14 Chapters on Animals. 



I know a very small dog that was given by his master to 

 a friend who lived sixty miles off. His new proprietor 

 carried him in the inside of a coach ; but the next morning 

 the little animal was in his old home again, having found 

 his way across country, and a most fatiguing and bewilder- 

 ing country too, covered with dense forests and steep hills. 

 Has the reader ever observed how much swifter dogs are 

 than their behaviour would lead one to imagine ? Here is 

 an illustration of what I mean. I know a very rapid coach 

 which is always preceded by a middling-sized dog of no 

 particular breed. Well, this dog amuses itself within a 

 yard of the horses' hoofs, turning round, leaping, looking 

 at other vehicles, snapping at other dogs, barking at its 

 own and other horses, and leading, in a word, exactly the 

 same kind of life as if it were amusing itself in the inn- 

 yard before starting. Now, consider a little the amazing 

 perfection of organization, the readiness and firmness of 

 nerve, required for motions so complicated as these, and 

 the bodily energy, too, necessary to keep them up, not for 

 a few yards, but mile after mile as the coach rattles along 

 the road ! One false step, one second of delay, and the 

 dog would be under the hoofs of the horses, yet he plays 

 as children play on the sea-shore before the slowly advanc- 

 ing tide. With the dog's energy, and a wiser economy 

 of it, a man could run a hundred miles without an interval 

 of rest. 



We make use of the dehcate faculty of scent possessed 

 by these animals to aid us in the chase, and are so accus- 

 tomed to rely upon it that its marvellousness escapes 

 attention. But we have no physical faculty so exquisite 

 as this. It it clear that the dog's opinions about odours 

 must be widely different from ours, for he endures very 

 strong smells which to us are simply intolerable, and posi- 



