j8o zoological sketches. 



chained mastiffs became hoarse and more tolerant. But 

 in the horse-stable, behind the packery, a mastiff bitch 

 had been quartered with her litter of puppies, and one 

 evil day the door was left open, and the bitch at once 

 made a rush for the pit. If she wanted a bellyful she 

 missed her object, for the tramps killed and disembow- 

 elled her before the rescuing-party reached the scene of 

 the conflict. Profanity is doubly heinous when it cannot 

 mend matters : the bitch had been imported from Cuba, 

 and her five little ones were all blind yet ; but there 

 seemed no help for them; there was no milch-cow on 

 the place, and hand-fed puppies are a terrible nuisance. 

 They were just going to drown them, when a Mexican 

 boy-of-all-work suggested a better plan. He had seen 

 a wild perra, a tramp bitch, that could be utilized as a 

 wet-nurse. Whenever the perros entered the pit, she 

 snatched up a bone and hastened back to the chaparral, 

 and always in the same direction ; once or twice she had 

 come back within five minutes, so her lair could not be 

 very far off. A promise of two dollars created a general 

 interest in the enterprise, and before night the exploring 

 party returned with the perra and eight perritos : they 

 had tracked her to a hollow in a ravine and captured 

 her with a common flour-bag. 



Nursing animals do not like to adopt orphans while 

 their own children are alive, and killing the perritos 

 might make the mother still more intractable : so the 

 matter had to be managed by stratagem. They chained 



