A CURIOUS ANECDOTE. 219 



trained, and as an instance I will cite the following fact, 

 which, if need were, could be corroborated by numerous 

 witnesses. 



During the first week of my residence at New York, 

 in 1841, I was much astonished one morning to perceive, 

 in the midst of a company of Scotch militia, a magnificent 

 stag, wearing round his neck a silver collar, whose mag- 

 nificent antlers, elegant gait, soft-beaming eyes, and 

 slender legs, astonished all the bystanders into unfeigned 

 admiration. He trotted behind the band, and in front of 

 the officers ; and neither the cries of the children, nor the 

 noise of the carriages, nor that of the cymbals and brass 

 instruments, produced any effect upon the animal, though 

 by nature he is timid and easily startled. It is unne- 

 cessary to say that I became desirous of knowing how the 

 stag in question had been snatched from his forests to 

 parade himself in the midst of a large town, and tread 

 macadamized stones instead of pawing the turf of the 

 distant forests. I made inquiries likewise of a New- 

 foundland dog, who appeared to be on the best under- 

 standing with the stag, as well as with the Scotch, and 

 this is what I learned from an officer of the third brigade 

 of New York : 



The Highland Company, following a custom of the 

 mother-country, had adopted the stag as emblematical of 

 the agility a Scotchman ought to display in ascending 

 mountains, and climbing precipices, and leaping over 

 chasms. As for the dog, he was their symbol of 

 fidelity ; and fidelity, as everybody knows, is one of 

 the primitive qualities of all Sir Walter Scott's com- 

 patriots. It should here be added that during the War 

 of Independence the Highlanders of Washington gave 



