./<- CHAPTERS ON ANIMALS. CHAPTERS ON ANIMALS BY PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON AUTHOR Of 'THE GRAPHIC ARTS,' 'ETCHING AND ETCHERS* 'THE UNKNOWN RIVER,' ETC. WITH EIGHT ETCHINGS BY J. VEYRASSAT AND KARL BOOMER FIFTH EDITION LONDON SEELEY & CO., 46, 47, & 48, ESSEX STREET, STRAND (Late 0/54, FLEET STREET). QL 79/ H 3- PREFACE. T T AVING been in the habit of loving and ob- serving animals, as people do who live much in the country, I thought that possibly some of my observations, however trifling in themselves, might interest others whose tastes are similar to my own. In this spirit I wrote these chapters, describing what I had seen rather than what other writers had recorded. The book has therefore no pretension to system or completeness, but consists merely of desultory chapters, as its title indicates. The illustrations, etched directly on the copper by two deservedly celebrated animal -painters, Karl Bodmer and Veyrassat, will be found, it is believed, to add considerably to the value and interest of the volumet P. G. H. CONTENTS I. THE LIFE OF THE BRUTE ..... i II. DOGS 17 III. DOGS (continued) 32 IV. CATS 43 IV*. HORSES . , . . 61 V. HORSES (continued) 77 VI. THE BOVINES g6 VII. ASSES 113 VIII. PIGS 127 IX. WILD BOARS 142 X. WOLVES . 156 XI. KIDS 174 XII. OTHER ANIMALS iSS XIII. BIRDS 197 XIV. BIRDS (continued) 207 XV. ANIMALS IN ART 221 XVI. CANINE GUESTS .236 list of Illustratintts. CAT Frontispiece. HOUNDS page 32 HORSES ,, 84 DONKEYS * ,, 116 WILD BOAR ,,144 KIDS 180 OTTER , 194 SWANS , ,, sis *** There is a larger edition of this book containing twenty Etchings. Some of the allusions in the text refer to Etchings which appear only in this larger edition. CHAPTERS ON ANIMALS. CHAPTER I. THE LIFE OF THE BRUTE. READERS of Dean Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold will probably remember a passage, brief but highly inter- esting, in which reference is made to his feelings about the brute creation ; ' In works of art he took but little interest, and any extended researches in physical science were precluded by want of time, whilst from natural his- tory he had an instinctive but characteristic shrinking. "The whole subject," he said, "of the brute creation is to me one of such painful mystery, that I dare not approach it." ' Mystery indeed there is everywhere, and it is often painful ; but surely in shrinking from the contemplation of nature the loss is greater than the gain. That all animals are condemned at one period or another of their existence to undergo suffering, often very severe suffer- ing, and that in their utmost anguish they have no con- solation from religious or philosophical ideas, that they B 2 Chapters on Animals. have no hope beyond the limits of a day, and that their existence is most probably limited to the brief space between birth and death, this is the dark side of their being, which we need not attempt to hide. But, on the other hand, the life of the brute has cor.imonly one immense compensation in its favour, the perfection of the individual existence is so rarely sacrificed to the prosperity of the race. It is not necessary in order that one hippopotamus should cut his food conveni- ently that another hippopotamus should lead an un- healthy existence like a Sheffield grinder; nor does the comfort of any bird's nest require that another bird should slowly poison itself in preparing acetates of cop- per, sulphurets of mercury, or oxides of lead. The pride and beauty of a brute are never based upon the endur- ing misery of another brute. The wild drake's plumage, splendid as it is, suggests no painful thought of con- sumptive weavers, of ill-paid lace-makers, of harassed, over-worked milliners ; and the most sensitive of us may enjoy the sight of it without painful thoughts, for it is God's free gift, causing no heart-burning of envy, no care nor anxiety of any kind. There is much slaugh- ter in the world of brutes, but there is little slavery, and the killing is done with a merciful rapidity, ending life whilst its pulses still beat in their energy, and pre- venting infirmity and age. The brute creation has its diseases, but on the whole it is astonishingly healthy. It is full of an amazing vitality.* The more we study * This in consequence of the law, apparently pitiless, yet when seen in its large results most merciful, that the weak and The Life of the Brute. 3 animals the more evident is it that they live for the most part in the heaven of exuberant health. That gladness which we seek, how often vainly, in all artificial stimulants, in wine, tea, gin, tobacco, opium, and the rest, the brute finds in the free coursing of his own uncontaminated blood. Our nervous miseries, our brain- exhaustion, are unknown to him. Has not one of the sweetest of our poets, who knew those miseries of the intellectual, poured forth in immortal verse his passion- ate longing for the ' clear keen joyance ' of a skylark ? Which of us has not envied the glee of his own dog ? Human happiness may be deeper, but it is never, after earliest infancy, so free from all shadow of sadness or regret. It is probable that Dr. Arnold's disinclination for the study of animal life, and his painful feelings regard- ing it, had their origin in a peculiarity of his which made him such an excellent schoolmaster the intense pleasure with which he contemplated moral and intel- lectual advance, a pleasure which had for its shadow a feeling of intense disgust for incorrigibles. To a man with these feelings always highly-wrought, and even rather over-excited by the nature of his work, a man always anxious to make good Christians and cultivated gentlemen, the brute world must have seemed a very discouraging kind of material. What changes nature may operate in millions of years, what marvellous de- diseased so rapidly die off, that the strong ana healthy remain and propagate, whilst the organizations ill adapted for vigorous life perish and disappear. 