FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
475 
when, to my horror, I discovered it empty ; the door of it, 
which was never perfectly secure, being open. The canary 
was not visible ; but Tom was seated on the dresser in an 
excited-looking state, as if he had done the bloody deed, of 
which no trace was observable. On looking around, fancy 
my astonishment and joy at beholding Pepper lying on all- 
fours, with his mouth gently covering the canary with just 
sufficient resistance to keep it from fluttering off, while his 
eyes were fixed with intensity on every motion made by Tom. 
Such sagacity on the part of the terrier was touching in the 
extreme, and the satisfaction with which he yielded up to me 
his feathery charge spoke volumes.” 
[ We can readily credit the above, having had a case quite 
similar. Some time ago, taking a fancy to a young pure 
white guinea pig, he was put in a box and taken into the 
house, the box being covered with slats. It had no sooner 
been put in the house when a rat terrier we had was exceed- 
ingly anxious to get at it, as he would had it been a rat: but 
after a long 'persuasion he finally learned to understand 
that he must not touch it, and soon came to regard it as a 
pet, and not a rat, and from that time became its guardian. 
A few days afterwards, when the family were seated in the 
room, the Maltese cat jumped on the box, but with no in- 
tention of taking the pig ; but the dog seeing the cat jump on 
the box, crossed the room like a flash. The cat wondering 
what had got into her friend, the dog, left equally as quick, 
and ever after that gave the guinea pig a wide berth. At 
any other time, or in any other place, the dog and cat were 
perfect friends, but he gave her plainly to understand that 
he could not, and she should not, have the pig. No human 
being could have understood the situation any better than 
the little dog, Tarry. — E d.] 
A HORSE AND HIS LITTLE FRIEND. 
On a small farm in France was a young horse, whose 
temper was so intractable that all attempts at taming him 
failed. The farmer would have parted with him but for 
his youngest child, a boy about six years old, to whom the 
animal showed a great liking. He would come to his young 
friend and receive food from his hand. He seemed pleased 
to have his shaggy neck patted by the little fellow. One 
day, all the family were out in the fields, excepting the 
mother, who, being busy in the house, left the child playing 
in the yard, when he fell into a pond, and would have 
drowned but for the timely aid of his friend, the horse. 
The animal happened to be loose in the stable, and hearing 
the familiar voice, came out at a trot. Seeing the child 
struggling in the water, he seized him by the garment, and 
drew him out at the very moment the mother came to look 
after him . — Practical Farmer. 
[We were once cognizant of a similar case, while on a 
visit to an extensive farm in the State of Maine, and when 
the time arrived to harness up to make the train, the man 
went into the field to catch the horse ; finally he came for 
the proprietor, but neither of them could catch him. They 
gave it up as a bad job, and came to the house. The farmer 
turned to his little daughter, saying, “We can’t git the horse, 
and you must go and git him or we will be too late for the 
train.” She went to the field, called her friend, he ran to 
meet her, and she brought him to the barn, and we were 
soon on the way to the station.] 
figg” “ James Jenkens,” said a notional schoolmaster to 
his pupil, “ what is an average?” “A thing, sir,” answered 
the scholar promptly, “ that hens lay eggs upon.” “ Why do 
you say that, you silly boy ?” queried the pedagogue. “ Be- 
cause, sir,” said the youth, “ I heard a gentleman say the 
other day, that a hen would lay, on an average , a hundred 
and twenty eggs a year.” 
I J E [VI S. 
In order to make our “Item ” column as interesting as possible, we 
would be obliged to our readers for contributions of original matter, how- 
ever short — yes, let it be condensed and to the point, in a variety of 
style — facts and fancies interesting to fanciers. 
There are fourteen deer in Congress Park, Saratoga. 
JgiP’ A letter from Egypt states that a race of pigmies 
have recently been discovered in Central Africa. 
In Springfield, Ohio, there is a deluded hen who laid 
her eggs up in an apple tree, and is now sitting on a bare 
bough in blissful ignorance that her eggs fell to the ground 
as she laid them. 
A fastidious member of the Boston Common Coun- 
cil is said to object to the birdhouses for the trees on the 
Common being constructed in the Gothic style of architec- 
ture, which he maintains is only suitable for church edifices. 
jggjp“ Bantams Indeed. — Abner Winslow, of Putnam, 
Conn., has sent for our inspection, a dozen Game Bantam 
eggs, which weigh only 2\ ounces. The hen which laid the 
eggs weighs 12 ounces, and was reared in Woonsocket. — 
Woonsocket Patriot. 
Jg@“Black bass are quite plenty in the river at Hartford, 
and are caught with hook and line, while a trap at Colt’s 
Ferry takes a dozen or more daily. These fish have not 
heretofore been caught there, and it is probable that they 
came from some of the ponds that have been stocked. 
Striped bass, also rare, are caught with hook and line almost 
every day. 
ggg?“ In these days of hydrophobic fever, it is refreshing 
to read a sensible bit of advice, such as comes from a New 
Orleans paper. A timid correspondent wanted to know 
“ how to tell a mad dog,” and the editor made the follow- 
ing suggestion: “We don’t know what he wants to tell 
him, but the safest way would be to communicate to the 
dog in writing. Send the letter from a gun in the shape 
of wadding, followed by small shot to see if he gets it.” 
|®“We do not see why, with the proportionate amount 
of animal food, space, and pure air, &c., fowls may not be 
raised on a large scale as well as on a smaller one. But, 
we hear of failures ; and we would advise beginners to 
commence with caution and well-directed efforts to work 
up to a large scale, instead of beginning largely without 
any experience. We would like to hear from such as have 
failed in either case, and learn to what cause they really 
attribute their failures. 
The Cultivator of 1856 (March No.) has an article 
from E. K., of Ohio, describing the curiosity of an egg 
within an egg, laid by a “ Shanghai ” hen, owned by a gen- 
tleman in Rushville, which is the most curious of anything 
in the egg line which we ever heard of. 
The egg, it was stated, was nearly as large as the egg of a 
goose, and when broken, one perfect yolk and white was in 
it, and within that another egg of the usual size, and as 
perfect as any, shell and all — being an egg within an egg — 
a most curious freak of nature. On the next page of the 
same is the statement of the precocious motherly proclivities 
of a common barnyard pullet, which, at the age of six 
months, hatched a brood of eleven chickens from eggs of 
her own laying. 
