Nov. 12, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
408 
a yell of horror, he suddenly remembered the advice 
Igiven him by his grandfather, which was to look firmly m 
the eyes of any wild beast that he should meet unex- 
tpectedly, and quietly back out of sight and danger. _ Sup- 
I pressing his desire to yell, he acted as had been enjoined 
Iby his ancestor, and managed to reach home without any 
'imishap, where he fell into the lap of his mother, to whom 
■ he blubbered out his wonderful_ escape. _ Of course the 
^occurrence immediately became 'the gossip of the town, 
Hand the local paper, issued on the following morning, had 
Da leading article by a freshly arrived reporter, picturing 
lin bitter terms the recklessness of allowing a crazy 
a Yankee to keep dangerous wild animals in the vicinity, 
)]and naming one of my pet cheetahs as the cause of the 
Hboy's terrible experience. Of course I felt nettled at being 
I the subject of such a scurrilous assertion, and ached for 
Ian opportunity to prove its falsity. As luck would have 
' it, within a couple of days I was in a position to get at a 
tltrue version of the whole affair. The father of the little 
3 girl who had made friends with my cheetahs was 
Oawakened early one morning by the youngster, who in- 
I formed him that one of the animals was lying just inside 
Jof the yard gate. Hastily donning his clothing, he 
i|hurried out, and was surprised to find a large coach dog, 
I whose chain had become entangled in the yard fence 
[while evidently leaping over it, and therefore was kept 
las a prisoner. After breakfast he took the dog into_ town 
II and hunted up its owner, who acknowledged that it had 
1 been missing for several days, and he had given up all 
I hopes of regaining it, as it was a fresh arrival and not 
I yet accustomed to its surroundings. The boy who had 
ihelped to start the false report was brought face to face 
■ with the dog and instantly recognized and acknowledged 
lit as the cause of his wonderful story; but the truthful 
I reporter failed, in the next issue of his paper, to give a 
■ correct version of the affair. 
Some days subsequent the father of my little friend 
I suggested a scheme which he thought would force both the 
I public and the scribe to acknowledge their false positions, 
i He proposed that on the ensuing Saturday the youngster 
I and myself should each lead one of the animals down the 
I main street of the town. I instantly agreed to the pro- 
Iject, and forthwith began to rehearse for it with the 
1 companionship of the damsel. I gave her the male to 
I handle, as I thought him more trustworthy and less liable 
I to create a scene than the female, and in a couple of days 
I felt every confidence in being able to make a success of 
I the project. Both of the parents were present at each 
I rehearsal,' every morning and afternoon, and declared 
their intention to accompany us on our trip, one on each 
side, in order to prevent the interference of any meddler 
: who might wish to create a scene. About 10 A. M. on 
the proposed Saturday my little companion and myself 
suddenly appeared on the road leading into town, and 
by the time that we reached the head of Main street quite 
a large crowd had assembled to greet us and satisfy their 
curiosity. I purposely put the little girl in the lead, and 
1 the hearty plaudits and complimentary remarks which 
she received fairly stunned her blissful parents, who 
marched closely alongside of us. Just before reaching the 
butcher shop from which the meat was obtained for my 
pets, the idea struck me to go in, take possession, and 
hold a levee for the benefit of the town generally. Acting 
upon the notion, the animals were placed upon the coun- 
ter of the shop with the lassie seated between them, before 
the proprietor of the establishment could recover his con- 
' sciousness. It required the services of two policemen to 
keep the crowd in motion, among whom I caught a 
glimpse of the reporter busily making notes of the occur- 
rence. Finally observing indications of unrest with the 
animals, I feared that a sudden move by them would 
• cause a panic among the throng. Beckoning the father of 
the child to my side, I requested him to see if he could 
engage one of the ox teams which had stopped in front to 
carry us out of town. He stepped outside and soon re- 
turned, saying that he had been successful. Whereupon I 
caught hold of the neck cords of both animals at a short 
1 grip, while the father helped the youngster down, and 
we passed out through the bewildered visitors and were 
seated in the wagon before they could recover from their 
fright. The span (colonial term for fourteen oxen) were 
put in motion, and we wended our way out of town, amid 
the applause of its pleased citizens. 
In the next issue of the paper there_ was a florid 
. description of the entire affair, ending with a retraction 
; of the statements in the former issue. Henceforth the 
; cheetahs held a reception nearly every afternoon, as many 
of the townsfolk drove out in order to satisfy the 
: curiosity of themselves and friends whom they brought 
out with them. It did not take long for the matter to 
become a nuisance, for I had to be present constantly, 
as some of the visitors were inclined to annoy the ani- 
'• mals which nettled me; besides I feared that some of 
them would be hurt as a result of their bad behavior. 
