NUISANCES, INHUMAN AND HUMAN. 211 



pups preferred meat, and great was the genius ex 

 hibited by Sher in obtaining it surreptitiously. He 

 would pretend he was asleep, waiting till the cook s 

 back was turned ; or he would ostentatiously go out 

 of the door, and then, slipping back, hide and watch 

 his opportunity. When he obtained it he always di 

 vided with Gran, and a bone would occasionally al 

 ternate half a dozen times between them ere it was 

 exhausted. 



Their playful moods were their most destructive ; 

 digging holes was one of their chief pastimes. Why 

 they dug holes I never could imagine ; they neither 

 buried nor discovered any hidden treasure ; but they 

 worked away with a zeal and patience that would 

 have been most praiseworthy if properly applied. 

 Some of my favorite &quot; herbaceous&quot; plants, as Bridge- 

 man calls them, were rooted up, and my grass-plot- 

 one which I had laid out in a beautiful oval beneath 

 our solitary cedar, and had planted with the most del 

 icate lawn-grass was fairly honeycombed with bur 

 rows. At first I filled these holes and restored my 

 plants, but the pups only seemed to regard this as a 

 challenge to their industry, and immediately proceed 

 ed to dig them up again ; so I was compelled to let 

 them have their way, although it gave rather a strange 

 appearance to the place, and left an impression that 

 a family of prairie-dogs resided there. 