4 Chapters on Animals. velopments may lead up gradually to higher orders of being, we need not attempt to estimate; it is enough for us, that from the dawn of history the animals most familiarly known to us seem to have done the same things, and done them in the same way, as their suc- cessors in our own fields and on our own hearthrugs. We have evidence that the donkeys of antiquity were obstinate and self-willed, and the donkeys of the nine- teenth century are so still. But in this persistence of characteristics there is nothing, I think, to sadden us. The brute does not, it is true, aspire after the ideal, and his views, it must be confessed, are usually limited to the fullest and most immediate gratification of his appetites, but he has so many negative advantages that we may think and speak of him with cheerfulness. If he has not the support and consolations of religion it is because he does not require them, and he escapes the evils of theological rancour and persecution which have caused so much misery to mankind. He escapes, too, the meanness of hypocrisy, which is one of the least pleasing of the peculiarly human vices. So with regard to the politics of brutes they are royalists, or republicans, or socialists, or they push to an extreme impossible for mankind the principles of independent individualism ; but whatever they are they know their own mind, and incur neither the evils of anarchy nor the perils of transition. How much weariness has there been in the human race during the last fifty years, because the human race cannot stop politically where it was, and, finding no rest, is pushed to a strange The Life of the Brute. 5 future that the wisest look forward to gravely, as cer- tainly very dark and probably very dangerous ! Mean- while have the bees suffered any political uneasiness, have they doubted the use of royalty or begrudged the cost of their Queen ? Have those industrious republic- ans, the ants, gone about uneasily seeking after a sove- reign ? Has the eagle grown weary of his isolation and sought strength in the practice of socialism ? Has the dog become too enlightened to endure any longer his position as man's humble friend, and contemplated a canine union for mutual protection against masters ? No, the great principles of these existences are superior to change, and that which man is perpetually seeking, a political order in perfect harmony with his condition, the brute has inherited with his instincts. The study of animals inclines men to a steady cheer- fulness. All naturalists are cheerful men, unless there is something peculiarly sad or painful in the individual lot ; and even then the study of natural history has in many instances been known to supply an interest which enabled the sufferer to bear his affliction more easily. The contemplation of animal life may act at once as a stimulant and an anodyne. The abounding vitality of animals communicates a strong stimulus to those energies which we have in common with them, whilst on the other hand their absolute incapacity for sharing our higher intellectual vitality has a tendency to make us happily forget it in their presence. Your dog will run and jump with you as much as you like, but it is of no use to talk to him about your business 6 Chapters on Animals. anxieties or your literary ambition. I believe that most of the attractiveness of what is called ' sport ' is to be found in the happiness of association with the lower animals. Take away the animals from a hunt ; sup- pose that there were neither horses nor dogs, nor stag, fox, wild boar, or any other animal whatever, but that the men rode on velocipedes after a machine going by electricity who does not at once feel that the deep charm of the chase would be gone ? Few will deny that falconry, though far less destructive than shooting, was a more perfect sport; for the falconer associated himself with the bird of prey that he had trained with hood and jesses and lure, and watched its aerial evolu- tions. The pleasure of falconry was to be a spectator at one's own hours of a sight which every naturalist has occasionally witnessed in his rambles the bird of prey in the exercise of his terrible function. The noble of the middle ages, who was a bird of prey himself by instinct and tradition, felt the deepest sympathy with the hawk, and carried him everywhere on his wrist as poor women carry their babies ; but the modern student of nature may sympathise with the hawk also, notwith- standing our modern tenderness. We may always sym- pathise with an animal, because the animal is sure to do his appointed work ; the business of the falcon being to destroy birds for his own