OKDER V. THE CARXIVORA. 79 



Ag'ain, a lad, upon a liard-trotting horse, liaving allowed the cakes lie had 

 bought to be tossed out of his basket, had scarcely discovered his loss and 

 dismounted, when the House Dog, who had followed him, came home with 

 the greater part in his mouth. These he had no sooner dropped, than, run- 

 ning Ijack, he fetched the remainder. 



But their capacity for understanding certain wishes of man, is curiously 

 evinced in the Pariah Dogs, belonging to the Sepoy soldiers in India. As 

 these men are of many chfTerent creeds and castes, scarcely any two can 

 cook together, or use the same vessel ; they are even jealous of a defiling 

 shadow passing across their food. But their duties not permitting personal 

 sujierintendeuce, many have dogs so trained as to keep oif all strangers. 

 These animals will stand on their hind feet, and, springing in tiie air, drive 

 away an argeclah, or a stooping vulture, being even carefid that their own 

 shadow does not cross the vessels containing the food. 



The benevolent feelings and prescience of impending consequences of 

 dogs are often strikingly exemplified. A Cur Dog had been maliciousiy 

 thrown into a roaring sluice, when a Water Dog, who had been standing by, 

 and observed the cruel act, innnediatcly, of his own accord, plunged into 

 the current, and brought the Cur safely out. And in another instance, of a 

 Bomei'anian Dog, belonging to the master of a Dutch Bylander vessel : A 

 child had fallen overboard unobserved by any person. This creature sprang 

 into the water, caught up the child, and swam to the shore with it, before 

 any person had discovered the accident. 



The most remarkable of these, however, is that of a Swiss Chamois- 

 hunter's Dog, who, being on the glaciers with an English gentleman and his 

 master, observed the first approaching one of those dreadful crevices in the 

 ice to look down into it. He began to slide towards the edge ; his guide, 

 with a view to save him, caught his coat, when both slid onward, till the 

 dog seized his master's clothes, and rescued them both from ine\itable 

 death. The gentleman left the dog a pension for life. 



A more remarkable presentiment of danger affecting themselves appears 

 in the notice Captain Fitzroy gives of the earthquake at Galeahuasco, on 

 the 20th of February, 183"), where it appeared that all the dogs had left the 

 town before the "Teat shock which ruined the buildintrs was felt. 



The Smuggling Dog. — The public authorities in France, having made 

 strenuous endeavors to abate smuggling between the frontiers of Belgium 

 and that kingdom, discovered that they had only transferred the practice 

 from men to dogs, who were trained to cany lace, and other small articles, 

 securely packed, across fields and rivers, where a whole army of custom- 

 house and other officers were inadequate to arrest them. One man engaged 

 in this business trained au active and sagacious Spaniel to aid him in his 



