Rough-Coated Collie 347 



particular branch of business to which he is bred. His whole capacity is 

 exerted and exhausted on it, and he is of little value in miscellaneous matters, 

 whereas a very different cur, bred about the house and accustomed to 

 assist in everything, will often put the noble breed to disgrace in these 

 paltry services. If one calls out, for instance, that the cows are in the 

 corn or the hens in the garden, the house colley needs no other hint, but 

 runs and turns them out. 



"The shepherd's dog knows not what is astir, and if he is called out 

 in a hurry for such work, all that he will do is to break to the hill and rear 

 himself up on end to see if no sheep are running away. A bred sheep dog, 

 if coming hungry from the hills and getting into the milk house, would most 

 likely think of nothing else than filling his belly with cream. Not so his 

 initiated brother; he is bred at home to far higher principles of honour. 

 I have known such to lie night and day among from ten to twenty pails 

 full of milk and never once break the cream of one of them with the tip 

 of his tongue, nor would he suffer rat, cat or any other creature to touch 

 it. The latter sort are far more acute at taking up what is said in a family." 



Hogg then went on to tell of some incidents, and in the first two the 

 animal is mentioned merely by the sex name; the third is of a "dog" until 

 the final sentence, which is this: "I appeal to every unprejudiced person 

 if this was not as like one of the deil's tricks as an honest colley's." The 

 fourth "dog" is described ps "a female, a jet-black one, with a coat of 

 soft hair, but smooth headed and very handsome in her make." The 

 fifth is about a "dog," though with an editorial heading of "The Ashie- 

 steel Collie." Six named contributors are then credited with anecdotes, 

 and in three the word colley is given. 



In the matter of the colour of these dogs, Hogg had two that were 

 "not far from the colour of a fox"; these were father and son, and the grand- 

 sire was "almost all black,. and had a grim face, striped with dark brown." 

 Black is the only other colour mentioned, and that in only a few instances. 

 One of his red dogs Hogg calls a colley, and as he was a sheep farmer in 

 a very large way — one anecdote relating to the straying of seven hundred 

 lambs, and another to the purchase of a lot of wild black-faced sheep — it is 

 worth noting that he gives no evidence in any way that the word had the 

 slightest connection with, or that there was any such name as, colley for 

 sheep. 



The introduction of the rough collie into England, outside of those owned 