sustenance, he does it without any infirmity of doubt. He hurls himself like a barbed javelin, and the sharp talon delivers its deadly stroke. Since the work, in Nature's order, had to be done, there is a satisfaction in seeing it done with that swiftness The Life of the Brute. ^ and decision, that perfect vigour and ability. So the old knights often took the falcon for a crest, and he sat in effigy on thejr helmets, tossed above the dust of the battle-field. But the knight's sympathy or the sportsman's sym- pathy for animals is more narrow, though not more intense by reason of its narrowness, than the sympathy of the naturalist or artist. Since falconry is dead the falcon would be doomed to extinction if gamekeepers had their way ; and the sportsman thinks that if an animal is not either good to hunt or be hunted, does not play the part either of hound or hare, there can be no sufficient reason against its total extermination. So the agriculturist has his way of considering animals, with his two categories the beasts that can work for him and the beasts that can be sold to the butcher. But there is another way besides these, that of the observer who studies the animal from some- kind of interest in nature without reference to anything that it can do for him or produce for him. The selfish pre-occupation always hinders us from observing in the best and largest sense. Some excellent observers have been sportsmen and agriculturists ; this partly from accident, because they had land in the country, and partly from hereditary tendencies derived from sporting or agricultural ancestors : but it is possible to kill ani- mals every day, and make animals work all day long, and sell animals at every fair in the neighbourhood, without knowing very much more about their lives and characters than they know of yours and mine. I have 8 Chapters on Animals. seen men who had not the least insight into the cha- racters of their own horses or their own dogs. It grates very unpleasantly on the feelings of any true lover of animals to see them treated as beings without any indi- viduality of mental constitution. There are people to whom a horse is a horse, just as a penny postage- stamp is a penny postage-stamp ; that is, a thing which will convey a certain weight for a certain regulated dis- tance. But any one who knows animals knows that a horse has as much individuality as a man. And the more we know, even of inferior animals, the more dis- tinct does their individuality become for us. It is only our ignorance and our indifference which confound them. The two bay horses in your carriage look exactly alike to the people in the street, but the coachman and groom could establish contrasts and comparisons after the manner of Plutarch. With the varieties of canine character we are all of us tolerably familiar, because our dogs are more with us, happily for us and for them. Yet how difficult it is to arrive at any true conception of the mind of a lower animal ! The moment we begin to reason about it a thick cloud rises and comes be- tween. We speak of them habitually as if they had human feelings : a dog is spoken of very much as if he were a child, yet he is not a child; and we give to horses many capacities and attributes which horses never possess. There is an insuperable difficulty in imagining the mind of an animal ; we lend him words, which he never uses, to express thoughts which could not occur to him. We are constantly misled by the evident clear- The Life of the Brute* 9 ness of the minds of animals, by the acuteness of their perceptions in certain directions, and we infer that this clearness and acuteness may be applied where they are of no use. ' The truth is, that animals are both more intelligent and less intelligent than we fancy. A dog, and even a horse, notices a good deal that we little sus- pect him of noticing, but at the same time a great deal which we think he sees is perfectly invisible to him. The following account of the behaviour of a cow gives a glimpse of the real nature of the animal : ' These long-tailed cows/ say Messrs. Hue and Gabet, 'are so restive and difficult to milk, that, to keep them at all quiet, the herdsman has to give them a calf to lick meanwhile. But for this device, not a single drop of milk could be obtained from them. One day a Lama herdsman, who lived in the same house with ourselves, came, with a long dismal face, to announce that his cow had calved during the night, and that, unfortunately, the calf was dying. It died in the course of the day. The Lama forthwith skinned the poor beast, and stuffed it with hay. This proceeding surprised us at first, for the Lama had by no means the air of a man likely to give himself the luxury of a cabinet of natural history. When the opera- tion was completed we found that the hay-calf had neither feet nor head ; whereupon it occurred to us that, after all, it was perhaps a pillow that the Lama contemplated. We were in error ; but the error was not dissipated till the next morning, when our herds- man went to milk his cow. Seeing him issue forth, c io Chapters on Animals. the pail in one hand and the hay-calf under the other arm, the fancy occurred to us to follow him. His first proceeding was to put the hay-calf down before the cow. He then turned to milk the cow herself. The mamma at