234 The Carnivora. 
dog’s stomach. I rose, more in sorrow than in anger, to 
ascertain the cause. There sat Hector, gloomily gazing at a 
heap of undigested meat on the oilcloth in front of him: 
the veritable Australian corned beef! Was it, think you, the 
“still small voice” of conscience that brought his crime to 
light; or, haply, was it the irritating effect on his stomach of 
the salt in the meat? That secret lies buried with the noble 
old doggie in his grave under the spreading chestnut tree at 
Hendon. Requiescat in pace! 
Have dogs a sense of humour? I have not been able to 
discover any sign of it; but my own dogs have all belonged 
to the retrieving profession, and were duly impressed with 
the gravity and sense of responsibility of their calling. The 
late Dr. John Brown, of immortal memory, said: “I have a 
notion that dogs have humour, and are perceptive of a joke. 
In the north a shepherd, having sold his sheep at market, 
was asked by the buyer to lend him his dog to take them 
home. ‘By a’ manner o’ means; tak’ Birkie, and when ye’re 
done wi’ him just play so (making a movement with his 
arm), and he'll be hame in a jiffy.’ Birkie was so clever, 
and useful, and gay, that the borrower coveted him; and on 
getting home to his farm, shut him up, intending to keep 
him. Birkie, however, escaped during the night, and took 
the entire hirsel (flock) back to his own master.” For my 
own part I am not so fortunate as the Scottish judge, who 
cogitated all night on a joke-he heard in Court, and when 
the point of it suddenly broke upon him at dawn, ejaculated 
with solemn satisfaction: “I hae ye noo!” Possibly the 
considerable infusion of Scottish blood in my own veins blunts 
my perception of humour. 
Bacon thought, or affected to think, wit and the sense of 
humour no very great ornament to the human mind, or evi- 
dence of intellect, so that I am not much concerned at the 
lack of it in my dog. There have been few keener observers 
of the character of animals than James Hogg—‘“the Ettrick 
Shepherd ”—and I am therefore well content to let him lead 
