444 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 29, 1887. 



a bite o' suthin', Hiruin; o' the last she ever set for her 

 mis'able ol' father! There's the tea on the stove h'ath a 

 waitin' for me 'at killed her! Oh, my God!" After a 

 Mttle the heart-broken old man raised his bowed head 

 from his hands and looked about for something. 

 "Where's my gun? Oh, I know. I'll go 'long daown wi' 

 ye an' git it," and they went out together. The last that 

 Hiram saw of him as he cast a glance behind, he was 

 standing in the moonlit road carefully loading his rifle. 

 "What's he feared on 'at a bullit could hurt?" the young 

 man bitterly asked himself, and then a fire of wrath 

 flamed up in his slow soul against the lonely man who 

 had wrought as great desolation to his own heart as to 

 his. 



The daylight had scarcely scaled the mountain tops 

 and the stars above the quiet valley were just begmning 

 to fade into the gray sky when the horror-stricken neigh- 

 bors came up to the little house. There was no sign of 

 life about it but the old hound crouching sad and silent 

 on the doorstep. Entering, they saw by the faint light 

 of the comingiday and the candle with a "winding sheet" 

 dropping from its spluttering wick, old Amos Brown 

 lying dead upon the kitchen floor with his empty rifle 

 cast away from him, and in the bedroom poor Polly, with 

 her hands folded across her breast, and so peaceful a look 

 upon her pale, beautiful face, that at first they thought 

 her only asleep. Rowland E. Robinson. 



DALE ANDREWS. 



LAST week some of the people began to miss from the 

 vicinity of the West End one of the most familiar 

 figures. Many will now for the first time be shocked at 

 the announcement that he will be seen among them no 

 more; although many children must have hurried home 

 with sobs in their hearts if not in then- voices to say that 

 Dale Andrews is dead. He was only a lemon and white 

 pointer who carried his tail thrust out behind him, as a 

 Cossack soldier wears his sabre, but he was a dog of such 

 high degree) such fine intelligence and such polished man- 

 ners that his acquaintance — and they were legion— soon 

 lost sight of his species and made him their friend. He 

 did not speak then: language, and they did not under- 

 stand his: but his gentlemanly tact never allowed him to 

 betray his ignorance of their kindly salutations, nor did 

 it occur to them that his overflowing geniality had not 

 been expressed in the plainest of spoken words. 



His masters were four grown boys who kept house in a 

 flat, and who sometimes facetiously spoke of him as "the 

 children" or "the menagerie," and whose rotund and 

 turbaned housekeeper often lectured to him soberly about 

 how he "to' 'round the neighborhood," all of which was 

 indicative that he was the only thing in all the bachelor 

 household, from the bric-a-brac to the shotguns, that 

 called for any tenderness or soblcitude. And perhaps it 

 is in this humanizing influence which he thus exerted in 

 that little cosner of the world that is to be found the 

 secret of that nobility which made him famous and gave 

 him friends. 



What must have been one of the divine purposes of the 

 brute Creation comes near to being realized when it ap- 

 peals to the tender emotions of humanity ; it is more than 

 realized where it supplies food for them. It is therefore 

 in accordance with the eternal fitness that this dog who 

 so approached to the performance of this ideal function 

 should have been blessed with an ideal home, an ideal 

 life and perfect friendship. He had the first of these, an 

 ideal home, because he was a fair sharer in all its benefits 

 and pleasures. He sometimes put his paws on the edge 

 of the table and anxiously observed the progress of some 

 game of cards, or lifted up his voice to heaven in right- 

 eous protest against an overworked violin, or awakened 

 some one in the small hours of the night to ask him to 

 get him a drink of water. 



The night before Ms death he came home from a gallop 

 through the residence portion of the city, just as his mas- 

 ters came home from their work, and threw him down 

 before the fire to dry his feet; his contented eyes strayed 

 lazily from the shovel to the fender, and from the fender 

 to the fire. And Mary, in her turban, came and looked 

 down on him severely, and said: "Yo' rascal, where yo' 

 been?" And he wagged his tail just once and let it drop, 

 and glanced at her with that look which expressed pleas- 

 ure, but was canine and therefore not to be defined as a 

 smile; whereat his sable proconsulator chuckled, and he 

 dropped off to sleep dreaming, I suppose, retrospectively 

 of Ms ramble; prospectively of his supper. 



