SOME OF OUR PETS. 43 



Undaunted by invariable failure, he was always 

 ready, and would dash noisily after them ; while they, 

 enjoying the joke — for every crow is a fellow of infinite 

 jest — liew tantalizingly along close in front of his nose, 

 and only just out of his reach. Sometimes they would 

 settle on the ground a long way oflf, and — apparently 

 oblivious of him — become so deeply absorbed in search- 

 ing for the choicest morsels of rubbish that Toto, 

 deluded by the well-acted little play, would make a 

 wild charge. But the artless-looking crows, who all 

 the while were thinking of him, had accurately cal- 

 culated time and distance ; and as he galloped up — • 

 confident that this time at least he was really going to 

 catch one — ^they would allow him to come within an 

 inch of touching them before they would appear to see 

 him at all ; then, rising slowly into the air — as if it 

 were hardly worth the trouble to get out of his way— 

 they would hover, croaking contemptuously, above his 

 head, just out of reach of his spring. 



And when at last he was tired out with racing after 

 them, and — being, like Hamlet, " fat and scant of 

 breath " — could only fling himself panting on the sand, 

 they would walk derisively all round him ; come up 

 defiantly, close to his gasping mouth, and all but perch 

 on him. Before we left, several of the native dogs had 

 learned the game ; possibly their descendants will keep 

 it up, and — who knows ? — some naturalist of the future 

 may record his discovery of a strange friendship 

 between dogs and crows in Mogador. 



From the latter place T made several expeditions 