first opened enormous eyes at her beloved infant; by degrees she stooped her head towards it, then smelt at it, sneezed three or four times, and at last proceeded to lick it with the most delightful ten- derness. This spectacle grated against our sensibili- ties ; it seemed to us that he who first invented this parody upon one of the most touching incidents in nature must have been a man without a heart. A some- what burlesque circumstance occurred one day to modify the indignation with which this treachery inspired us. By dint of caressing and licking her little calf, the ten- der parent one fine morning unripped it ; the hay issued from within, and the cow, manifesting not the slightest surprise nor agitation, proceeded tranquilly to devour the unexpected provender.' The last touch entirely paints the brute. She has recognised her offspring by the smell chiefly, and never having heard of anatomy is not surprised when the in- ternal organs are found to consist simply of hay. And why not eat the hay ? The absence of surprise at the discovery, the immediateness of the decision to eat the hay, are perfectly natural in a cow, and if they surprise us it is only because we do not fully realise the state of the bovine mind. If we reflect, however, we must perceive that a cow can be aware of no reason why calves should not be constructed internally of hay. On The Life of the Brute. 1 1 the other hand, the bovine mind cannot be wanting in its own kind of intelligence, for oxen know their mas- ters, and when in harness are remarkable for a very accurate and delicate kind of obedience ; indeed the horse is light-headed and careless in comparison with them. Animals, like the great majority of the human race, observe only what concerns them and see everything simply in the relation which it bears to themselves. In Gustave Dore's ' Juif Errant' a donkey is tasting a man's beard, under the impression that it may possibly be a sort of hay. Dore most probably had witnessed the incident ; I have witnessed it several times. Why shouid a man's beard not consist of hay? There are phy- siological reasons, but we cannot expect a donkey to be aware of them. We continually forget that brutes have not the advantage of obtaining accurate ideas by spoken or written language. We do not realise the immensity of their ignorance. That ignorance, in com- bination with perfect cerebral clearness (ignorance and mental clearness are quite compatible), and with incon- ceivably strong instincts, produces a creature whose mental states we can never accurately understand. None of us can imagine the feelings of a tiger when his jaws are bathed in blood and he tears the quivering flesh. The passion of the great flesh-eater is as completely unknown to civilised men, as the passion of the poet is to the tiger in the jungle. It is far more than merely a good appetite, it is an intense emotion. A quite faint and pale shadow of it still remains in men with an ardent 12 Chapters on Animals. enthusiasm for the chase, who feel a joy in slaughter, but this to the tiger's passion is as water to whisky. This impossibility of knowing the real sensations of animals and the sensations are the life stands like an inaccessible and immovable rock right in the path- way of our studies. The effort of dramatic power neces- sary to imagine the life of another person is very con- siderable, and few minds are capable of it, but it is much easier to imagine the sensations of a farmer than those of his horse. The main difficulty in conceiving 'he mental states of animals is, that the moment we Jhink of them as human we are lost. Neither are they machines pushed by irresistible instincts. A human being as ignorant as a horse would be an idiot, and act with an idiot's lack of sense and incapacity for sequence. But the horse is not an idiot, he has a mind at once quite clear and sane, and is very observant in his own way. Most domestic animals are as keenly alive to their own interests as a man of business. They can make bargains, and stick to them, and make you stick to them also. I have a little mare who used to require six men to catch her in the pasture, but I carried corn to her for a long time without trying to take her, leav- ing the corn on the ground. Next, I induced her to eat the corn whilst I held it, still leaving her free. Finally I persuaded her to follow me, and now she will come trotting half-a-mile at my whistle, leaping ditches, ford- ing brooks, in the darkness and rain, or in impenetrable fog. She follows me like a dog to the stable, and I administer the corn there. But it is a bargain ; she The Life of the Briite. 