To speak of his accomplishments would be but to tell 

 the story of a well trained dog. How, of an evening, he 

 would go to the closet and fetch Ms master's slippers, 

 picking them out from among the others by a sense finer 

 than men possess, even in respect of slippers; or how, at 

 such delightful times as when he and the family and the 

 shotguns went hunting, he would find and point the live 

 birds and retrieve the dead. But to speak of Ms affection 

 is another matter. 



One afternoon last week one of Ms masters came home 

 tired and went to bed to rest, and directly when he heard 

 a scratchy push at his bedroom door he knew it was Dale 

 come to welcome him. But when the dog crossed the 

 darkened threshold and thus knew he was in the atmos- 

 phere of sleep, no sleeping person could have known that 

 shortly thereafter a cautious, sober dog, placed first one 

 foot and then the other upon the bed, and in a brief 

 moment reached his head over the man's shoulder, licked 

 Ms nose, as if to say, "Though not classical 'tis my 

 master's," and believing he was asleep laid Ms head for a 

 moment tenderly upon Ms master's face and then softly 

 and carefully climbed down. 



But on Thursday in the middle of the night, as he slept 

 on the landmg at the kitchen door, he must have dreamed 

 that the Laocoon was an allegory for dogs, and that by 

 the serpents who are coiled about it were meant those who 

 poison dogs; and he must have awakened shortly there- 

 after with a horrible pain, for, to the shame of humanity 

 be it spoken, some foul fiend had poisoned him. 



The mystery of death is a severe tax upon the under- 

 standing and composure of men whose hands are held 

 and whose last hours are soothed by the best of helpers 

 and the most loving of friends. With this dog — his 

 straining intelligence appalled by an impending evil he 

 could not avoid, shut in by the door below, locked out by 

 the door above from light, from help, from the comfort 

 of a familiar voice — what must he have thought of men 

 to leave him thus. Where, since his masters had 

 forgotton him, could be that sweet little girl who looked 

 mto his yard on her way to school to talk to him and 



stroke his head? Where was Mary? And then, when 

 the poison tore out his very vitals until, instead of the air 

 which should never have been denied him, he breathed 

 blood, when the horrible torture wore upon him until he 

 could ask of the sphinx of this life but one more question, 

 what answer did he receive when he asked what he, a 

 dog, had done to be condemned to such a death? 



It may be a sign of weakness for grown people to grieve 

 over the death of a dog, but they may at least hope that 

 on the other side of this life' there is a sunny upland 

 where dogs do wait until the time at the Final Assizes 

 whence the murderers of dogs shall go to their reward, 

 and the friends of dogs be once more restored unto them. 



To those assernbledto hear this tribute of love and re- 

 spect for our friend it were useless to remark that if the 

 meanest traits of mankind were scaled no further below 

 the meanest traits of dogs than the best intelligence of 

 dogs is scaled below the lowest intelligence of men; then 

 this crime would never have been committed, and the 

 world would not have to blush with renewed shame at 

 the thought that some one has been born into the world 

 with a spirit too low for a brute, a heart too small for an 

 insect, and a nature too malicious for a serpent. The 

 murderer in this case has not been brought to justice. But 

 there is an eternal justice in the workings of the universe 

 which relentlessly pursues all murderers, and so surely 

 as a wicked person has killed a noble dog, and so surely 

 as the universe moves on, Ms murder will come back to 

 him in that his sleep will be murdered; likewise his 

 pleasure in himself, until at length there will come mto 

 his nature that full knowledge of his smallness of stature 

 which will make itself felt by others, and when men 

 despise a man his crimes are well on the way to expiation. 



Gr. K. A. 



Addresss all wmnvwiications to the Forest and Stream Puh. Co. 



NOTES OF THE FIELDS AND WOODS. 



IV.— SNAILS AND THEIR WAYS. 



