216 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



position of any one act ; but probably to the village and renewed my acquain- 

 most persons would say at once that tance with the little fellow, and heard 

 the action of the little red dog in his history. Everybody praised him for 

 Regent Street was purely intelligent, his affectionate disposition and his value 

 I am not sure : the swiftness, smooth- as a watch-dog by night, and I was told 

 ness, and certainty with which the that his mother, now dead, had been 

 whole thing was carried out gave it the greatly prized, and was the smallest red 

 appearance of a series of automatic dog ever seen in that part of Hampshire, 

 movements rather than a reasoned Some day one of the thousand 

 act which had never been rehearsed, writers on " man's friend " will con- 

 Perhaps Professor Lloyd Morgan will ceive the happy idea of a chapter or 

 make it all clear in his next book. two on the dog the universal cur- 



Recently, during my country ram- and he will then perhaps find it neces- 

 bles, I have been on the look-out for sary to go abroad to study this well- 

 the small red dog, and have met with marked dwarf variety, for with us he 

 several interesting examples in the has fallen on evil days. There is no- 

 southern counties. One, in Hamp- doubt that the muzzling order pro- 

 shire, moved me to laughter like that foundly affected the character of our 

 small animal at Charterhouse Hinton. dog population, since it went far to- 



This was at Sway, a village near wards the destruction of the cur and 

 Lymington. A boy, mounted on a of mongrels the races already im- 

 creaking old bike, was driving some perilled by the extraordinary pre- 

 cows to the common, and had the dominance of the fox-terrier. The 

 greatest difficulty in keeping on while change was most marked in the metro- 

 following behind the lazy beasts on a polis, and after Mr. Long's campaign 

 rough track among the furze bushes ; I came to the conclusion that here at 

 and behind the boy at a distance of all events the little red dog had been 

 ten yards trotted the little red dog, extirpated. He, with other varieties, 

 tongue out, looking as proud and of the cur, was the dog of the poor, 

 happy as possible. As I passed him and when the muzzle deprived him of 

 he looked back at me as if to make his power to find for himself, he became 

 sure that I had seen him, and noted a burden to his master. But I was 

 that he formed part of that important mistaken ; he is still with us, even 

 procession. On another day I went here in London, though now very rare. 



