ANIMAL AND PLANT LORE. 245 



flayed a liver-colored dog and clapped it yet palpitating to their 

 sovereign's breast ; and lie died." 



There is a popular supposition of wide range, based upon I 

 know not what, that it is very healthful for children to play with 

 dogs. A weak child, it is thought, may gain strength by being 

 with a dog, or, if diseased, the child may be cured by having the 

 animal " take the disease " — for example, inflamed eyes or any 

 disorder of the skin. Within a year a college graduate told me, 

 in perfect good faith, of acquaintances, a Boston doctor and his 

 wife, whose little girl had been greatly afflicted with some form 

 of eczema which they all hoped would disappear, as the parents 

 had purchased a fine dog to play with the child. 



When a dog is teething, the upper incisors, according to a 

 New England superstition, must be removed as soon as they be- 

 come loose, or he may " swallow them and have fits/' Perhaps 

 even more generally received is the fancied danger of allowing a 

 child's milk-tooth after extraction to fall into the possession of a 

 dog or cat, lest the animal swallow it, and the child have a dog's 

 or cat's tooth grow in place of the lost one. The Mexicans and 

 Indians in Texas say that every animal has brains enough to tan 

 its own skin ; and so the latter, in the case of the wolf, panther, 

 wild cat, and some other animals, is mainly prepared by rubbing 

 into the flesh side of it the brains of its former wearer. A some- 

 what common fancy among children, perhaps too among adults 

 as well, is that " every part strengthens a part " — that is, that the 

 liver, heart, brains, and so on of animals, when eaten, go directly 

 toward nourishing the corresponding organs in the eater. A 

 similar doctrine was worked out in great detail by the American 

 Indians, and is, I believe, held by many other savage tribes. It 

 seems altogether probable that such beliefs, wherever found 

 among civilized people, old or young, are survivals from remote 

 antiquity, and that they are closely akin in their nature and 

 origin to the well-known doctrine of signatures which has played 

 so great a part in the systems of medicine of primitive peoples. 



Mr. Charles Aldrich, of Webster City, Iowa, relates the fol- 

 lowing curious superstition : " A neighbor residing on a small 

 farm near me has, on several occasions, spoken of his experience 

 with ' hog mice.' He came to this country many years ago from 

 Northamptonshire, England, where he had often seen these 

 strange animals. They are also occasionally seen by him here 

 in Iowa. This mythical rodent is about the size of a barn 

 mouse, but its striking peculiarity as to its outward appearance 

 is, that it has a head and face fashioned exactly like that of 

 a hog. It is a very ' uncanny ' little beast. If it merely runs 

 across the body of a sleeping person, or of a domestic animal, 

 such unfortunate person or animal will be grievously afflicted. 