ANIMALS have a great variety of ways of defendmg 

 themselves against their enemies. In general they 

 are provided with definite organs— of ten oi'gans of offense 

 as well as defense. Familiar examples are the stings of 

 msects, the talons of birds and the horns of cattle. The 

 study of the development of these organs of attack and 

 defense forms some of the most interesting and signifi- 

 cant chapters in the story of evolution. It need not be 

 said that the task is a great one and yet far from being 

 finished. In many cases it is evident enough that the 

 organs arose by modifications of parts already present; 

 thus the claws of birds of prey are modified toenails, the 

 stmgs of bees modified reproductive organs, and the 

 poison-glands of spiders are probably modified salivary 

 glands. But many aMmal weapons cannot be accoimted 

 for in this way. A single instance may be cited, the 

 curious ink-bag of the cuttlefish, whereby they discharge 

 a pitch-black ink into the water and so hide from their 

 pursuers. 



Commonly animals find protection against their ene- 

 mies m their habits, or to put the case on an evolution 

 basis, they have acquired habits which give them more 



or less security against their foes. For example, both on 

 land and in water many animals hide under stones and 

 rocks, others dig burrows in the ground, others live in 

 remote and maccessible places, etc., etc. Then there is 

 the remarkable principle of mimicry by wMch animals 

 come to resemble the medium in which they live either 

 in form or color. Every angler knows that many fishes are 

 almost exactly similar in color to the bottom of the stream 

 in which they live, and there are a number of marine 

 ammals which are hardly distmguishable from the water 

 itself, the jelly-fishes being the most familiar examples. 

 It is needless to multiply examples. It is plain that nature 

 is abundant in resources for the safety of her creatures. 

 If she gives them instmcts by which they fight and devour 

 one another, she also gives them protection against the 

 unrestrained exercise of these instincts. 



No class of aMmals possesses a more perfect protective 

 armor than the gasteropod molluscs, examples of which 

 are the common land and pond snails. Let us allow 

 Charles Lamb to tell the story for us: 



The frugal snail with forecast of repose, 



Carries his house with liim where'er he goes; 



Peeps out, and if there comes a shower of rain, 



Retreats to his small domicile again. 



Touch but a tip of him, a horn, 'tis well, 



He creeps up in his sanctuary shell. 



He's his own landlord, his own tenant: stay 



Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day. 



Himself he hoards and lodges; both invites 



And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights. 



He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure 



Chattels; himself is his own furniture, 



And his sole riches. Wheresoe'er he roam, 



Knock when you will, he's sure to be at home. 



chamber, which functions as the lung. This would make 

 the process essentially the same as that wMch takes place 

 in fishes in respect to their swim bladders. The snails 

 appear to raise the opening of the lung cavity above the 

 surface of the water, thus filling it with air; a supply thus 

 gained, they sink to the bottom and remain a consider- 

 able time before gettmg in a fresh store. 



The snails feed upon some water plants contained in 

 the aquarium. A favorite position is with their long, 

 creeping disk clinging to a stem and the shell hanging 

 downward, as sketched in the figiue. They appear to 

 feed upon the soft green exterior of the stem, and to 

 slowly creep along, eating the stem clean as they go. 

 These snails have only one pair of tentacles, differing in 

 this respect from the common land snails, which have 

 two pairs. Th*e tentacles of the water snails are organs 

 of touch ; the second pah pair possessed by the land snails 

 bear the eyes at the ends, and, as is well known, are re- 

 tractile. 



In the early part of the summer I noticed a number of 

 egg masses produced by the snails. They were attached 

 to the sides of the jar, and consisted of small wMte 

 particles surrounded and held together by a thick layer 

 of transparent jelly. Examining a portion of the mass 

 with the microscope a few weeks later, I found that the 

 eggs had hatched into tiny shell covered snails. It is an 

 interesting fact that in all snails the young already 

 possess a shell when they emerge from the egg. TMs 

 would indicate that the shell appeared very early in the 

 development of the class, and adds emphasis to the 

 observation made above, that the shell has had much to 

 do in the preservation of this tribe of ammals. 



The shell is formed by secretion from a portion of 

 the integument called the mantle, receiving this 

 name from the fact that it surrounds the internal 

 organs. The shell grows by additions at the mouth, 

 so that the oldest part is at the summit or apex of the 

 spiral. If the shell becomes broken the snad mends it by 

 a fresh secretion. At the approach of winter the animals 

 creep into the mud at the bottom of the pond, and having 

 drawn then- bodies into the shell, secrete a thick flMd 

 which hardens into a firm crust that closes the mouth 

 of the shell. TMs crust is doubtless permeable to air, so 

 that the ammals carry on a reduced respiration during 

 the winter. 



