Aug. 16, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
201 
was always a leading factor. (My blood tingles 
a little at that recollection, too.) 
Gradually they came to understand that I 
was incorrigible, or, as a maiden aunt of the old 
school put it, “given over’’; and so that I did 
not run away from school, I was allowed to “run 
with them dirty Injuns,’’ as the aunt aforesaid 
expressed it. 
But I did run away from school, and books 
of the dry sort, to study the great book of 
nature. Did I lose by it? I cannot tell, even 
now. 
As the world goes, perhaps yes. 
No man can transcend his possibilities. 
1 am no believer in the supernatural; mes¬ 
merism, spiritualism, and a dozen other ’isms 
are, to me, but as fetish. But I sometimes ask 
myself, did the strong, healthy, magnetic nature 
of that Indian pass into my boyish life, as I 
rose on his powerful shoulders, or slept in his 
strong arms beneath the soft whispering pine of 
“Douglas Woods?” 
Poor Nessmuk! Poor Lo! Fifty years ago 
the remnant of that tribe numbered thirty-six 
housed, fed and clothed by the State. The same 
number of Dutchmen, under the same condi¬ 
tions, would have overrun the State ere this. 
The Indians have passed away forever, and 
when I tried to find the resting place of my old 
friend, with the view of putting a plain stone 
above his grave, no one could point out the spot. 
And this is how I happen to write over the 
name by which he was known among his people, 
and the reason why a favorite dog or canoe is 
quite likely to be called Nessmuk. 
Dog and Gun. 
BY “iDSTONE.” 
(From issue of Aug. 1874.) 
They used to be inseparable as the horse 
and hound, and every man who shot had a rang¬ 
ing, pointing dog of some kind or other. It does 
not seem so many years ago that a clumsy 
keeper shot my favorite black and tan setter 
Pilot, as he was pointing a covey of birds for 
us in some standing beans, and we returned 
home quite disconsolate, for we were staying 
with a choleric old gamekeeper some twenty 
miles from my kennel. As for going on with¬ 
out dogs, no one suggested such an idea, and 
walking ’em up had not been invented, still less 
driving at birds over your head, as you stood 
in a pit dug that morning for your seclusion 
and not impervious to the ants. 
Every man who took out a game certificate, 
(on the chance of invitation few and far between) 
had something with four legs and a tail tied 
up in his stable yard, which the coachman was 
prepared to name “Master’s Pointer,” and to 
kick upon the slightest provocation. I can just 
remember the time when the pointer’s tail was 
docked to five inches. As the unlucky brute 
stood on his game, his “stern” looked like a hat 
peg, or a bailiff’s truncheon, or a stiff specimen 
of asparagus, or a child’s ninepin, or anything 
but a dog s tail improved, aye, nearly improved 
out of existence. 
It took these old Spanish pointers the best 
part of a morning to beat thirty acres of clover, 
and the antiquated flint gun was a couple of 
seconds making up its mind to go off. First, it 
had to flash in the pan, and then to communicate 
the fact that the hammer was down to the 
charge inside the barrel. You had to calculate 
all this, and consequently many birds, snipe, 
woodcocks, “rocketing pheasants” and mallards 
got off free. 
The pointer was crossed with the foxhound 
long before the gun was improved by the inven¬ 
tion of the percussion cap, an invention claimed 
by Joe Manton. Colonel Hawker, and, 1 believe, 
Egg, the gunmaker, and claimed for a Dorset 
clergyman named Billy Butler. 
The foxhound cross succeeded, and there is 
no doubt that the improved pointer, as painted 
by Reinagle, the Royal Academician, was a very 
excellent animal. There were these following 
breeds: The black pointer, bred largely by the 
fattest man ever seen. Daniel Lambert, of Leices¬ 
ter; the liver and whites of Mr. Edge’s breed; 
the dark liver dogs, the flecked and speckled and 
the pure white with liver heads toward which 
last excellent marking all the best blood has a 
tendency to “throw back,” let the color be what 
it may. That the now popular orange and whites 
existed there is no doubt but they were confined 
to a few aristocratic kennels, notably, I believe, 
Lord Sefton’s, the Marquis of Bath, etc. A 
capital pointer could always be purchased some¬ 
where in the neighborhood of a ten-pound note, 
and one of our largest London dealers would 
supply a brace for what would now be the price 
of one. And even young sportsmen, not out of 
their ’teens, knew in those days how to use a 
dog, which now not one man in forty knows. 
