e station about nightfall.

Nearly every shepherd has a sheep dog, partly for the sake of
companionship and partly for assistance. A good sheep dog is a very
useful and valuable animal. He aids the shepherd in keeping the flock
together whenever any of them show a disposition to straggle, and the
sheep speedily learn to know him and regard him as their friend. He
never injures them, though he frequently makes a great pretense of doing
so. Sometimes he takes a refractory sheep by the ear, or seizes it by
the wool on his neck, but the case is exceedingly rare where he
perpetrates an actual bite.

The favorite dog for the shepherd is the collie, but other kinds are
employed, and many an ordinary cur has been trained by an intelligent
master so that he made an excellent sheep dog, though he can never
attain the excellence of the genuine collie. The real shepherd dog will
accomplish more than would be possible for a man under the same
circumstances. He will drive a flock from place to place, gather them
together to be counted, and take them from one field to another much
quicker than a man could do it. A story is told of an instance that
happened in Scotland, to James Hogg, known in literature as "The Ettrick
Shepherd." Seven hundred sheep broke loose one night from his charge,
and scampered off in three divisions across the plain. It was too dark
to see anything for any appreciable distance, and the shepherd supposed
he would have to wait until morning, and then take his chances of
collecting his animals. Shortly afterwards he missed his dog. In the
morning he went out to look for the sheep, but saw no sign of them until
he reached the edge of a ravine and looked over the side. There he saw
the dog guarding the entire flock, not one of the seven hundred being
missing. How he ever managed to collect them in the dark, his owner
could not imagine. A dozen, or even a hundred men, would have failed
where he succeeded.

Near the end of the last century there was a sheep stealer in Scotland,
who was finally discovered and hanged for his crimes, who used to carry
on his trade by the aid of his dog. He traveled about the country under
pretense of buying sheep, though he rarely bought any. While looking at
a flock, he would pick one of the fattest and give a secret signal to
his dog, indicating the animal. That night the dog would come to the
flock where the sheep belonged, often traveling several miles to do it;
then would pick o