SHEEP-DOG TRIALS 179 



The amphitheatre, of which this is the back- 

 ground, is a bright green meadow of a few acres, 

 on Tynllan Farm, in which a crowd of a couple of 

 hundred spectators stand in a great semi-circle, 

 with their backs to the road above mentioned. In 

 front of them, bounding the meadow, is a gravelly 

 burn, shallow on the left, with stepping-stones in its 

 bed, deeper to the right, and with a steep bank to- 

 wards the spectators. Immediately on the other side 

 we see the moorland, with its huge boulders lying 

 scattered in all directions, between which lie patches 

 of purple heather and clumps of fern, while here 

 and there the brown and purple tones of the land- 

 scape are relieved by the green patches of mountain 

 grass, on which the sheep love to pasture. High 

 above all, and far beyond, towers the Snowdon 

 range of rugged mountains, Snowdon itself being 

 too far back and enveloped in cloud to be seen from 

 the meadow where we are standing. Insensibly the 

 moorland slopes upward until the boulders get grey 

 and indistinct, and the purple hue of the heather is 

 lost in the distance. Half-way up the mountain 

 side a loose stone wall runs horizontally across the 

 moor. Behind this, and out of sight of the specta- 

 tors in the valley, is a pen of sheep, from which a 

 shepherd, also concealed from view, lets out three 

 sheep at a time through a gap in the wall, at a flag 

 signal from the judge in the meadow. The part 

 which each dog entered for the trial has to play is 

 to leave the meadow at word of command, cross 

 the burn, go up the hill, find the sheep, which very 

 often, from the nature of the ground, he does not 



