IV 



DOG-GIVING: STUDIES IN DOG-FEELING, 

 DOG-FELLOWSHIP, AND DOG-LOYALTY 



PKESENTS BY ANIMALS 



SOME months ago I read in the Spectator that animals 

 rarely, if ever, make presents to one another. They do 

 sometimes, however, and I have recently seen a very 

 pretty instance. Last week I rode over to see a friend 

 half a dozen miles away, and my two collies, Senta and 

 Tom, mother and son, accompanied me. While waiting 

 for luncheon, my host and hostess and I sat on the 

 verandah, and the dogs lay on the lawn in front of the 

 steps. To them entered a shambling, awkward setter 

 puppy about eight months old, and, finding company 

 present, set himself out to be agreeable to his guests by 

 all sorts of uncouth gambols and invitations to play. But 

 Tom and his mother, either disdaining so callow a play- 

 mate, or feeling the restraint of their unaccustomed sur- 

 roundings, coldly repulsed his advances, and when he be- 

 came too pressing simply got up and moved away a yard 

 or two. This seemed to nonplus the puppy, and after 

 regarding them for a while in an apparently pained 

 manner, he turned and trotted off to a patch of forest (we 

 call it " bush " here) about a hundred yards away, pre- 

 sently returning with the bones of a calf's leg, complete 

 from hoof to hip- joint, and still bound together by its 

 dried ligaments. It gave him some trouble to get this 

 through the bars of the gate, but he soon solved the puzzle 

 rather cleverly by getting through himself and then reach- 

 ing back and taking the end. This precious offering 



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