400 THE HUNGAEIAN SHEEP DOG. 



The favorite, however distant, obeys his calls and the rest 

 follow. One or more of the dogs, with large collars armed 

 with spikes, in order to protect them from the wolves, precede 

 the flock, others skirt it on each side, and some bring up the 

 rear. If a sheep be ill or lame, or lag behind unobserved- by 

 the shepherds, they stay with it and defend it until some one 

 retm-ns in search of it. With us, dogs are often used for 

 other and worse purposes. In open, uninclosed districts they 

 are indispensable, but in others, I wish them, I confess, either 

 managed or encouraged less. If a sheep commits a fault in 

 the sight of an intemperate shepherd, or accidentally offends 

 him, it is dogged iiito obedience, the signal is given, the dog 

 obeys the mandate, and the poor sheep flies round the field to 

 escape from the fangs of him who should be his protector, 

 until it becomes half dead with fright and exhaustion, while 

 the trembling flock crowd together dreading the same fate, 

 and the churl exults in this cowardly victory over a weak 

 and defenceless animal." 



Mr. John Hare Powell, in the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania 

 Agricultural Society, describes some Spanish dogs, imported 

 with the early Merinos into this country, and then owned by 

 himself, as possessing "all the valuable characteristics of the 

 English shepherd's dog, with sagacity, fidelity and strength 

 peculiar to themselves." He adds : — " Their ferocity when 

 aroused by any intruder, their attachment to their own flock, 

 and devotion to their master, would, in the uncultivated parts 

 of America, make them an acquisition of infinite value, by 

 affording a defence against wolves, which they ready kill, and 

 vagrant cur dogs, by which our flocks are often destroyed. 

 The force of their instinctive attachment to sheep, and their 

 resolution in attacking every dog which passes near to their 

 charge, have been forcibly evinced upon my farm."* 



The HuNGAEiAiT Sheep Dog. — The following description 

 of the Hungarian Sheep Dog, occurs in Paget's " Hungary 

 and Transylvania."! — " It would be unjust to quit the subject 

 of the Puszta Shepherd without making due and honorable 

 mention of his constant companion and friend, the jiihasz- 

 hutya — the Hungarian shepherd dog. The shepherd dog is 



* Mr. Powell's paper is copied into Memoirs of the Boai'd of Agricoltnre of the 

 Stale of New York, Vol. 3, 1826. With it is an illustration of a Spanish Sheep Dog, 

 which looks like a cross between a cur and a bull-dog. But it is so completely out of 

 drawing that I am led to infer that it was drawn by a wholly incompetent artist and 

 that it bears no resemblance to the original. 



t Hungary and Transylvania, by John Paget, Esq., Vol. 2, p. la, et. seq. 



