710 THE DOG. 



bottom of a ravine, the faithful Sirrah watching them, and 

 looking round for relief. They thought at first that this 

 was one of the three divisions, which the dog, in this parti- 

 cular situation, had been able to master. " But what was 

 our astonishment," says the Shepherd, " when we discovered 

 by degrees that not one lamb of the whole flock was want- 

 ing ! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark, 

 is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely 

 to himself from midnight until the rising of the sun ; and if all 

 the shepherds in the Forest had been there to assist him, they 

 could not have effected it with greater propriety. All that I 

 can further say is, that I never felt so grateful to any crea- 

 ture below the sun as I did to Sirrah that morning." Anec- 

 dotes of a like kind might be multiplied without number. 

 The older shepherds of Tweeddale and the Cheviots delight 

 to tell of the fidelity and services of these their humble compa- 

 nions ; and any one who would spend a day with a shepherd of 

 Etterick, amongst his flocks on the hills, would receive more 

 remarkable information regarding the habits of dogs than 

 he could derive from all the cynegetica of Greece and Rome. 

 Beside the true Shepherd's Dog, there is a class employed 

 in the duty of conducting those innumerable flocks and herds 

 which are continually in the course of being conveyed along 

 the highways to the towns and markets. The dogs em- 

 ployed in this service are of a very mixed kind, and gene- 

 rally more muscular than the true sheep-dogs. They acquire 

 a great aptitude for their peculiar service. When conduct- 

 ing their charge, often through crowded highways and the 

 streets of towns, they keep the animals together, head then: 

 or follow them as the case may require, and make circuits, 

 that they may take their stations at the lanes and bye-ways 

 into which the animals are likely to turn. They may be seen 

 lying for hours together on our public roads, watching their 

 charge, and preventing the animals from straying away, or 

 being mixed with other passing herds, while all the time 

 their careless masters may be indulging themselves in the 



