110 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. xiv.. 



expression in his face plainly saying, " What have you done now? 

 you have shot a cow or something." But on my explaining 

 to him that the hind was fair game, he ran up to her and seized 

 her by the throat like a bulldog. Ever afterwards he was pe- 

 culiarly fond of deer-hunting, and became a great adept, and of 

 great use. When I sent him to assist two or three hounds to 

 start a roe as soon as the hounds were on the scent, Rover 

 always came back to me and waited at the pass : I could enume- 

 rate endless anecdotes of his clever feats in this way. 



Though a most aristocratic dog in his usual habits, when stay- 

 ing with me in England once, he struck up an acquaintance with 

 a ratcatcher and his curs, and used to assist in their business 

 when he thought that nothing else was to be done, entering into 

 their way of going on, watching motionless at the rats' holes 

 when the ferrets were in, and as the ratcatcher told me, he was 

 the best dog of them all, and always to be depended on for showing 

 if a rat was in a hole, corn-stack, or elsewhere ; never giving a 

 false alarm, or failing to give a true one. The moment, however, 

 that he saw me, he instantly cut his humble friends, and denied 

 all acquaintance with them in the most comical manner. 



The shepherds' dogs in the mountainous districts often show 

 the most wonderful instinct in assisting their masters, who, with- 

 out their aid, would have but little command over a large flock 

 of wild black-faced sheep. It is a most interesting sight to see 

 a clever dog turn a large flock of these sheep in whichever 

 direction his master wishes, taking advantage of the ground, and 

 making a wide sweep to get round the sheep without frightening 

 them, till he gets beyond them, and then rushing barking from 

 flank to flank of the flock, and bringing them all up in close array 

 to the desired spot. When, too, the shepherd wishes to catch a 

 particular sheep out of the flock, I have seen him point it out 

 to the dog, who would instantly distinguish it from the rest, and 

 follow it up till he caught it. Often I have seen the sheep rush 

 into the middle of the flock, but the dog, though he must neces- 

 sarily have lost sight of it amongst the rest, would immediately 

 single it out again, and never leave the pursuit till he had the 

 sheep prostrate, but unhurt, under his feet. I have been with a 

 shepherd when he has consigned a certain part of his flock to a dog 

 to be driven home, the man accompanying me farther on to the 



