CHAPTER VIII. 



ANIMAL REPUTATION. 



CEETAIN animals, like certain men, have reputations, based 

 upon or connected with moral or intellectual qualities. These 

 reputations are, as in man also, good or bad, deserved or 

 undeserved, from which the animals to which they belong 

 either derive advantage or suffer seriously. Reputation at- 

 taches itself either to the individual, as in the case of many 

 dogs, cats, horses, and other domestic animals or home 

 pets ; or to the species or breed, as in the cat or dog, sheep, 

 lion, tiger, camel, wolf, pig, mule, peacock, glutton, ox ; or 

 to the genus, as in the beaver, hyaena, toad ; or to the class, 

 family, or group, as in serpents, bees, wasps, bears, eagles, 

 doves, or pigeons. 



Individual animals dogs, cats, horses, or elephants have 

 frequently a good reputation for honesty, docility, or other 

 virtues, while others have as decidedly a bad one for theft, 

 ferocity, or other vices. They may and do possess a good or 

 a bad ' moral character ' in the same sense in which such a 

 term is applied to man. Such reputations are usually local 

 and limited, known only to the possessor or custodian of 

 the animal and his friends within a limited circuit or dis- 

 trict. But in other cases a wider fame is acquired, either 



1. By reason of their own noteworthy exploits or feats, 

 as in the case of * Grey friars' Bobby,' Lady Davies's paro- 

 quet, the dog Minos, the gorilla Pongo, and many other 

 performing animals ; or 



2. In connection with the lives and doings of their mas- 

 ters, who were or are historical, literary, or other celebri- 

 ties for instance, Sir Walter Scott's hounds, Byron's dog 



