212 
VERTEBEATA. 
The traveling in Iceland is sometimes exceedingly dangerous at the beginning of the winter. 
A thin layer of snow covers and conceals some of the chasms with which that region abounds. 
Should the traveler fall into one of them, the dog proves a most useful animal; for he runs im- 
mediately across the snowy waste, and by his howling induces the traveler's friends to hasten to 
his rescue. 
The Shepherd's Dog, though little used in the United States, is universally known as one of the 
most interesting of the dog species. It possesses much of the same form and character in every 
Country. The muzzle is sharp, the ears are short and nearly erect, and the animal is covered, par- i 
ticularly about the neck, with thick and shaggy hair. He has usually two dew-claws on each of 
the hind-legs — not, however, as in the one claw of other dogs, having a jointed attachment to the 
limb, but merely connected by the skin and some slight cellular substance. The tail is long, and i 
slightly turned upward, and is almost as bushy as that of a fox. He is of a black color, or black ] 
prevails, mixed with gray or brown. I 
There are several breeds of the sheep-dog, used in different countries for different purposes. ' 
Some of the larger and more powerful kinds are employed, among other duties, to guard the 
flock from the wolf. In such cases, the sheep, on the slightest alarm, rally round the dog, as 
if conscious that he is their protector. Whatever differences there may be in the breeds, they 
have all the same substantial character of intelligence and devotion to their duties. Other 
dogs — the pointer, the setter, the hound, the greyhound, the terriei', the spaniel — have each 
admirable gifts of nature, heightened by training ; but the shepherd's dog surpasses them all in ^ 
adaptation to his work. If he be but with his master, he lies content, indifferent to every sur- 
rounding object, seemingly half asleep and half awake, rarely mingling with his kind, rarely 
couiting, and generally shrinking from, the notice of a stranger; but the moment duty calls, his 
sleepy, listless eye becomes brightened ; he eagerly gazes on his master, inquires and comprehends 
all he is to do, and, springing up, gives himself to the discharge of his duty with a sagacity, and 
fidelity, and devotion, too rarely equaled even by man himself. 
James Hogg, the celebrated Ettrick Shepherd, living in his early days among the sheep and 
their quadruped attendants, and an accurate obseiwer of nature, as well as an exquisite poet, gives 
some anecdotes of the colley— the Highland term for sheep-dog — with which the reader will 
not be displeased : " My dog Sirrah," says he, in a letter to the Editor of Blackwood's Edinburgh 
Magazine, " was, beyond all comparison, the best dog I ever saw. He had a somewhat surly 
and unsocial temper, disdaining all flattery, and refusing to be caressed ; but his attention to my 
commands and interest will never again be equaled by any of the canine race. When I first saw 
him, a drover was leading him with a rope. He was both lean and hungry, and far from being 