Fortunately no one was hurt, although there were several 
narrow escapes. At odd moments, when I did not fear in- 
terruption, my time was taken up in using every device 
that I could conceive in trying to tame and domesticate 
my pets I found that they paid no attention to dogs and 
fowls but the appearance of a cat would cause a series 
of snarls and growls of so vicious a nature that m com- 
paratively a short time I was no longer bothered by visits 
from the feline pets of the neighborhood. One morning, 
as I was leading them from their cage to the house, the 
" male happened to spy the vibrating ears of a reclining 
calf which had been tied to a fence in a neighboring lane, 
and it required a stiff lug on my part to prevent him from 
making his way to his intended prey. This incident made 
me anxious for opportunity to try him with an antelope; 
but as the coast of Natal is heavily clothed with timber, 
I was unable to make the attempt, as it would have 
caused an absence of a day or two. _ 
To my great sorrow, the day appointed for the ship- 
ment of my pets arrived, and it was with a heavy heart 
that I took them, with sundry other living natural history 
specimens, on board of the steamer bound for Europe 
The little girl and parents accompanied us, and they had 
to use force in order to take her away from her favorites, 
who seemed to be aware of the situation, and when her 
father lifted her in his arms in order to take her away 
| from the cage, gave vent to a series of growls and howls 
1 which were distinctly audible after our boat had been 
pulled some distance away from the steamer. 
* Frank J. Thompson. 
Some Animals I Have Studied. 
XIV.— Two Dogs in Perfect Harmony, 
After all I doubt if any dog has ever revealed any 
quality more admirable than the ability and will to agree 
entirely with some other dog, causing him to appear gen- 
tle, merciful and just toward his comrade. In the case of 
Coallie and Gipsy, there exists a mutual admiration and 
respect that are sometimes pathetic, and always com- 
mendable. Coallie is the stronger, steadier, the more in- 
sensible to pain, and Gipsy knows it; but Gipsy is the 
swifter, has usually the better scent, posesses the better 
judgment, and Coallie is well aware of this, and their 
reliance upon, and confidence in, each other is the result. 
In addition, each is sure she can depend on the other to 
"stand by to the bitter end" in any struggle with a wild 
beast, and innumerable are the times that they have al- 
ready tested each other's courage and loyalty. Indeed, 
there is a fond rivalry between them to find which may 
seize the most perilous position in any battle. 
Though Coallie is not slow, Gipsy is so much fleeter 
that she can carry a small rabbit and "run right away 
from" Coallie easily, and she used often to do so; but 
finding, about two years ago, that Coallie could not 
always catch a rabbit unaided, she began to "divide" with 
her. ' Often I have seen her catch a rabbit, and after teas- 
ing Coallie a while with it, perhaps eating a portion of it 
almost under her nose, suddenly drop it at my feet, seem- 
ing to say, "Now, Coallie, you just come here and watch 
on this side of the fence, and I'll run a rabbit right to 
you, so close you can catch it yourself," and Coallie 
would follow her to the spot indicated, and Gipsy would 
go outside, and in two minutes the rabbit would be in 
the bigger dog's grip. Too often has it occurred just as 
described for me to believe it accidental. There is every 
evidence, excepting spoken words comprehensible to man, 
that the whole affair has been thought out and pre- 
arranged. Signs sometimes speak more plainly than 
words. The smaller dog plainly appears to offer the 
proposition. The larger dog as plainly appears to receive 
it with favor, to comprehend it, to have faith in the 
former's knowledge and ability— in short, to trust_ her. 
And the quick-following consequences justify my opinion 
of the scheme. 
