i rouble on his former journey. The distance could not have been less 

 rJian 400 miles. a 



Buffon gives an eloquent and faithful account of the sheep-dog : " This 

 animal, faithful to man, will always preserve a portion of his empire and 

 :i degree of superiority over other beings. He reigns at the head of his 

 rlock, and makes himself better understood than the voice of the shepherd. 

 .'-Safety, order, and discipline are the fruits of his vigilance and activity. 

 They are a people submitted to his management, whom he conducts and 

 protects, and against whom he never employs force but for the preservation 

 of good order." " If we consider that this animal, notwithstanding his 

 agliness and his wild and melancholy look, is superior in instinct to all 

 others ; that he has a decided character in which education has compara- 

 tively little share ; that he is the only animal born perfectly trained for 

 the service of others ; that, guided by natural powers alone, he applies 

 himself to the care of our flocks, a duty which he executes with singular 

 .issiduity, vigilance, and fidelity ; that he conducts them with an admirable 

 intelligence which is a part and portion of himself; that his sagacity asto- 

 nishes at the same time that it gives repose to his master, while it requires 

 s^reat time and trouble to instruct other dogs for the purposes to which 

 they are destined : if we reflect on these facts we shall be confirmed in the 

 opinion that the shepherd's dog is the true dog of nature, the stock and 

 model of the whole species." b 



THE DROVER'S DOG 



bears considerable resemblance to the sheep-dog, and has usually the 

 same prevailing black or brown colour. He possesses all the docility 

 of the sheep-dog, with more courage, and sometimes a degree of ferocity, 

 exercised without just cause upon his charge, while he is in his turn cruelly 

 used by a brutal master. 



There is a valuable cross between the colley and the drover's dog in 

 Westmoreland, and a larger and stronger breed is cultivated in Lincoln- 

 shire ; indeed it is necessary there, where oxen as well as sheep are usually 

 consigned to the dog's care. A good drover's dog is worth a considerable 

 sum ; but the breed is too frequently and injudiciously crossed at the fancy 

 of the owner. Some drovers' dogs are as much like setters, lurchers, and 

 hounds, as they are to the original breed. 



Stories are told of the docility and sagacity of the drover's dog even 

 more surprising than any that are related of the sheep-dog. The Ettrick 

 Shepherd says, that a Mr. Steel, butcher in Peebles, had such implicit 

 dependence on the attention of his dog to his orders, that whenever he put 



8 Jesse's Gleanings, vol, i. p. 93. b Buffon's Natural History vol. v. p. 314 



F 



