648 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY 



The nutriment best adapted for sporting dogs, so 

 as to enable them to perform their work well, should 

 consist of at least two-thirds of flesh, with a judicious 

 mixture of farinaceous vegetables. It is an established 

 fact, that dogs in a domesticated state invariably be- 

 come lean if fed entirely upon flesh. 



Good water is of great consequence to the health 

 of dogs, as they drink frequently and copiously, and 

 particularly setters ; but the idea that dogs being kept 

 long without water produces canine madness, is a 

 vulgar prejudice. 



The dog is naturally a voracious animal ; and yet 

 he can endure hunger for a very great length of time, 

 and be brought by habit to subsist on a very scanty 

 meal. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, it 

 is mentioned, that a bitch which was forgot in a 

 country house, where she had access to no other 

 nourishment, lived forty days on the wool of an old 

 mattress, which she had torn to pieces. 



An extraordinary instance of a similar kind occurred 

 with a terrier bitch belonging to a friend of my own. 

 One day, when following her master through a grass 

 park near Gilmerton, it happened that she started a 

 hare. During the pursuit her master suddenly lost 

 sight of her, and in a few days she was considered 

 either killed or lost. Six weeks afterwards, a person 

 happening to look down the shaft of an old coal-pit, 

 was surprised by hearing a dog howling. He immedi- 

 ately returned to the village, and having procured a 

 hand-basket, let it down by a rope into the shaft ; the 

 dog instantly leapt into it, and on being brought to 

 the surface, it turned out to be Gipsy, the lost terrier 

 bitch of my friend, worn to perfect skin and bone. 

 How she had existed in this subterranean abode it is 

 impossible to tell. 



