FOREST AND STREAM 
797 
“Old Don”—A Good Bird Dog and Faithful Friend 
Reminiscences of a Real “Bob Whiter” 
By J. M. Bell. 
Down in Virginia on an old plantation, the 
owner of-which has been for many years an 
enthusiastic sportsman and a fine bird shot 
withal, there have been raised some mighty good 
dogs. But of all that have bred, none seem to 
have held their master’s affection like this old 
bird dog, “Don,” whose performances in the 
field have covered probably a period of fourteen 
seasons, and whose qualities as a number one 
bird dog have been tested in many ways. 
This old dog is a cross between a pointer and 
a setter and therefore is termed a “dropper.” 
Although not a bench show canine, he has held 
his own in the field and woods, in fact any¬ 
where the birds could be found. Possessed of a 
fine nose, coupled with tireless energy, it was a 
real pleasure to work with him. For many 
years his field companion was a staunch pointer 
named “Nellie,” and the two worked together 
season after season, with a perfect understanding 
of each other’s ways. You had only to be a 
fair shot, and be possessed of sufficient energy, 
to bag your share of “Bob-Whites” in the old 
Virginia hunting grounds, if you gave “Don” 
and “Nellie” a chance to find them for you. 
There was. no doubt about their doing their part 
in the day’s work. 
“Nellie” is no more, but her field companion 
still lives. Not long since the writer was on the 
plantation above mentioned, and saw old “Don.” 
He was waiting patiently at the kitchen door for 
his dinner of softened corn pone and milk that 
the old negro cook was preparing for him. Poor, 
superannuated bird dog, half blind, totally deaf, 
crippled with rheumatism, broken down with 
old age and many years’ hard service, he was 
watching with dim eyes the hospitable portal of 
the kitchen door, where for so long a time the 
cook had fed him his liberal rations. He was 
not disappointed on this occasion, for “Aunt 
Amy” appeared with his pan of mush, and keep¬ 
ing off the younger dogs, watched over “Don” 
until he had finished his meal. 
The writer and his host stood watching the old 
fellow, who when his meal was finished, came to¬ 
ward us, his dim eyes sighting the beloved form 
of his master. With a whimper of delight, he 
rubbed against his friend, and then lay down at 
his feet, happy in the knowledge that they were 
together. I caught a picture of the old dog just 
as he was coming up to his master for a pat on 
the head. 
Leaving “Don” stretched out on the grass, we 
walked away in the direction of the garage to 
get the machine out for a little spin. Coming 
back by the house, my host went in to get the 
others of the party. They passed the sleeping 
dog, who, waking up and scenting his master, 
followed to the automobile. 
As we reached the car and got in “Don” show¬ 
ed that he wanted to follow. We tried to make 
him understand that he must go back, but he was 
too deaf to hear what we said, and as the car 
got under way, he followed in a lope. Soon we 
lost sight of the old fellow, leaving him far 
behind the rapidly moving machine. But on our 
return trip, (having gone ten miles) we met the 
old dog coming on steadily, his head bent close 
Old Don and His Master. 
to the ground, and following the strange con¬ 
trivance that his master had gone away in. We 
stopped the car, waiting for him to come up and 
calling out to him but only making him under¬ 
stand when he sniffed around. Then approach¬ 
ing the side where his master sat, he showed real 
joy, barking hoarsely and wagging his tail. To 
us who had known him in his prime, it was 
pitiful to look into those bleared eyes that had 
once been so bright, and now seemed to question 
why his master went so fast that his faithful old 
dog could not keep up. 
We tried to put him in the machine, but no, 
he struggled, so we just had to let him follow 
back to the house. Soon after we had arrived 
and were seated on the big front porch, some 
one exclaimed, “Here comes old ‘Don.’ ” Sure 
enough, there he was loping toward the house. 
Then he entered the yard, came on up to the 
house, and, mounting the steps, approached his 
beloved master. Satisfied that all was well, he 
walked soberly down the step and, stretching out 
his weary limbs, went to sleep. 
