208 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



again.' The man follows this advice and resumes 

 operations ; but no sign of a truffle. Fresh sniffings 

 at the bottom of the hole. 'On the honor of a dog, 

 the truffle is there, and a fine one. This way, mas- 

 ter, a little more to the left.' At last the truffle is 

 found, one of the largest of the gathering, and as a 

 reward the dog gets a crust of bread. 



' l The pig hunts for truffles with no previous edu- 

 cation, since it is its nature to burrow in the soil for 

 the tubercles and roots on which it feeds ; but the dog 

 has to be taught the business so foreign to its own 

 habits. The first step is to familiarize it with the 

 savor of the truffle, which is done by making it eat a 

 truffle omelet." 



"A truffle omelet!" exclaimed Emile. "That's 

 a dish much to be preferred to a bone." 



"But not in the dog's opinion," rejoined his uncle. 

 "Without showing any enthusiasm for this food that 

 is so new to it, the dog accepts it at first partly as an 

 act of obedience, then begins to like it, and finally 

 would ask nothing better than to continue the diet 

 for a long time. But the course of education in this 

 dainty is of short duration, ending as soon as the 

 odor to be remembered becomes familiar to the dog. 

 Then a truffle is hidden in the ground, at first not 

 very deep, to-morrow a little deeper, arid the dog is 

 trained in finding it. A caress, a piece of bread, are 

 its recompense each time it does well. Such lessons, 

 appropriately varied and repeated, at last produce 

 the trained truffle-hunter, and the animal is then 

 taken, from day to day, into the woods to perfect 