If they are widely separated when hunting for rabbits, 
and Gipsy starts one, she generally soon picks it up. If 
I am near and gently ask for it, she will surrender it, 
though sometimes very reluctantly. If Coallie stirs up a 
rabbit she either soon trees it or loses it, generally; sel- 
dom does she catch one unaided ; that is, compared to the 
number she doesn't catch; yet she catches more than or- 
dinary hounds and curs. If she loses the rabbit, she calls 
Gipsy to help find it. If she trees it, she barks for me to 
come and get it out. If Gipsy is with her, Coallie 
watches the tree while Gipsy comes after me and guides 
me to the tree. Gipsy has come after me hundreds of 
times, I truly believe, whether I happened to be at the 
house or in the fields, or in some distant part of the 
forest, or at a neighbor's house. It matters not how far 
away (unless I'm entirely out of the neighborhood), she 
seems to know where to find me. Sometimes, when "in 
deadly earnest," they do not bark on the chase, and but 
for the little dog's habit of coming after me, the rabbit, 
when treed, would have to remain unclaimed. I have 
almost come to the conclusion that a dog enjoys chasing 
a rabbit more than catching him, and that whenever he 
barks sharply on the run he is in no hurry to capture the 
fugitive, if, indeed, he cares to at all. I would like to 
hear the opinions of sportsmen and naturalists on this 
subject. Many superficial observers declare that_ rabbits 
naturally out-run nearly all dogs, and seem to think that 
a rabbit is caught only under exceptional circumstances, 
as when worn out, sick, too playful, or intending to com- 
mit suicide. They cannot understand that the dog may 
be over-confident, and allow opportunities to slip by, 
thinking he can at any time easily overhaul the game 
after he has had all the sport desirable, or that he may not 
intend to really try to catch the rabbit, or that he may pre- 
fer to leave the rabbit for another day. I have often seen 
Gipsy play with uninjured rabbits just as a cat plays with 
a mouse, sitting and pretending to look another way until 
the rabbit would jump up and sneak off a distance of 
fifteen to sixty feet, then, when it "lit out" in earnest, she 
would fly at it and snatch it again. And after continuing 
this seemingly cruel sport for many minutes, she would 
finally kill the rabbit or just deliberately walk off and 
leave it free. Stranger still, I have known rabbits — not 
necessarily pets nor domesticated, either — which seemed 
to have formed a "treaty of peace" with certain dogs or 
with all dogs, and would come and play with them, or 
some one of them, every moonlight night for a week or 
more, or at some hour of the day, and perhaps every day ; 
and, so far as I could distinguish, no such rabbit was 
ever caught bv any dog, although the dog thus visited 
might pretend to be eager to take the bold, defiant, mock- 
ing old fellow. 
There is a ravine sloping rapidly eastward on the 
southern half of my land that contains a _ number of 
never-failing springs and small pools, and which is called 
Turkey Hollow, as it is a favorite resort of these magnifi- 
cent wild birds. They not only find rich picking there 
at all times of the year, for there are so many varieties of 
berries that there's never a day in the year, winter or 
summer, but ripe ones of some sort are to be found ; and, 
in their seasons, there is also an abundance of nuts, 
acorns, and other seeds, besides grasses, but like often to 
roost there. Here happened an adventure which will 
serve to indicate the friendly rivalry between Gipsy and 
Coallie. We were hauling wood from a hillside between 
the house and Turkey Hollow. The dogs always go 
along, if allowed to, and while we are at work they hunt. 
Suddenly they began barking most excitedly, and after 
waiting to see whether they really meant it, we went to 
them, the distance being an eighth of a mile. We saw 
at once what was the trouble—flying squirrels. I've had 
one experience with flying squirrels so very extraordinary 
that I'm tempted to digress here, but it must wait. A 
white oak, evidently hollow, rose straight up from a flat 
spot in the depth of the ravine, and was unusually scarce 
of branches, being more like a round chimney than a 
tree in shape, although yet green. At a height of about 
16 feet it was clothed with a circle of small, short sprouts, 
which extended almost evenly from all sides like the 
spokes of a wheel, though some of them were crooked. 
Opposite this, eight or ten feet westward, was the gently- 
sloping top of a very tall pine sapling whose roots clung 
to the ground a great distance north, where the body was 
little more than six inches in diameter. It was very 
smooth. But after numerous frantic efforts to climb the 
perpendicular oak as far as the bunch of sprouts, where 
probably they had last seen one or more of the flying 
squirrels, the dogs ran to the butt of the pine, leaped on 
it, ran upward a few bounds, and fell off, or became dis- 
couraged and jumped off. In a minute they desisted and 
returned to the oak. We laughed at them, and then 1 
said encouragingly : "Gipsy, you can climb it if you're 
careful. You're my climber. Come on, that's a good 
dog." And carrying her toward the butt of the pine till 
I came to a part of it I could easily reach, I placed her 
carefully on the trunk, steadied her a moment to give her 
confidence, and exclaimed : "Now go ! Maybe the squir- 
rel is up in the top of this." This time she ascended to a 
point almost oppoiste the oak's sprouts. Here, wavering, 
she turned, and came down at a run, leaping off in my 
arms. 
Coallie had looked on intently, trembling with anxiety. 
Now she gave a joyful bark that seemed to say, "I'll do 
that, too, if I die for it !" and running eagerly to the butt 
she jumped upon it and bounded upward in a most dare- 
devil style. Several times she slipped, but kept on un- 
daunted. Further, further; higher, higher, higher, until 
at that part nearest the squirrels' supposed hiding place 
in the oak, and then she gave a mighty, panther-like leap, 
and hurled herself upon those frail sprouts in the oak. It 
was wholly unexpected, and the most foolhardy trick I 
ever saw any dog attempt for so unimportant a purpose. 
