DOM KSTICATED NATURE. 



303. 



making" one stop and ponder, especially 

 when they are sounded suddenly and 

 without warning at night ; and when 

 this is done in the house during the 

 winter months, the noise is truly terrific 

 as it echoes back and forth. 



The eyes usually lusterless and with 

 a small slit-like pupil during the day, 

 assume a far different aspect at night 

 when the pupil becomes round and the 

 whole eye sparkles with animation. 



Unfortunately I can not report such 

 a wonderful rate of growth for my alli- 

 gators as does Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars 

 for his 'gators in the Bronx Zoo at New 

 York City. In the latter instance the 

 water of the pools is kept uniformly 

 heated ; this I am unable to do ; but from 

 careful observations my 'gators have 

 averaged about four inches of growth 

 per year, the larger one now measuring 

 4 ft. 6 inches. 



They have been a most interesting 

 study and have afforded many hours of 

 amusement. Instead of being ferocious 

 and dangerous, the very opposite must 

 be said for them. And of all pets they 

 require least attention and are least 

 troublesome, requiring no food for fully 

 8V2 months of the year. If the tempera- 

 ture of the room and the water were 

 kept constantly uniform, hibernation 

 would not ensue and the metabolic func- 

 tions would continue through the winter 

 months. This reminds me of an inter- 

 esting episode which occurred a few 

 years ago. 



One evening I received a caller in the 

 person of the secretary of the Ohio 

 Humane Society. The Society had been 

 notified that a family were abusing an 

 alligator ; in other words they were 

 starving the, poor beast. An officer was 

 dispatched on the case to make an in- 

 vestigation and an arrest. The people 

 made every effort to feed their 'gator. 

 but all food was refused; the officer 

 being convinced of this fact, felt he was 

 not justified in making an arrest for 

 cruelty. He reported the case at head- 

 quarters, with the result that I was 

 called in for expert testimony as the 

 Society was at a loss what to do. Need- 

 less to say no arrest was made and the 

 kind and sympathetic secretary felt 

 greatlv relieved. 



THE QUESTION OF HYDROPHOBIA. 



BY C. H. JONES, PUBLISHER Pet Dog 



Journal, ROCHESTER, N. v. 



Does hydrophobia exist, or is it only 

 a scare? We know there is something 

 but how much of it is real and how much 

 is imaginary? By a little investigation 

 we learn that the commonly heralded 

 disease known to the medical fraternity 

 as hydrophobia or rabies exists so very 

 rarely that it practically does not exist 

 at all. 



The vivid imagination of the space 

 writer is largely at fault for the popular 

 and prevailing idea that "mad dogs" are 

 common, and that they are "running 

 down the street foaming at the mouth 

 and snapping at everything, and every- 

 body in reach." 



The fact is that a dog that really has 

 this trouble, that is so scarce, never 

 foams at the mouth; he very rarely, if 

 ever, runs, but hides under a barn or 

 porch ; or in some quiet, dark place ; he 

 never even in the running stage of the 

 disease moves out of his regular way 

 to bite anything. 



The writer one day, in Rochester, X. 

 Y., saw a crowd standing about the en- 

 trance of a large store. He stepped up, 

 and asked one of the bystanders the cause 

 of the excitement and the man replied 

 that there was a dog in the doorway that: 

 they thought was going "mad." 



This was interesting, to see a real 

 "mad" dog was really something to be 

 desired, something that we had claimed 

 did not exist very often. In fact we 

 had claimed that it really existed about 

 as often as leprosy. We walked through 

 the crowd and saw a black Cocker Span- 

 iel crouched down in the door way look- 

 ing with frightened and pleading eyes 

 at the excited crowd. I said : 

 "What's the matter old man, are you 

 frightened?" and his stubby tail com- 

 menced to beat the floor and his fawning 

 caresses proved that he knew a friend 

 and was glad to see one. 



A man in the crowd asked. "Isn't he 

 mad?" 



I said, "Of course he is mad, how 

 could he help it surrounded by a lot of 

 yelling 'vaps' the way he is." and the 

 crowd faded away, the dog was. 



