PETS. 20 1 



from an open window; but in the dog-days they cast 

 many a wistful glance at the outer world, with its groves 

 and apple-trees: man lives not by bread alone, and a 

 velvet collar cannot reconcile him to a wire chain. Pas- 

 sive obedience is all one can expect from old-caught ani- 

 mals, and with those of the naturally pugnacious species 

 it can be enforced only by a reign of terror. The wild 

 representatives of the genus Cants will snap at your 

 hand whenever you give them a chance. I once asked 

 a German zoologist if there was no way of curing a 

 jackal of that habit. "Oh, yes," said he: "measure 

 him for his life, and thrash him twice a day within an 

 inch of it." The devotion of the so-called pets of our 

 travelling shows is often a sort of devil-worship : the 

 panoply of the TJiicrbdndiger (" beast-compeller") of 

 Rentz's circus reminded me of the inquisitorial appa- 

 ratus in the Nuremberg armory, — goads, nose-wrenches, 

 leg-wrenches, spike-collars, hot-iron prods, pincers, .chok- 

 ing-straps, whips, and knock-down clubs. 



But there are pets that defy even such arguments. 

 The most expert trappers of the Old World are prob- 

 ably the hunters of the Rhaetian Alps on the border of 

 Switzerland and Italy. They catch bears and foxes, 

 kill thousands of squirrels, and visit the Swiss watering- 

 places with cargoes of living pets boxed up in the 

 smallest possible receptacles. Marmots form the staple 

 of these peddling cazatori, but they keep also larger 

 animals; and during my sojourn at Fluelen, on the Lake 



