44 THE RING OF NATURE 



The best regulated of dogs will sometimes get out 

 of hand, and it is not uncommon for the park 

 police to have to exact damages for destruction 

 of life. Even the winged things, such as the 

 absurdly tame wood-pigeons, fall victims to the 

 sudden onslaught of an active terrier. Before 

 they can get wing they are down, and then it is 

 a case of ' I 'se warrant you how he mammocked 

 it.' 



A well-bred rough terrier, and one that has 

 evidently been well cared for, and well trained, has 

 probably come out for a walk without his best- 

 obeyed master. He leaps the railings, and charges 

 down their sacred green among the rabbits. They 

 bolt in all directions. The dog begins to follow 

 one, changes his mind as another flashes more 

 temptingly across his vision, takes after that one 

 a trifle too late, and so loses them all in the bushes, 

 not being a dog of nose. 



But there never was a dog of gaze yet but made 

 greater pretence to nose than the veriest blood- 

 hound. He comes running and sniffing over the 

 green, like a boy scout who imagines himself a 

 Sherlock Holmes. One rabbit, instead of running 

 to the bushes, has contented itself with just put- 

 ting a tree between itself and the danger. We 

 can all see the rabbit and the dog, but the dog 

 knows nothing of the rabbit, and the rabbit does 

 not know exactly where the dog is. 



At length, by a pure fluke, the pursuer comes 

 round the tree and almost stumbles on the rabbit. 



