476 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



direct to his friend the cow, dropped it before her, and she soon 

 made away with it. This phenomenal exhibition of the attachment 

 of one animal to another of entirely different nature aroused the 

 doctor's desire for a further confirmation of what he had seen. 

 Concealing himself behind the door he awaited further develop- 

 ments and in a little while the dog came back, seized the third 

 ear, and whipping past some other cows, carried it safely to his 

 friend. I have seen this dog a hundred times, and he was a 

 mongrel nondescript, about the size of the average pointer, with 

 nothing remarkable about his appearance; but in all the illustra- 

 tions of all the naturalists I have not met with any authenticated 

 instance where character in a dumb animal was so beautifully 

 exhibited. In history we have many touching examples of the 

 attachment of the dog to his master and of his heroism in de- 

 fending the weak against the strong, but this case seems to be 

 unique. Here is a character developed that is far more than "the 

 sum of inherited habits." We may call it instinct, but that word 

 fails to express it. In whatever light we view this character, it has 

 in it an element of reason and we have no word that expresses it. 



The oldest written evidence we have of the origin of the setter 

 dog dates back about two hundred years, in which we find John 

 Harris agreeing to teach Henry Herbert's "spaniel bitch Quand " 

 to set game. Allusions are made in the old writers to dogs used 

 for this purpose long before, but the setter certainly has an 

 .ancestry dating back at least two hundred years. The pointer 

 is of much more recent origin and seems to have come from an 

 .ancestry wholly distinct from that of the setter, and yet, in the 

 field, it would be very difficult for the most competent jury to 

 decide which stands to his game with the greater steadiness. It 

 is agreed, I think, among experienced sportsmen and breeders 

 that the best dogs are the result of couplings made in the midst 

 of the hunting season when the instincts of the parents are aroused 

 and active under the gun. Puppies so bred are already half- 

 trained when they are whelped. The instinct to point the game- 

 instead of rushing upon it is an instinct acquired at an earlier or 

 later date, well within the historic period, and we know that it is 

 transmitted and inherited under the laws of heredity. We know 

 also that this instinct is strengthened and improved by training 

 and use; and at the same time it is weakened, if not obliterated, 

 by neglect and non-use for a few generations. 



The Scotch collie, with plenty to do, is altogether the most 



