O DOGS. 



The males continue to propagate till advanced 

 age impair their faculties; while the female discon- 

 tinues having young ones at about the age of eight 

 or nine years; she is in heat usually twice a year, for 

 a period of ten to fifteen days, during which time 

 she will, unless restrained, admit a variety of males, 

 having, apparently, but little choice or preference; 

 it is therefore essential to keep a watch over her 

 when in heat, or her progeny will be a mongrel race, 

 without any pretension to perfection either of breed 

 or quality. 



Dogs usually live about fourteen or fifteen years; 

 they have been known to attain the age of twenty 

 years. In their advanced age, dogs frequently suffer 

 greatly from decay, and various diseases, and are 

 extremely subject to rheumatism, from their exposure 

 to rain and damp. 



Dogs are naturally carnivorous, that is, they 

 subsist on flesh; but in a state of domestication, 

 they will also partake of farinaceous food. Instinct 

 points out to the dog a particular sort of grass, 

 as the bearded wheat grass, and the rough cock's foot 

 grass, as a vomit, when oppressed by sickness, to 

 which he always has recourse when either is within 

 reach. He takes his drink by lapping it up with 

 his long flexible tongue. 



The dog does not sensibly perspire by the skin; 

 the superfluous moisture of the body escapes at the 

 mouth by panting, when heated, and by tl*e extra- 

 ordinary diuretic habits of the animal. It is a 

 singular fact that a dog will rarely pass a stone or a 

 wall against which another dog has watered, without 

 following his example; and the rapid secretion of 

 urine which enables him to repeat this many times, 



