126 NATURAL HISTORY. 



We need hardly say that this Dog belongs to Mr. Romanes, amongst whose animals specimens of 

 all the Christian gifts and graces seem to be found. 



We thus see that a very large proportion of our own virtues and vices are developed in our canine 

 " fellow-mortals " ; there is, however, one state of mind which we should hardly expect to find in any 

 animal, viz., despair. With man it is, alas! sufficiently common to feel that he has had enough cf 

 " life's fitful fever," and that the only thing left is to make haste 



" to be hurled 



Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world." 



But who would expect a dumb quadruped to have feelings of this sort 1 Yet that such may be 

 the case is rendered probable by the following remarkable story : 



" A day or two since, a fine Dog, belonging to Mr. George Hone, of Frindsbury, near Rochester, 

 committed a deliberate act of suicide by drowning in the Medway at Upnor, Chatham. The Dog had 

 been suspected of having given indications of approaching hydrophobia, and was accordingly shunned, 

 and kept as much as possible from the house. This treatment appeared to cause him much annoyance, 

 and for some days he was observed to be moody and morose. On Thursday morning he proceeded to 

 an intimate acquaintance of his master's at Upnor, on reaching the residence of whom he set up a 

 piteous cry on finding that he could not obtain admittance. After waiting at the house some little 

 time, he was seen to go towards the river close by, when he deliberately walked down the bank, 

 and, after turning round and giving a kind of farewell howl, walked into the stream, where he kept 

 his head under water, and in a minute or two rolled over dead. This extraordinary act of suicide was 

 witnessed by several persons. The manner of his death proved pretty clearly that the animal was not 

 suffering from hydrophobia." * 



The last statement of the writer of this anecdote may be called in question, as it is a well 

 established fact that a mad Dog will often plunge its head into water, and make violent though 

 ineffectual efforts to drink; and it is very likely that the Dog in question had no real intention of 

 committing suicide, but was drowned while attempting to slake his insatiable thirst. This seems a 

 probable explanation, though it takes the point from our tale. 



Of that most horrible and fatal disease rabies little need be said here. It is accompanied 

 in the Dog by inflammation, inability to swallow, insensibility to pain, even to severe blows or 

 burns, and usually great ferocity, and a disposition to bite everything that comes in its way. The 

 gait, the glance, and also the howl of a mad Dog are very characteristic. But the most terrible 

 thing about rabies is that it can be communicated to man, producing in him the special human form 

 of the disease, hydrophobia. This latter, like rabies, never arises except by inoculation with the 

 saliva of a rabid Dog, so that both these terrible, and it is to be feared increasing diseases, might be 

 stamped out by the adoption for a few months of a rigorous quarantine, t When a human being 

 is bitten, symptoms of rabies usually occur in from a fortnight to three months ; but a case is on 

 record in which the disease did not appear for twelve years ! When the poison is once established in 

 the system a cure seems to be utterly impossible. The only remedy is at once either to cut out 

 the wound or to rub it deeply and thoroughly with lunar caustic (nitrate of silver), which Mr. Youatt 

 states to be far more efficacious than actual cauterising or burning with a red-hot iron. 



The varieties or breeds of the Dog are extremely numerous, and differ from each other to 

 a wonderful degree. In the matter of size, we have the Mastiff, as large as a pony, at one end of the 

 series, and the Toy-terrier, a few inches long, at the other. As to the development of hair, there 

 is every gradation, from the hairless Turkish Dog to the Skye-terrier or the Poodle ; as to running 

 powers, there are the Greyhound and the Turnspit ; in the matter of mental and moral characteristics, 

 we have the intelligent Shepherd's Dog, the obstinate and courageous Bull-dog, the silly Italian 

 Greyhound, and the lazy Lap-dog. Never was animal so thoroughly, so unanimously, and so success- 

 fully selected : never did any show such endless variation in so many particulars. 



* Quoted from the Daily News in the article on " Animal Depravity" in the Quarterly Journal of Science for 1875. 

 h See Sir Thomas Watson:" Hydrophobia and Babies," Nineteenth Century, December, 1877- 