Of course we cheered her till the forest rang and echoed. 
But not content with her brilliant feat, she reared up — 
tip-toed, so to speak — and leaped up a few inches higher 
against the round, limbless, perpendicular trunk, several 
times missing her footing, when she fell back and pre- 
cariously catching a limb with her forepaws. She seemed 
to say: "My scent tells me that the squirrels went 
higher, and now that I've come so far, I'd like to go on." 
She seemed no more timid than a thing with wings. I 
often think what an almost invincible creature a brave, 
intelligent dog would be if he could fly like a hawk; 
only man could successfully resist him — i. e., supposing 
other mammals remained as now. Finding she could get 
no higher hold, she actually crept clear around the trunk, 
stepping from limb to limb. Gipsy good-naturedly ap- 
plauded her, as generously as we did, though she showed 
some signs of chagrin; for she generally far surpasses 
Coallie in all climbing feats. 
I am sorry to say that Coallie's fine performance did 
hot wind up with a graceful climax. She became so 
confident and vainglorious that she boasted thusly : 
"Huh ! This is nothing ! I feel as safe as on the ground. 
I could go to sleep up here," and she did lie down across 
a few of the slender, bending limbs, not by any means 
close enough together to form a safe-looking couch, curl 
up just as when on terra firma, and sleep, or pretend to. 
So far all right. But I now took it in my head that the 
inside of the tree might contain a lot of flying squirrels, 
or afford Gipsy a chance to climb to even a greater height 
than Coallie's (she has gotten several rabbits by climb- 
ing up inside of trees where the hollow happened to be 
the right size for her), so I chopped a hole in the side, 
near the ground, and told the little dog to enter. Coallie 
jumped up and began to bark at the first shock of the ax. 
In her eagerness she leaned far over and looked down: 
And when Gipsy crawled through the opening, Coallie 
danced about so recklessly that she soon fell through. 
She struck on her back (Gipsy is nearly as certain to 
alight on her feet as a cat) , but though it knocked all the 
conceit out of her for three minutes, she was unharmed. 
I wish I had kept account of the dangerous snakes 
killed by her since introducing her to the readers of 
Forest and Stream. A few days ago she came home 
with a swelled head, for she is indifferent to the danger 
of being bitten, and even when a snake fails to bite her, 
she is almost sure to inflict the wound on herself in 
chewing the head, causing the poison tusks to break 
through the serpent's opposite jaw into her own flesh, 
usually into her lip. To-day, with her last wound barely 
out of sight, she ran to where Gipsy was barking. I was 
hauling rocks to mend a badly worn public road, but left 
the team with Chester, who remarked, "Gipsy says snake," 
and followed, arriving in time to see Coallie kill two of 
those short, greenish-mud-colored, concave-bellied, flat- 
headed, wide-mouthed, horrible smelling reptiles variously 
styled "spreadin' adders," "blowin' adders," "vipers," etc. 
It closely resembled the "hognose" described by Mr. 
Hay ; but possesses real poison fangs, and never bluffs, 
but uses them with unvarying evil effect. Its bite never 
fails to produce great swelling, and as suddenly as the 
bite of a rattler— that is, almost immediately. And in- 
stead of trying to escape, after the manner of other ser- 
pents, it appears always eager to fight. It seems to me 
more to be dreaded than any other. There is a water- 
snake outwardly resembling it which has tusks somewhat 
like a boar's that are proportionately longer than the teeth 
of any other serpent I know of. The snakes despatched 
to-day were respectively about 28 inches and 32 inches in 
length, and very broad. 
About the middle of August Coallie produced a new 
family, and two days later Gipsy brought forth her first. 
Coallie's pups were two or three times the size of 
Gipsy's. But after their eyes opened and they began to 
leave their nests and run about, the latter more than made 
up in intelligence what they lacked in bulk, and could 
"get all around" the former in any sort of a game. How- 
ever, when it came to a clinch, those heavy young Coallies 
had a very great : advantage, and sometimes the little 
Gipsies would cry, when the play became too rough. 
Now, here we come to unmistakable evidence of 
thought, kindness, justice, oh. the part of the mothers. It 
was not merely that Gipsy interfered, for that might have 
been expected, but that she gently pushed off the larger 
pup. Stranger still, Coallie did the same whenever she 
happened to be nearer the wrestlers; pushed off her own 
pup, and not so gently, either, as Gipsy did. It seemed 
that she realized that she possessed a mother's authority. 
Once, after pushing one of her pups away from the little 
fellow he was teasing the second or third time in a few 
