CHAP, xiv.] DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 117 



strewth, you lose more than you gain, by giving at the same 

 time hard-headedness and obstinacy. It is much better, if you 

 fancy your breed of pointers or setters to be growing small or 

 degenerate, to cross them with some different family of pointers 

 or setters of stronger or faster make, of which you will be sure 

 to find plenty with very little trouble. It is a great point 

 in all dogs to allow them to be as much at liberty as possible ; 

 no animal kept shut up in a kennel or place of confinement 

 can have the same use of his senses as one who is allowed to 

 be at large to gain opportunities of exerting his powers of obser 

 ration and increase his knowledge in the ways of the world. 

 Dogs who are allowed to be always loose are very seldom 

 mischievous and troublesome, it is only those who are kept 

 too long shut up and in solitude that rush into mischief the 

 moment they are at liberty ; of course it is necessary to keep 

 dogs confined to a certain extent, but my rule is to imprison them 

 as little as possible. Mine, therefore, seldom are troublesome, 

 but live at peace and friendship with numerous other animals 

 about the house and grounds, altliough many of those animals 

 are their natural enemies and objects of chace : dogs, Shetland 

 ponies, cats, tame rabbits, wild ducks, sheldrakes, pigeons, &c., 

 all associate together and feet! out of the same hand ; and the 

 only one of my pets whose inclination to slaughter I cannot 

 subdue, is a peregrine falcon, who never loses an opportunity of 

 killing any duck or hen that may venture within his reach. Even 

 tlie wild partridges and wood-pigeons, who frequently feed with 

 the poultry, are left unmolested by the dogs. The terrier, who 

 is constantly at warfare with cats and rabbits in a state of 

 nature, leaves those about the house in perfect peace ; while the 

 wildest of all wild fowl, the common mallards and sheldrakes, 

 eat corn from the hand of the " hen-wife." 



Though naturally all men are carnivorous, and therefore 

 animals of prey, and inclined by nature to hunt and destroy 

 other creatures, ami although I share in this our natural in- 

 stinct to a great extent, I have far more pleasure in seeing these 

 different animals enjoying themselves about me, and in observing 

 their different habits, than I have in hunting down and destroying 

 them. 



