THE MASTIFF. 117 



ton, near Market Raison, in Lincolnshire, a few 

 years since lost an ewe, the mother of two lambs. 

 He chanced to have, at the same time, a Mastiff 

 bitch, with a litter of puppies. Not having occa- 

 sion for these puppies, he drowned them, and 

 putting the orphan lambs in their places, the 

 bitch gave them suck, and brought them up with 

 great maternal tenderness. About twelve months 

 after her nurslings had quitted her protection and 

 society, for a mode of life more conformable to 

 their nature, the same bitch heard, by chance, 

 the bleating of a lamb, in a basket that a boy was 

 carrying in his hand. She immediately seized 

 the basket, and having got it upon the ground, 

 made several attempts to extricate the lamb from 

 its confinement. These were to no purpose, for 

 she could not open it; but it was evident, from 

 all her efforts, that she was urged to this singu- 

 lar procedure by the same instinctive affection 

 that she felt towards the lambs she had formerly 

 reared. 



THE 



