Dogs Failing to Find thetr Homes. 199 
extensive acquaintance with London and its suburbs through 
taking long walks in almost all directions with her master, 
I invited him to spend two or three days with me in Church- 
row, to shake off the dust of Southampton-street, and 
breathe the delicious air of the “leafy month of June” on 
Hampstead Heath after office hours. He arrived with Muffet 
in a cab, and we went out the same evening with my two 
retrievers, much to Muffet’s satisfaction at finding herself in 
such excellent canine company. She had, I think, visited 
the house once before, on a winter’s evening after dark. The 
next morning, her master went to the office at 10.30, leaving 
her in my room. She at once began to bewail his absence, 
and I thought it safe, an hour after his departure, to invite 
her to come for a walk with me and my dogs, because she 
had not learned to “foot” him. As soon as she was released, 
she searched every corner of the house for her master — 
and then dashed out of the house to return to Southampton- 
street—some reader may perhaps anticipate me by exclaiming. 
Nothing of the kind, let me assure him. She went up stairs, 
with an air of deep dejection, jumped upon his bed, and sat 
there, howling piteously and incessantly, until he returned at 
4 p.m. Well as she knew me, she would not suffer me to 
approach the bed to offer her food or water. She was in a 
strange house, without any sign of her master’s intention 
to return—for he had taken his hand-bag and umbrella with 
him to the office—and must, therefore, have been under the 
strongest possible inducement to go out, as she was quite 
free to do, and search for him, either at. his chambers or in 
Wimpole-street. Why did not the “homing” instinct come 
into play here, and impel her to return to one or other of 
the old resorts? Because, in my view, having been brought 
to the house in a cab, she did not know how to return, and, 
being conscious of her inability, preferred to wait for the 
chance of her master returning in the afternoon, as had been 
his invariable habit elsewhere. Had he not reappeared the 
same day, very probably the strain on her mind would have 