The land snails are to be found during the day in moisfc 

 situations Mdmg under leaves, decaying wood, etc. At 

 night they come out for food, feeding upon vegetable 

 matter. Our common American species, the largest of 

 which is Helix albolabris, do little damage, being com- 

 paratively small and few in numbers. But in some parts 

 of Europe the land snails are a great pest, often making 

 considerable depredations in gardens. If one examines 

 the mouth of a snail it is easily seen how the tender leaves 

 are seized and reduced. The mouth-cavity is quite large, 

 and just withm the lips and foiming the roof of the 

 mouth, is a strong ridged plate composed, like the shell, 

 of carbonate of lime. This plate works backward and 

 forward, like a chain saw, over a hard gristly cushion 

 wMch forms the floor of the mouth. In this way the food 

 is made ready for passage mto the alimentary canal — a 

 membranous tube which extends a considerable distance 

 into the spiral cavity of the shell and then turns upon 

 itself and opens upon the upper side of the body not far 

 from the orifice of the lung cavity. Connected with the 

 digestive canal and extending into the narrowest portion 

 of the shell cavitiy is a large liver. 



An interesting fact about snails is that they are herma- 

 pM-oditic, each animal bemg provided with both male and 

 female reproductive organs. Sexual copulation is, how- 

 ever, necessary. Pairing takes place early in the summer. 

 Soon after copulation the snails discharge their eggs 

 through the aperture at the side of the neck. They are 

 considerable in number and adhere together in jelly-like 

 masses, looking much like the egg-masses of frogs, except 

 that they are smaller. The eggs are laid in moist places 

 under leaves, etc., and hatch by heat from the sun; that 

 is, their incubation is dependent upon soIrt heat. 



A living snail can always be made to crawl out of its 

 shell by placmg it in water which has been boiled, and 

 thus deprived of the air contaihed in it. The jar contain- 

 ing the water should be covered, otherwise the snails will 

 simply crawl to the surface and get air there. If it is 

 desired to study the structure of the body of the snail, it 

 should be qmckly taken from the water and plunged into 

 boiling water. The snail will be killed almost instantan- 

 eously and with body extended. The shell can then 

 easily be removed. A number of interesting points can 

 easily be made out. The eyes will be found at the end 

 of the upper pair of tentacles, and by dissection the mus- 

 cles by which these tentacles are retracted within the 

 head can be found. The mouth will be seen at the anter- 

 ior end of the creeping disk. The opemng of the lung is 

 on the upper side; it is covered by a fold of the skin, and 

 in the living snail is opened at intervals for taking in ah. 

 The lung consists simply of a chamber, the walls of 

 which are ramified by blood vessels. By dissection the 

 heart, nervous system, alimentary canal and other organs 

 are to be found. Thus it will be seen that the snail has 

 quite a Mgh structure. In the scale of animal life it oc- 

 cupies a place about intermediate between the lowest 

 and highest forms. Its position in systematic zoology is 



The advantages possessed by his snailship, which the 

 man of wit and expression sets forth so pleasantly, sug- 

 gests to one who studies nature from a different stand- 

 point, an explanation of the extraordinary number of 

 species of these animals and their wide range of distri- 

 bution. The story of the rooks shows that most of the 

 great tribes of animals reached their culmination in re- 

 spect to number of species in days long gone by. The 

 molluscs, with the others, have suffered a diminution in 

 numbers; yet, owing to the protection of their shells, 

 they have been able to hold a front place in the race for 

 existence, and an immense number of species, about 20,000, 

 are still persistent. 



I have had a number of the common pond snails in an 

 aquarium the past summer and fall, and now and then 

 have spent odd moments in watcMng them and noting 

 their habits. One of the first things noted was that the 

 snails occasionally come to the surface of the water, indi- 

 cating that they are air breathers. Usually they ascend by 

 creeping along the sides of the aquarium in their slow, 

 (bragging way, but sometimes they use a much more ex- 

 peditious method; they rise to the surface by floating, 

 ascending in a straight line. Doubtless they are enabled 

 to change their specific gravity by enlarging or contract- 

 ing, by means of muscular action, the size of the air 