1 3 knowingly sells her liberty for the corn. The experi- ment of reducing the reward having been tried to test her behaviour, she ceased to obey the whistle and re- sumed her former habits ; but the full and due quantity having been restored she yielded her liberty again with- out resistance, and since then she is not to be cheated. On the other hand, she is very ignorant of much that a man of equal shrewdness would easily have picked up by the use of language. In our estimates of animal character we always commit one of two mistakes, either we conclude that the beasts have great know- ledge because they seem so clever, or else we fancy that they must be stupid because we have ascertained that they are ignorant ; so that, on the one hand, we constantly see animals severely punished for not having known what they could only have learned through hu- man language, and, on the other hand, we find men very frequently underrating the wonderful natural intel- ligence of the brute creation, and treating animals with- out the least consideration for their feelings, which are often highly sensitive. Another obstacle to a right understanding of the brute nature is the common habit of sentimentalism, which attributes to some favourite races of animals some fine qualities, which, if they are to be discovered at all, can only be detected in most rare instances, and, even then, are striking rather from their rarity than their strength. A good example of what I mean is the popu- lar belief concerning the affectionateness of horses. The plain truth is, that the horse is not an affectionate ani- 14 Chapters on Animals. mal but that man wishes he were so, and supplies him with this charming quality from the resources of his own imagination. The horse may be made familiar; you may cultivate his intimate acquaintance, as ac- quaintance merely, but his affections are not for man, they are for his brute companions * It seems to me, that notwithstanding the insuper- able difficulties which hinder us from a perfect compre- hension of the brute nature in any of its forms, we may still, by careful observation and reflection, aided by a kindly sympathy and indulgence, arrive at notions about animal life not altogether without interest. Let us always try to bear in mind those great necessities which are irresistibly felt by animals as a consequence of their special organisation, and preserve ourselves from the error of approving or blaming them according to human standards. When a tiger eats a man, the act is not more blameable than the act of a man who opens and eats an oyster. We have the most absurd prejudices on this subject, which have taken root in infancy and not been disturbed by maturer reflection afterwards. Wolves and falcons seem cruel because their prey is rather large, but the little insect-eating birds are our pets, and cats are morally esteemed for catching mice; A word may be said in passing about the morbid love which many people have for animals, and foolishly en- courage as a virtue. Some people love their dogs in * I have been told lately that Arab horses are capable of strong affection for their masters, which, if true, may have been the origin of the popular belief. The Life of the Brute. \ 5 a manner not at all conducive to the dogs' true hap- piness and welfare. I knew a lady and gentleman who loved their dog so much that he had a chair at the dinner-table, and slept at night (he was a large retriever) in the same bed with his master and mistress. I had the honour of sitting opposite to him at dinner, and was much edified by his well-bred manners. He ate soberly from a plate, like the rest of us. But it is not a kind- ness to pamper animals of any kind ; the true way to be kind to animals is so to order their living in every way that they may be cheerful and healthy through their allotted span of life, and we ought not to hesitate about putting them to death when infirmities make existence a burden. So with reference to animals slaughtered for our use, there can be no moral hesitation if only the most merciful death is chosen. It is wrong to bleed calves to death slowly, as is done in England to have the veal white ; it is wrong to tear out the eye.s of rab- bits while yet living, as is done in some parts of France from a notion that the meat is better for it ; it is wrong to give geese a liver complaint in order to make Stras- bourg pies : but a true gourmet will hesitate at no cruelty if it procures him a perceptible increase in the delicate delight of tasting. As to that great horrible question of vivisection, which men of science do really practise much more than is commonly suspected, the discoveries effected by it have prevented, they say, much suffering, but the doubt remains whether a mer- ciful end can justify means so frightfully merciless. The young veterinary surgeons at Maisons-Alfort do 1 6 Chapters on Animals. actually learn to operate by practising on living horses, which are saved from the knacker for that purpose ; and the same science which inflicts tortures worse than those of the Inquisition prolongs the misery of the victims by the most solicitous care in the intervals between one operation and another. Finally, after from twenty to sixty operations, the animals die from sheer inability to endure any more torture ; and still the sky is bright over Maisons-Alfort, and the houses are pretty and fanciful, and the gardens sweetly luxuriant, and there are arbours for pleasant shade where the well-to-do messieurs and dames sit sipping their coffee and cognac. A pretty place in the summer, but the hell of horsey punished for no sia CHAPTER II. DOGS. THERE is a little skull amongst the bones I have collected for the study of anatomy, which any slightly scientific person would at once recognise as that of a dog. It is a beautiful little skull, finely developed, and one sees at a glance that the animal, when it was alive, must have possessed more than ordinary intelligence. The scientific lecturer would consider