The writer understands that this old dog per¬ 
sists in following the automobile, or in trying 
to do so. Sometimes he only goes a little ways. 
Then again, on days when his rheumatism is not 
so bad, he will endeavor to go farther, but it is 
rarely that he does not attempt to follow. 
Sans teeth, sans hearing, dim of eye, and borne 
down with the infirmities of seventeen years, 
too old and feeble to have done any field work 
to amount to anything for the past three seasons, 
“Don” still exemplifies beautiful and touching 
faith in his master, and deep and lasting love for 
the hand that has fed and caressed him so 
long. - 
LAND MAMMALS OF THE NEW WORLD.* 
To the average man, there is probably no sub¬ 
ject more interesting than the life of this earth 
as it exists to-day and as it has existed in the 
past. Most of us have very vague ideas of those 
ancient times when the globe was peopled with 
successive multitudes of creatures, most of them 
absolutely different from anything that we have 
ever seen alive. 
Prof. Scott’s very important volume brings to¬ 
gether and sets before the unscientific reader a 
connected account of mammalian life on this 
hemisphere, and does it in so untechnical a man¬ 
ner—explaining things by many interesting and 
illuminative illustrations—that the work must be 
of great interest to everyone. 
No one who has not had his attention espe¬ 
cially drawn to it has any conception of the 
enormous mass of the remains of animals en¬ 
tombed in the rocks of western North America 
and of South America, nor any idea of the 
amount of this material that has been exhumed 
and brought together in the various museums of 
the country. In the work of getting together 
this material, Prof. Scott—and Prof. Osborn, 
whose book, “The Age of Mammals,” was re¬ 
viewed in Forest and Stream several years ago—• 
have had a very large share. The present vol¬ 
ume treats the land mammals of the Western 
Hemisphere in a manner quite different from 
that employed in “The Age of Mammals.” There 
the treatment was historical—here it is zoological. 
The two books thus supplement one another, and 
give an astonishingly clear picture of early life 
on this continent in not a few regions. 
The first two chapters of Professor Scott’s 
book deal with methods of investigation, which 
methods are geological and paleontological. The 
first treats of the character of the rocks which 
form the earth’s surface and their succession; 
the second of the life that has been buried in 
these rocks and whose remains have been pre¬ 
served there, to be examined by the student. 
As already stated, these remains exist in vast 
quantity and are scattered all over the conti¬ 
nent. They show the wonderful differences of 
conditions that have existed here at different 
times—differences of climate or of distribution 
of land and water areas. Periods of great cold 
—what we speak of as the glacial age—existed 
in different epochs and exterminated animals 
from certain areas or drove them away into 
other areas. Subsidences or elevations of land 
masses had, of course, their influence on mam¬ 
malian life. 
The way in which the remains of animals— 
the fossils—are preserved, although so well 
known to geologists, is little understood by the 
lay reader. These remains may be buried in 
volcanic ashes, originally soft, but at last becom¬ 
ing hard; entombed in caves, or entangled in 
asphalt or tar pools, such as are now active in 
California and have been so fully described by 
Prof. J. C. Merriam. These tar pools, as in¬ 
vestigation shows, have been in operation for 
thousands of years. Besides these methods, liv¬ 
ing animals may be suffocated and buried in 
dust clouds, may be bogged down in swamps, 
drowned in rivers, or mired in lakes that are 
drying up—and their remains so preserved. A 
certain lake in Australia is spoken of as a “veri¬ 
table necropolis of gigantic extinct marsupials 
and birds which have apparently died where 
they lie, literally in hundreds.” * * * “The 
*A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemi¬ 
sphere, by William B. Scott, Blair Professor of Geology 
and Paleontology in Princeton University. New York, 
the MacMillan Co., 1913. Illustrated, cloth, 700 pages, 
price $5.00. 
