XVII 
THE BOAR 
125 
life, and, whether through voice or hand, they are 
born to enrapture their hearers. 
It is a dreadful descent to jump suddenly to 
dogs, but it is nevertheless true. There are dogs 
of all sorts and degrees of cleverness, they are 
born with gifts ; there are other dogs which are 
born to be stupid, they are beyond teaching. I 
had a spaniel, a very lovely and energetic dog, 
a great and untiring hunter; that dog would have 
gained a prize for beauty ; but it had its peculiar 
ways. If I shot a wild-duck, and it fell into the 
water, he would immediately plunge in to retrieve 
the game; but if there happened to be a sand¬ 
bank near that duck, or should the opposite shore 
be closer than the bank upon which I stood, he 
would assuredly carry the duck to the nearest 
land, and leave it there, instead of bringing it to 
me. That dog was born for the Royal Humane 
Society, but not for a retriever. Nothing would 
teach him better ; his one idea was, that if a bird 
fell into the water, no matter how, it was his 
business to fetch it, and to put it upon the first 
and most convenient dry land; beyond that, his 
intellect did not extend. 
It is the same with all creatures, but this natural 
talent, or the deficiency, is peculiarly marked in 
hounds, especially with those large dogs which 
I was accustomed to denominate as “ seizers.” 
The pack was composed of thoroughbred fox¬ 
hounds, others which were a cross between fox¬ 
hound and pointer, fox-hound and blood-hound, 