it rather valuable as an illustration of cranial structure in the .higher ani- mals; he might compare it with the skull of a croco- dile, and deduce conclusions as to the nicuiifest superi- ority of the canine brain. To me this beautiful little example of Divine con- struction may be a teacher of scientific truths, but it is also a great deal more than that My memory clothes it with mobile muscles and skin, covered with fine, short hair, in patches of white and yellow. Where another sees only hollow sockets in which lurk perpetual sha- dows, I can see bright eyes wherein the sunshine played long ago, just as it plays in the topaz depths of some clear northern rivulet. I see the ears too, though the D 1 8 Chapters m; Animals. skull has none; and the ears listen and the eyes gaze with an infinite love and longing. She was the friend of my boyhood, reader, the com- panion of a thousand rambles, and when she died my boyhood was dead also and became part of the irre- coverable past. There is an indentation in the bone, due to an accident. How well I remember all about that accident ! How tenderly we nursed her, how glad we were when she got well again and followed me according to her wont ! I wonder how many miles we have travelled together, she and I, along the banks of our own stream and out on the purple moors ! Of course the reader cannot be expected to care very much about a poor little terrier that only loved its young master, as all dogs will, by reason of the instinct that is in them, and died more than eighteen years ago. I am willing to believe that millions of dogs have been as good as she was, and a great deal more valuable in the market, but no skull in the best natural history collections in Europe could tempt me to part with this. Every year makes the relic more precious, since every year certain recollections gradually fade, and this helps me to recover them. You may think that it is a questionable taste to keep so ghastly a reminder. It does not seem ghastly to me, but is only as the dried flower that we treasure in some sacred book. When I think by how much devoted affection this bony tene- ment was once inhabited, it seems to me still a most fair and beautiful dwelling. The prevailing idea that reigned there was the image of me, her master. Shall Dogs. 19 I scorn this ivory cell in which my own picture had ever the place of honour ? Many a man past the middle of life remembers with a quite peculiar and especial tenderness that one dog which was the dear companion of his boyhood. No other canine friend can ever be to us exactly what that one was ; and here let me venture to observe that the comparative shortness of the lives of dogs is the only imperfection in the relation between them and us. If they had lived to threescore years and ten, man and dog might have travelled through life together, but as it is we must either have a succession of affections, or else, when the first is buried in its early grave, live in a chill condition of doglessness. The certainty of early death is added to the possibility of accident. I had a dog of great gifts, exceptionally intelligent, who would obey a look where another needed an order, and of rare beauty both of colour and form. One evening in the twilight we went out together, and, as cruel fate would have it, I crossed a valley where there was a deep and rapid stream. Rapid and deep it was, yet not much w r ider than the Strid at Bolton, and there was a mill and a narrow rustic bridge. My poor dog lingered behind a few minutes in the deepening twilight and I called for him in vain. He had tried to leap across between the bridge and the mill, and was hurried to destruction along an irresistible current, between walls of pitiless stone on which he had no hold. I cannot think of that twilight even now without painful sorrow for my poor, imprudent companion. All dogs are worth 2O Chapters on Animals. keeping, but there are very great differences in their natural gifts, and that one had a rare intelligence. He would sit studying his master's face, and had become from careful observation so acute a physiognomist that he read whatever thoughts of mine had any concern for him. When the theory of selection has done its worst, I still cling to the belief that the relation between dog and man was as much foreseen and intended as that between sun and planet. Man has succeeded in domes- ticating several other animals, but where else has he found this spirit of unconquerable fidelity ? It has not been developed by kind treatment, it has not even been sought for in itself, or made an aim in breeding. Ladies make pets of their dogs, but all the shepherds I see around me pay them in kicks, and curses, and starva- tion. What does the obscure member of a pack of foxhounds know of his master's love ? As much as a Prussian private in the rifle-pit knew of the tender heart of Moltke. I have seen a great deal of the life of the French peasantry, but never to this day have I seen a peasant caress his dog otherwise than with a stick or a wooden shoe. There is a well-known pic- ture, by Decamps, called 'The Kennel,' which repre- sents a huntsman visiting his hounds, and he is lashing with a ponderous whip. Thousands of dogs, whole gene- rations of them, have known man in no other character than that of a merciless