A dog sat at the door of a cottage, watching the vain efforts of a man on the hills at some distance, to collect together a flock of sheep. Up and down he ran, and as fast as he got a dozen together they would start off again to join their comrades, scattering in all directions. The dog watched and watched, started up, lay down again, and fidgeted. At last he could stand it no longer: off he went as hard as he could go, and, without asking for instructions, collected the wandering flock in a very short time, drove them up to the shepherd, and then returned home and lay down quietly as before. I asked his owner if he knew the man he had been helping, but he said, 'Oh, no, it was just his nature;' and a very good nature, too, I thought.

We often wonder what would be the effect upon the very important industry of sheep farming should the fads of a few philosophers ever induce the bulk of mankind to become vegetarian in diet. Wool is so necessary in our manufactures that it must be had, so that sheep must be reared; but if the mutton is not to be eaten they could not be allowed to increase. There seems, however, little fear of that day arriving, for not one in a thousand can resist the savoury joint, or the chops and tomato sauce of the immortal Pickwick.

There are three meats tabooed by the doctors, but delighted in, nevertheless, by the cook and the gourmand, who know full well how exceedingly savoury they may be made. Lamb, veal, and pork, 'all sadly indigestible and unwholesome,' says the doctor with a shake of his wise head, 'and should never be eaten except by those who have the stomach of a horse or an ostrich.' Now, of course, the horse and the ostrich being graminivorous, could not digest these foods; but men, women, and children, with healthy stomachs, and good appetites not spoilt by physic, can certainly eat and digest all three, and derive both health and pleasure from their consumption. The crusade against lamb and veal as unwholesome because young and immature, to be carried to its legitimate conclusion should be extended to game and poultry, and a tough old hen, or a hare which has for years defied the sportsman, should be extolled before the tender chicken and the leveret.

The Jews, restricted in their diet by strict laws, rejected all pork as unclean; but veal and lamb, with kid, seem to have formed the staple of their feasts. The paschal lamb, roasted whole and eaten with bitter herbs, is familiar to every reader of the Bible; and lambs, as we know, formed a large proportion of the sacrifices offered daily, and, of course eaten, with the singular exception that all the fat should be burnt, for the fat as well as the blood of sacrifices seems to have been forbidden to be eaten; and, it may be remembered as one of the sins of the sons of Eli, that they sent their servant and demanded raw flesh with the fat, before it was burned according to the sacred law of sacrifices. The breast and the right shoulder of these sacrifices were allotted to the priests, and thus it came to pass that when Saul was sent to Samuel, the shoulder was set before him as the royal and priestly joint. As to the calf, that was not only offered in sacrifice, like the lamb, but it seems to have been set aside especially for family feasts. The fatted calf, killed to do honour to the returning prodigal, has passed into a proverb, and to 'kill the fatted calf is now synonymous with making a feast of joy. But the calf was from the earliest times looked upon as a delicacy to set before an honoured guest; hence we are told that when, in the days of Abraham, the three angels came to him as he sat in his tent-door on the plains of Mamre, in the heat of the day, he 'ran unto the herd and fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.'

What a vivid picture we have here of the hospitality of the patriarch, of his mode of life, and of the food he thought meet to place before his guests - the calf tender and good, eaten as at the present day, with butter and milk, the cake kneaded and baked upon the hearth by Sarah, to be eaten with it. It was no mean feast for hungry men in the wide plain, but the celerity with which it is prepared strikes one.

To kill a calf and skin it would take an English butcher a considerable time, and the cooking would not be attempted until the carcase was cold, but in hot climates this kind of rapid slaughtering and cooking is frequent and necessary. 'Sudden death,' as it is called, overtakes poultry very often, even in England, and if cooked without being allowed to get cold, the meat is tender and well-flavoured, and probably the same holds good with regard to larger animals.

In England the killing of calves was formerly attended with much cruelty, the poor animals being bled two or three times before they were killed, in order to make the meat white, which probably also made it hard and indigestible; but this is happily now done away with, as is the mode in which they were conveyed to market - packed in a cart with their legs tied, and lying one over another, with their heads hanging down over the tail-board, and making the most piteous cries.

Although veal is still eschewed by many in England as indigestible, we cannot imagine what our cooks would do without this savoury meat, which, above all others, is invaluable in the menu. What could supply the place of the delicate sweetbread, the ragout, the calfs head with its accompaniments, the hash, the stew, the mince, the veal olives and cutlets, and the roast fillet, with its stuffing and lemon-juice, beloved of Oliver Cromwell? All over the Continent of Europe the value of veal is recognised, and a cotelette de veau is the one thing which may be safely ordered by the traveller.

. As for pork, what shall we say? A whole treatise would not suffice to recount all the virtues and uses of 'honest piggy' - the poor man's genuine friend - every portion of which is good for food. The Jewish law which condemned the pig as unclean, certainly deprived the Israelites of a savoury food, but it does not appear to have prevented them from keeping the unclean creature, and probably making it a profitable article of commerce with the Gentiles, respecting which, and the destruction of the herd of many swine, as reported in the New Testament, a lively controversy was lately carried on between two of our greatest men of light and leading.