GLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 
213 
THE SHEEP-DOG, OR SHEPHERd's DOG. 
a beautiful animal ; for Lie was almost black, and had a grim face, striped with dark brown. 1 
thought I perceived a sort of sullen intelligence in his countenance, notwithstanding his dejected 
and forlorn appearance, and I bought him. He w^as scarcely a jcar old, and knew so little of 
herding, that he had never turned a sheep in his life ; but, as soon as he discovered that it was 
his duty to do so, and that it obliged me, I can never forget with what anxiety and eagerness he 
, leai'ncd his different evolutions ; and when I once made him understand a direction, he never 
forgot or mistook it." 
One night, a large flock of lambs that were under the Ettrick Shepherd's care, frightened by 
something, scampered away in three different directions across the hills, in spite of all that he 
could do to keep them together. " Sirrah," said the shepherd, " thej^'re a' aAva !" 
It was too dark for the dog and his master to see each other at any considerable distance, 
but Sirrah understood him, and set off after the fugitives. The night passed on, and Hogg and 
his assistant traversed every neighboring hill in anxious but fruitless search for the lambs ; but 
he could hear nothing of them nor of the dog, and he was returning to his master with the 
doleful intelligence that he had lost all his lambs. " On our way home, however," says he, " we 
discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine called the Flesh Clench, and the inde- 
fatigable Sirrah standing in front of them, looking round for some relief^ but still true to his 
charge. We concluded that it Avas one of the divisions which Sirrah had been unable to manage, 
until he came to that commanding situation. But what was our astonishment when we dis- 
covered that not one lamb of the flock was missing ! How he had got all the divisions collected 
in the dark, is he3'"ond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself fi'ora midnight 
until the rising sun; and, if all the shepherds in the forest had been there to have assisted him, 
they could not have effected it with greater promptitude. All that I can say is, that I never felt 
•fo grateful to any creature under the sun as I did to my honest Sirrah that morning." 
A shepherd, in one of his excursions over the Grampian Hills to collect his scattered flock, took 
with him — according to a common practice, to initiate them in their future business — one of his 
\ children about four years old. After traversing his pastures for a while, attended by his dog, 
' he was compelled to ascend a summit at some distance. As the ascent was too great for the 
child, he left him at the bottom, with strict injunctions not to meve from the place. Scarcely, 
howevei', had he gained the height, when one of the Scotch mists, of frequent occurrence, sud- 
denly came on, and almost changed the day to night. He returned to seek his child, but was 
unable to find him, and concluded a long and fruitless search by coming distracted to his cottage. 
His poor dog also was missing in the general confusion. On the next morning by daylight he 
rcncAved his search, but again he came back without his child. He found, however, that during 
