210 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



made its patrol. But on the doubt being uttered a 

 third time, it got up, looked at its master, and when 

 he laughed, growled and curled up again by the fire. 



The writer had an old setter which lived in the 

 country, but always knew when his master was coming 

 back from town. He slept in the stable, and probably 

 heard the order given for the dogcart to be sent to 

 the station to meet his master ; for there was no 

 other preparation for his coming that the dog could 

 have been aware of, yet " Plato " was always to be 

 found waiting at the front door when he arrived. 



It is greatly to the credit of canine intelligence that 

 dogs soon learn to understand not only orders given 

 in any pure language, but also those given in debased 

 or mixed languages. Is this, perhaps, the origin of the 

 phrase " dog Latin " ? The dog-teams used when the 

 Klondike was first discovered were worked in a kind 

 of " pidgin French," a mixture of old Canadian- 

 French, English, and Indian. The order to start 

 was " Macharn ! " which all the trained dogs under- 

 stood. This the English miners turned into " March 

 on ! " Its origin, and the form in which the first 

 sledge-dogs had heard it, was " Marche, chien ! " 

 Probably most English hounds were addressed in a 

 bastard Norman-French long after the language was 

 entirely dropped in speaking to persons. It is just 

 possible that the familiar " War hare ! " and " Eloo in ! " 

 are the remains of the ancient foreign hunting terms. 



Where collies are being " worked " on the hills of 

 the North by their masters, the latter as a rule address 

 them in a series of shrieks, not shouts, which are abso- 



