60 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



you might be able to add a fe\v ornamental subjects, 

 such as giving his paw, and keeping guard over a 

 coat or stick left in his charge. He is a generalized 

 beast, grandson to the jackal, and first cousin to the 

 cur of Europe and the Eastern pariah. To this 

 primitive, or only slightly-improved type of dog, the 

 colley perhaps comes nearest of all the breeds we 

 value ; and when he is thrown back on nature he is 

 " all there," and not hindered as the pointer and 

 other varieties are by more deeply-rooted special in- 

 stincts. At all events, this individual took very 

 kindly to the rude life and work of his new com- 

 panions, and by means of his hardihood and inex- 

 haustible energy, became their leader and superior, 

 especially in hunting. Above anything he loved 

 to chase a fox ; and when in the course of a ride in 

 the valley one was started, he invariably threw all 

 the native dogs out and caught and killed it himself. 

 If these dogs had all together taken to a feral life, I 

 do not think the colley would have been worse off 

 than the others. 



Ib was very different with the greyhounds. There 

 were four, all of pure breed ; and as they were never 

 taken out to hunt, and could not, like the colley, 

 take their share in the ordinary work of the establish- 

 ment, they were absolutely useless, and certainly not 

 ornamental. When I first noticed them they were 

 pitiable objects, thin as skeletons, so lame that they 

 could scarcely walk, and wounded and scratched 

 all over with thorns. I was told that they had been 

 out hunting on their own account in the thorny 



