3 i8 MATERNAL SAGACITY. 



Sometimes the health of the mother will not permit her to rear her progeny ; and 

 in that case, if no worthy substitute can be found, the most humane mode of action is 

 to remove the young puppies in succession, and so to avoid too severe a shock to the 

 maternal feelings of their progenetrix. If they are all removed at the same time, the 

 sudden deprivation is very likely to bring on a severe fever, and to endanger the 

 already weakened life of the mother. If the process of removing and destroying the 

 young ones has been repeated more than once, the mother becomes so watchful over 

 her progeny that it is by no means easy to withdraw them without her cognizance. 

 As an example of this maternal vigilance, I am enabled to give an anecdote which 

 has been forwarded to me by Mrs. S. C. Hall, which exhibits not only the good mem- 

 ory of an of ten- bereaved mother, but a most touching instance of maternal affection. 



" In our large, rambling, country home, we had Dogs of high and low degree, from 

 the silky and sleepy King Charles down (query, up ?) to the stately Newfoundland, 

 who disputed possession of the top step or rather platform to which the steps led 

 of the lumbering hall-door with a magnificent Angora ram, who was as tame and almost 

 as intelligent as Master Neptune himself. After sundry growls and butts the Dog 

 and the ram generally compromised matters by dividing the step between them, much 

 to the inconvenience of every other quadruped or biped who might desire to pass in 

 or out of the hall. 



The King Charles, named Chloe, was my dear grandmother's favorite ; she was a 

 meek, soft, fawning little creature, blind of one eye, and so gentle and faithful, refusing 

 food except from the one dear hand that was liberal of kindness to her. Chloe's 

 puppies were in great demand ; and it must be confessed that her supply was very 

 bountiful, too bountiful indeed, for out of the four which she considered the proper 

 number at a birth, two were generally drowned. My grandmother thought that Chloe 

 ought not to raise more than two ; Chloe believed that she could educate four, and it 

 was always difficult to abstract the doomed ones from the watchful little mother. 



It so chanced that once, after the two pups had been drowned by one of the stable- 

 men, poor Chloe discovered their little wet bodies in the stable-yard, and brought 

 them to the live ones that remained in her basket. She licked them, cherished them, 

 howled over them, but still they continued damp and cold. Gentle at all other times, 

 she would not now permit even her dear mistress, to remove them, and no stratagem 

 could draw her from her basket. At last, we supposed, Chloe felt it was not good for 

 the dead and the living to be together, so she took one of the poor things in her mouth, 

 walked with it across the lawn to the spot where a lovely red thorn-tree made a shady 

 place, dug a hole, laid the puppy in it, came back for the other, placed it with its little 

 relative, scraped the earth over them, and returned sadly and slowly to her duties. 



The story of the Dog burying her puppies was discredited by some of our neighbors ; 

 and the next time that Chloe became a mother the dead puppies were left in her way, 

 for my grandmother was resolved that her friends should witness her Dog's sagacity. 

 This time Chloe did not bring the dead to the living, but carried them at once to the 

 same spot, dug their graves, and placed them quietly in it. It almost seemed as if 

 she had ascertained what death was." 



I am also indebted to the same lady for a short history of canine life, which 

 corroborates the account of assistance requested by one Dog and given by another 

 which may be found on p. 287. 



1 Neptune, the ram's antagonist, had a warm friendship for a very pretty retriever, 

 Charger by name, who, in addition to very warm affections, possessed a very hot 

 temper. In short, he was a decidedly quarrelsome Dog ; but Neptune overlooked his 

 friend's faults, and bore his ill-temper with the most dignified gravity, turning away 

 his head, and not seeming to hear his snarls, or even to feel his snaps. 



But all Dogs were not equally charitable, and Charger had a long-standing quarrel 

 with a huge bull-dog, I believe it was, for it was ugly and ferocious enough to have 

 been a bull-dog, belonging to a butcher, the only butcher within a circle of five 

 miles, who lived at Carrick, and was called the Lad of Carrick. He was very 

 nearly as authoritative as his bull-dog. It so chanced that Charger and the bull-dog 

 met somewhere, and the result was that our beautiful retriever was brought home so 



