30 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



pariahs of India unwittingly serve the useful office 

 of scavengers by eating up the refuse thrown out 

 from the villages. 



Through association with man for thousands of 

 years dogs have lost much of their wildness^ but 

 amongst the few characteristics handed down from 

 their ancestors is that of the method of making their 

 beds. However luxurious the basket or cushion 

 supplied to them^ dogs will turn round and round on 

 it, rootling into it with their noses, just as their fore- 

 fathers made their beds by scratching out a burrow 

 in the earth. Some dogs have acquired a taste for 

 a mixed diet, but by those who keep them it should 

 always be remembered that the dog is a carnivorous 

 animal, and flesh, and especially bones, which his teeth 

 are admirably adapted to crush, are his natural food. 

 It is impossible to him, as to a young baby, to digest 

 starch. He will occasionally take grass of his own 

 accord, as a medicine, and for this reason green 

 vegetable may now and then be given to him. 



The dog does not, like man and the horse, sweat 

 through the skin of the body, but through the mouth. 

 It is therefore cruel to keep a dog without water, or 

 to put upon him any kind of harness which prevents 

 him from opening his mouth when overheated. He 

 is subject to a terrible disease, known as hydro- 

 phobia, which produces serious consequences, often 

 death, in men and women when bitten by a dog mad 

 with this disorder. By a strict and wise supervision 

 of dogs in England and on the Continent the disease 

 has been almost stamped out. Pasteur, the great 

 French bacteriologist, amongst the many benefits he 