commander, punishing the slightest error without pity, yet bestowing no reward. There are countries where the dogs are never fed, where Dogs. 2 1 they are left to pick up a bare existence amongst the vilest refuse, and where they walk like gaunt images of famine, living skeletons, gnawing dry sticks in the wintry moonlight, doing Nature's scavenger-work like rats. Yet in every one of these miserable creatures beats the noble canine heart that heart whose depths of devotion have never yet been sounded to the bottom ; that heart which forgets all our cruelty, but not the smallest evidence of our kindness. If these poor animals had not been made to love us, what excellent reasons they would have had for hating us ! Their love has not been developed by care and culture, like the nourishing ears of wheat ; but it rises like warm, natural springs, where man has done nothing either to obtain them or to deserve them. I please myself with the thought that every man is, or may be if he will, a centre round which many kinds of affection press with gently sustaining forces. Let us not undervalue the love which rises up to .us from below, bathing our feet in warmth. Only the love of animals, and that of children whilst they are still quite young, is absolutely free from criticism. All our con- temporaries criticise us ; even our wives do in their hearts, and our sons in their adolescence. The man in his family lives in a glass case, and cannot quite with- draw himself. He is surrounded by more affection than the bachelor, but he incurs in a minor degree that amenability to criticism which is the penalty of a prime minister. The criticism may not be openly expressed, but so soon as he acts independently of the family opinion about his duties he feels that it is there. It is 22 Chapters on Animals. exceedingly salutary, no doubt ; it keeps us in the path of duty and dignity ; it saves us from many aberrations. And still, upon the whole, we know ourselves to be such lamentably imperfect characters, that we long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment. Women love in us their own exalted ideals, and to live up to the ideal standard is sometimes rather more than we are altogether able to manage ; children in their teens find out how clumsy and ignorant we are, and do not quite unreservedly respect us ; but our dogs adore us without a suspicion of our shortcomings. There is only one exception, but this is a grave one, and must not on any account be forgotten. A good sporting dog has always an intense contempt for a bad sportsman, so that a man who cannot shoot with a decent degree of skill does best, like a miserable amateur violinist, to abstain from practising altogether. There are thousands of anecdotes illustrating the wonderful affection which dogs bear to their masters, and as the world goes on thousands of other examples will be recorded, but no one will ever know the full marvel of that immense love and devotion. It is inex- haustible, like the beauty of what is most beautiful in nature, like the glory of sunsets and the rich abundance of that natural loveliness which poets and artists can never quite reveal. We do not know the depth of it even in the dogs we have always with us. I have one who is neither so intelligent nor so affectionate as others I have known, and to my human ignorance Dogs. 23 it seemed that he did not love me very much. But once, when I had been away for weeks, his melancholy longing, of which he had said nothing to anybody, burst out in a great passionate crisis. He howled and cla- moured for admission into my dressing-room, pulled down my old things from their pegs, dragged them into a corner, and flung himself upon them, wailing long and wildly where he lay, till a superstitious fear came on all the house like the forerunner of evil tidings. Who can tell what long broodings, unexpressed, had pre- ceded this passionate outburst ? Many a dark hour had he passed in silent desolation, wondering at that inex- plicable absence, till at length the need for me became so urgent that he must touch some cloth that I had worn. We know not the heart-memory which these animals possess, the long-retaining, tender recollection, all bound up with their love. A dog was bereaved of his master and aftenvards became old and blind, passing the dark evening of his existence sadly in the same corner, which he hardly ever quitted. One day came a step like that of his lost master, and he suddenly left his place. The man who had just entered wore ribbed stockings ; the old dog had lost his scent and referred at once to the stockings that he remembered, rubbing his face against them. Believing that his master had returned after those weary years of absence, he gave way to the most extravagant delight. The man spoke, the momentary illusion was dispelled, the dog went sadly back to his place, lay wearily down, and died. 24 Chapters on Animals. These little anecdotes, and there are many such, give us glimpses of what is permanent in the canine heart. We think that dogs are demonstrative, but they have regrets of which they tell us nothing. It is likely that the old blind dog, coiled up in his corner day and night, mournfully cherished the recollection of his lost master, thinking of him when the people in the house little suspected those