JUNE 147 



certainly she seemed inclined to avoid the encounter. 

 The kingfisher was rescued, and set at liberty once more 

 in its paradise of tinkling shallows and bending willows. 



XXV 



Cats are all very well in a town, for those who like 

 them, whereof I am not one. You may lavish 

 unstinted affection upon your cat, pamper it 

 with cream, and fish, and what not, besides wasting good 

 time in conferring infinite delight upon the brute by 

 stroking its back, but you will get no frank requital of 

 love such as is won so easily from a dog. Dr. Louis 

 Robinson has explained the reason why. Cats and their 

 kind, lions and tigers, are solitary hunters ; they neither 

 give nor brook co-operation; they have their lairs and 

 haunts, but they seek no society, and value human patrons 

 only as purveyors of delicacies or as amateur imasseurs. 

 It is far otherwise with dogs and their congeners, the 

 wolves. The whole canine scheme is social ; a dog alone 

 is a dog at a loss. Who ever saw a cat in distress for the 

 absence of her mistress ? but there are few more wistful 

 countenances than that of a dog who has missed his 

 master in the streets. A solitary dog is helpless: it is 

 only sad dogs, bad dogs, dogs untrue to their nature, that 

 go a-hunting without company. Honest dogs are only 

 happy in concert with the rest of the pack, or with a 

 human companion. Set a dog to scrape at a rabbit- 

 burrow, and he will work as if his life depended upon it. 

 But he expects you to do your share, giving you explicit 

 instructions, all but articulate, how you are to watch the 

 bolt hole, while he works the front door. Whether he 