The man of inferior rank, as a sportsman, 
I mean, he who could never get the mystery 
of the setting dog into his head, used a spaniel, 
or possibly a brace of them, and generally 
made quite as good a bag as the man who 
walked after pointers. The pot-hunter crept up 
to cornstalks, sneaked behind hedges, and was 
not particular about boundaries. Preserve me 
from companionship with such a man. He was 
as liable to shoot you as to shoot a bird. Most 
pot-hunters would take the chance of shooting 
a companion rather than miss a head of game. 
The pot-hunting man, if he had a dog, he gen¬ 
erally grudged the quadruped his food; and so, 
either kept none, or when he could, borrowed 
one. Well, if he had a dog, it was a case of 
“like master like man.” It was a slinking cur 
at best. Bat-eared, wheel-backed, flat-sided, 
squint-eyed, snipe-nosed, bandy-legged, with a 
teapot tail and a woolly coat—a nightmare sort 
of a dog—the sort of griffin that you see rear¬ 
ing up on the side of a Peer’s coat of arms, 
trying to lick the family crest, or to eat out of 
the coronet; and the animal had all the sneak¬ 
ing propensities of a thorough cur, such a dog 
as might be exhibited for his ugliness, like the 
collier’s child. (Philadelphians call these curs 
"board-yard dogs.”—Ed.) You don’t know the 
story? Well, I’ll tell it to you. You must 
know that in the potteries they had been giving 
their minds to shows of all kinds—dog shows, 
poultry shows, barmaid shows, and now there 
was to be a baby show, with a prize for ugli¬ 
ness as well as beauty. A pitman had a son 
born with a hare lip and a club foot, a hump 
on his back, and several other vagaries of nature. 
The kind-hearted “medicus” had endeavored to 
comfort the father, who, he supposed, must be 
distressed at the extraordinary animal with as¬ 
surances that it could all be “put right” very 
easily when the father, taking his pipe from his 
mouth, interrupted the conversation by saying: 
“Put what right? Is he good enough to win at 
the Baby Show? If he is, I won’t have ’urn 
touched.” 
The Origin of the Domestic Dog. 
(From issue of Feb. 11, 1875.) 
There appears to be a wide difference of 
opinion among naturalists as to the stock from 
which our dogs of the present day came. Some 
have it the wolf, others the jackal, or fox, while 
not a few claim that the dhole, or wild dog of 
India, is the source from which sprang all the 
varieties. In our opinion it cannot be declared 
with any degree of certainty what the parent 
stock was. Certain it is that to no one animal 
can the paternity of these useful races be credit¬ 
ed, as they are so widely different in form, color 
and other characteristics, and man could never 
have developed and brought together such vast 
differences, opposite natures and shapes as can 
daily be seen in domestic dogs, unless the origi¬ 
nal species were in possession of the rudiments. 
Neither could food, climate or any contrivance 
whatever so completely alter the nature, decrease 
the scenting powers, render the coat short, long 
or curly, lengthen or shorten the limbs, unless 
separate types had furnished the material. 
Ancient bas-relief and monumental delinea¬ 
tions picture the dog as distinct in its character¬ 
istics thousands of years ago as at the present 
day, and fossil remains have been repeatedly dis¬ 
covered so little resembling either the wolf, 
jackal or fox, and so different in type, as to be 
classified with the spaniel, terrier, hound, bull¬ 
dog, turnsput, pointer and pug; and as these, 
or a part of them, we know to be made dogs, or 
in other words hybrids, the species must have 
been fully as numerous then as at the present 
time. 
There are numerous species of wild dogs 
differing from one another almost as much as 
our own domestic animals of to-day. Granting 
that the spaniel, greyhound and terrier sprung 
originally from the wolf as some argue, why not 
point out first why the made dogs are so dis¬ 
similar? And again, why the wolves of different 
countries are unlike, and which species of wolf 
is the true and only one? Without wishing to 
conflict with the opinions of those so much 
more learned on the subject than ourselves, we 
would ask, would it not be much more reason¬ 
able to suppose, without positive proof, that the 
origin of the domestic dog can be referred to 
numerous aboriginal species, crossing with the 
wild varieties, as we know our dogs will fre¬ 
quently do, including the wolf, jackal and the 
fox if we like; climate assisting and man aiding 
by judicious intermixing and breeding, until the 
present high standard of this useful animal has 
been reached? 
The Indian dogs may be traced to the prairie 
wolf, and in Asia the native domesticated dog 
to the jungle dog. Whatever may have been 
the originals of the partly tamed canines of the 
aborigines of the different sections of the globe, 
it is probable that the primitive dog, like other 
animals, was very different from any of the 
present races. 
Even the well-protected forests of Germany 
are by no means immune from fire, and the 
Prussian fire protection system makes use of 
lookout towers and telephones. 
