174 PASTORAL DOGS, ETC. 
which is also smooth in coat. He is said to resemble his rough 
brother in all other respects, but certainly the numerous specimens 
I have seen are without the foxy characteristics in any marked 
degree. You cannot say where the difference is, for it is so slight 
as to elude all measurements but those of the eye. Under this 
delicate organ, however, the experienced judge of animals detects 
a difference in appearance which the ordinary observer would 
probably pass over. The head is not so wedge-shaped. The nose 
is not so straight, and the eyes, if not set in a straight line, are 
very slightly oblique. 
The coat differs in being short, hard, and quite smooth. 
The colour is generally a mottled grey mixed with white, but 
some celebrated breeds are black and tan; occasionally it is tan 
and white. 
The numerical value of the points is the same as in the rough 
collie. 
Il1.—_THE DROVER’S DOG. 
‘In the different grazing counties of England dogs of all sizes 
and types are employed to drive cattle, most of which are tailless 
either by nature or art. There is no doubt that in certain strains 
of the pointer, as well as the sheep and drover’s dog, the tail is 
absent beyond one or two vertebre. Such a malformation is now 
very rare in the pointer, and nearly as much so in the sheep-dog, 
and has become so part passu with the cessation of the custom of 
artificial docking. In my young days a pointer with a full tail 
was never seen, the reason given for the mutilation being that, if 
left entire, the dog would lash it to pieces, and, moreover, would 
disturb his game by the noise he made with it in the high stubbles 
of those days. So with the sheep-dog: the tax was formerly levied 
on all but bob-tails, it being supposed that no one would keep a 
mutilated dog for anything but real service. Since the tax was 
altered so as to include all dogs in its meshes, sheep-dogs have not 
been docked, and, as I said before, concomitantly with the cessa- 
tion of the operation has been the disappearance of the natural 
“bob.” But other breeds have been docked for generations with- 
out a similar result, such as the spaniel and certain breeds of 
terriers, among whom a natural “bob” is unheard of On the 
