286 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



ing flics upon the window-panes, and if ridiculed when un- 

 successful, was evidently much annoyed. On one occasion, 

 in order to see what he would do, I purposely laughed im- 

 moderately every time he failed. It so happened that he 

 did so several times in succession — partly, I believe, in con- 

 sequence of my laughing — and eventually he became so dis- 

 tressed that he positively pretended to catch the fly, going 

 through all the appropriate actions with his lips and tongue, 

 and afterward rubbing the ground with his neck as if to 

 kill the victim ; he then looked up at me with a triumph- 

 ant air of success. So well was the whole process simu- 

 lated that I should have been quite deceived had I not 

 seen that the fly was still upon the window. Accordingly, 

 I drew his attention to this fact, as well as to the absence of 

 anything upon the floor ; and, when he saw that his hy- 

 pocrisy had been detected, he slunk away under some fur- 

 niture, evidently very much ashamed of himself. 



9. The terrier in question far surpassed any animal I 

 ever knew in the keen sensitiveness of his feelings, and he 

 was never beaten in his life. One day he was shut up in a 

 room by himself while everybody in the house went out. 

 Seeing his friends from the window as they departed, he 

 appears to have been overcome by a paroxysm of rage, for, 

 when I returned, I found that he had torn all the bottom 

 of the window-curtains to shreds. When I first opened 

 the door, he jumped about as dogs do under similar cir- 

 cumstances, having, in his joy to see me, apparently for- 

 gotten the damage he had done. But when, without speak- 

 ing, I picked up one of the torn shreds of the curtains, the 

 terrier gave a howl, and, rushing out of the room, ran up- 

 stairs screaming as loudly as he was able. 



10. It is remarkable, also, that this animal's sensitive- 

 ness was not only of a selfish kind, bat extended itself in 

 sympathy for others. Whenever he saw a man striking a 

 dog, whether in the house or outside, near at hand or at a 



