474 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



is authentic and true beyond question I will here insert it. Dr. 



Huggins says: 



"I wish to communicate to you a curious case of mental peculiarity. I pos- 

 sess an English mastiff, by name Kepler, a son of the celebrated Turk out of 

 Venus. I brought the dog, when six weeks old, from the stable in which he 

 was born. The first time I took him out he started back in alarm at the first 

 butcher's shop he had ever seen. I soon found he had a violent antipathy to 

 butchers and butchers' shops. When six months old a servant took him with 

 her on an errand. At a short distance before coming to the house she had to 

 pass a butcher's shop; the dog threw himself down (being led by a string), 

 and neither coaxing nor threats would make him pass the shop. The dog was 

 too heavy to be carried, and as a crowd collected, the servant had to return 

 with the dog more than a mile, and then go without him. This occurred about 

 two years ago. The antipathy still continues, but the dog will pass nearer to 

 a shop than he formerly would. About two months ago, in a little book on 

 dogs, published by Dean, I discovered that the same strange antipathy is shown 

 in the father, Turk. I then wrote to Mr. Nichols, the former owner of Turk, 

 to ask him for any information he might have on the point. He replied : " I 

 can say that the same antipathy exists in King, the sire of Turk, in Turk, in 

 Punch (son of Turk), out of Meg, and in Paris (son of Turk out of Juno). 

 Paris has the greatest antipathy, as he would hardly go into a street where a 

 butcher's shop is, and would run away after passing it. When a cart with a 

 butcher's man came into the place where the dogs were kept, although they 

 could not see him, they all were ready to break their chains. A master 

 butcher, dresssd privately, called one evening on Paris' master to see the dog. 

 He had hardly entered the house before the dog (though shut in) was so much 

 excited that he had to be put into a shed, and the butcher was forced to leave 

 before seeing the dog. The same dog, at Hastings, made a spring at a gentle- 

 man who came into the hotel. The owner caught the dog and apologized, and 

 said he never knew him to do so before, except when a butcher came to his 

 house. The gentleman at once said that was his business. So you see that 

 they inherited these antipathies, and show a great deal of breed." 



Some ancestor, not far removed,, of these three generations of 

 dogs must have suffered a life of oppression and cruelty at the 

 hands of an unfeeling master, and that master must have been a 

 butcher. We fail to understand and appreciate the mentality of 

 the dog and the horse, and as they are above the average of the 

 brute creation we fail of a word midway between instinct and 

 reason to express that mentality. We call it "instinct, " and cor- 

 rectly, too, but this grade of instinct requires a more expressive 

 word to represent it. That a feeling of antipathy should have 

 been so deeply seated in the nature and life of a dog that the 

 resentment and hatred should have been transmitted to his de- 



