IN BOOKS AND REAL LIFE 221 



a stable or outhonse, they should have little at a 

 time, and be fed often. 



Fifty years ago, or less, it was the fashion to 

 crop the ears and tails of game terriers. Happily 

 the fashion of ear-clipping has gone out of favour ; 

 though as to the tails, when they were docked a week 

 or two after birth, it really did not hurt. The 

 correct thing was to bite them off. One of my 

 earliest recollections is looking out of the nursery 

 window and seeing an old gentleman, in a flowered 

 flannel dressing-gown, and dressed in cast clothing 

 — he did all manner of odd jobs about the back 

 premises — biting off the tails of a litter of spaniels. 

 The mother ran from one to another, licking the 

 wounds, and in a few minutes her children seemed 

 to have forgotten all about it. In the case of 

 spaniels, there is something to be said for the 

 operation, though I do not think myself there is 

 much in the argument. It is maintained that for a 

 dog meant to work in thick cover, a bushy tail is an 

 encumbrance, as it catches in brambles and thorns. 

 In point of fact, where the dog can tear a way, the 

 tail will follow without catching. There was more 

 reason in trimming the ears of bulldogs and bull- 

 terriers, when their vocation in life was understood 

 to be fighting ; the ear gave a grip to the enemy 

 in a fight, and would be torn into ribbons when 

 drawing a badger. But the badgers have been 

 going the way of the wolves and the wild cats : 

 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 

 would have a word to say to the sporting publican 



