PETS. 



199 



Some people seem, indeed, to select a pet on the prin- 

 ciple that it is not likely to find other friends. St. An- 

 thony's fondness for pigs may have endeared him to the 

 hearts of his countrymen, but Lady Hester Stanhope's 

 curs were such an eyesore to her Mussulman neighbors 

 that they made wide detours rather than pass her home 

 in the daytime. She kept leprous mongrels and tame 

 jackals, as well as hunting-dogs. But her caprices were 

 far surpassed by the eccentricities of Lord Rokeby, whose 

 country-seat at Mount Morris seems to have been a pro- 

 miscuous menagerie of the free-and-easiest kind. Dogs, 

 pigs, monkeys, and young bears galloped up- and down- 

 stairs; a troop of fallow deer had their headquarters on 

 the veranda and their parade-ground in the lower hall. 

 The rooks had spread from the park to the turrets and 

 garrets of the mansion, and defied the housekeeper, my 

 lord being their helper. He, too, seems to have followed 

 Hamman's plan of never touching his pets, merely giv- 

 ing them their board and their own way. Dr. Brehm's 

 pet hyenas were long the marvel of his Hamburg fellow- 

 citizens ; but Frank Buckland's fondness for rats has 

 been unjustly ridiculed, they are really as playful as 

 squirrels, and get wonderfully tame. Useless dogs are 

 generally the most affectionate, and the same rule holds 

 good of other animals : the most unprofitable pets are 

 the most demonstrative in their attachments. Tame rats 

 will lick your hands like little spaniels. Monkeys gener- 

 ally try to ingratiate themselves by entomological re- 



