CHAP. XIV.} DOMESTICATED ANIMALS, Ws 
strength,—you lose more than you gain, by giving at the same 
time hard-headedness and obstinacy. It is much better, if you 
fancy your breed of pointers or setters to be growing small or 
degenerate, to cross them with some different family of pointers 
or setters of stronger or faster make, of which you will be sure 
to find plenty with very little trouble. It is a great point 
in all dogs to allow them to be as much at liberty as possible ; 
no animal kept shut up in.a kennel or place of confinement 
can have the same use of his senses as one who is allowed to 
be at large to gain opportunities of exerting his powers of obser 
vation and increase his knowledge in the ways of the world. 
Dogs who are allowed to be always loose are very seldom 
mischievous and troublesome, it is only those who are kept 
too long shut up and in solitude that rush into mischief the 
moment they are at liberty; of course it is necessary to keep 
dogs confined to a certain extent, but my rule is to imprison them 
as little as possible. Mine, therefore, seldom are troublesome, 
but live at peace and friendship with numerous other animals 
about the house and grounds, although many of those animals 
are their natural enemies and objects of chace: dogs, Shetland 
ponies, cats, tame rabbits, wild ducks, sheldrakes, pigeons, &c., 
all associate together and feed out of the same hand; and the 
only one of my pets whose inclination to slaughter I cannot 
subdue, is a peregrine falcon, who never loses an opportunity of 
killing any duck or hen that may venture within his reach. Even 
the wild partridges and wood-pigeons, who frequently feed with 
the poultry, are left unmolested by the dogs. The terrier, who 
is constantly at warfare with cats and rabbits in a state of 
nature, leaves those about the house in perfect peace ; while the 
wildest of all wild fowl, the common mallards and sheldrakes, 
eat corn from the hand of the “ hen-wife.” 
Though naturally all men are carnivorous, and therefore 
animals of prey, and inclined by nature to hunt and destroy 
other creatures, and although I share in this our natural in- 
stinct to a great extent, I have far more pleasure in seeing these 
different animals enjoying themselves about me, and in observing 
their different habits, than I have in hunting down and destroying 
them. 