yearnings of melancholy retro- spect. There is nothing in nature so sad as that obscure despair. The dog is high enough in the scale of being to feel the regrets of absence in all their bitterness, yet not high enough to have his anxieties relieved by any word of explanation. Whether his master has gone to the next country, or across the sea, or to Heaven, he has no possible means of ascertaining he only feels the long sorrow of separation, the aching of the solitary heart, the weariness of hope deferred, the anxiety that is never set at rest. So great is their power of loving that we cannot help assigning to dogs not formally, but in our inward estimates a place distinct from the brute creation gene- rally. They are not mere animals, like sheep and oxen, that may be slaughtered as a matter of ordinary busi- ness without awakening regret. To kill a dog is always felt to be a sort of murder ; it is the destruction of a beautiful though not immortal spirit, and the destruc- tion is the more lamentable for its very completeness. When I was a boy I remember crossing a stream in Lancashire just as a workman came to the same place followed by a sharp-looking little brown terrier dog. It Dogs. 25 went snuffing about under the roots as such little dogs will, and then the man whistled and it came to him at full speed. He caressed it, spoke to it very kindly but very sadly, and then began to tie a great stone to its neck. ' What are you doing that for ? ' I asked. 4 Because I cannot afford to pay the dog-tax, and no- body else shall have my little Jip.' Then he threw it into the stream. The water was not deep, and it was perfectly clear, so that we saw the painful struggles of the poor little terrier till it became insensible, and we Avere both fixed to the spot by a sort of fascination. At last the man turned away with a pale hard face, suffering, in that moment, more than he cared to show, and I went my way carrying with me an impression which is even now as strong as ever it was. I felt that what I had witnessed was a murder. Many years after, I shot a dog of my own (a magnificent blood-hound mastiff) because he was an irreclaimable sheep-killer; but the revolver I did it with instantly became so hate- ful that I could not bear the sight of it, and never fired it afterwards. Even now, if he could but be raised from the dead, how gladly would I welcome him, how se- curely would I rely for perfect forgiveness on his noble canine magnanimity ! No, these creatures are not com- mon brutes, they are our most trusting friends, and we cannot take away their lives without a treacherous betrayal of that trust. A word came under my pen just now by accident which belongs quite peculiarly to the canine nature. It does not belong to all dogs ; there are little breeds 26 Chapters on Animals. which seem to be almost destitute of it, but all the nobler breeds are magnanimous. As we are told to go to the ant to learn industry, so we may go to the dog for an example of magnanimity. The finest touches of it in his nature are not so much in the absolute insen- sibility to offence as in his courteous willingness to attribute offences which he cannot possibly overlook to some pardonable mistake of yours, or blameable error of his own. Even when most severely punished he never seems to doubt the justice of the punishment, but takes it in the finest possible temper, as a perfect Christian would take chastisement at the hand of God. And pray observe that with all this submissiveness, with all this readiness to forget your severity and to bask in the first gleam of the sunshine of your clemency, there is not the faintest trace of snobbishness in his nature. The dog is faithful to his master even when he gets hardly anything out of him. It is said that every dog is an aristocrat, because rich men's dogs cannot endure beg- gars and their rags, and are civil only to well-dressed visitors. But the truth is that, from sympathy with his master, the dog always sees humanity very much from his master's point of view. The poor man's dog does not dislike the poor. I may go much farther than this, and venture to assert that a dog who has lived with you for years will make the same distinction between your visitors that you make yourself, inwardly, notwith- standing the apparent uniformity of your outward polite- ness. My dog is very civil to people I like, but he is savage to those I dislike, whatever the tailor may have Dogs. 27 done to lend them external charms. I know not how he discovers these differences in my feelings, except it be by overhearing remarks when the guests are gone. How much do dogs really understand of our lan- guage ? Perhaps a good deal more than we generally imagine. Please observe that in learning a foreign tongue you arrive at a certain stage where most of what the foreign people say is broadly intelligible to you, and yet you cannot express yourself at all. Very young children understand a great deal before they are able to express themselves in words. Even horses, and horses are incomparably less intelligent than dogs, understand a complete vocabulary of orders. May not a dog of ability enter, to some extent, into the meaning of spoken language even though he may never be able to use it ? Without giving the reins to imagination, it may be presumed that some dogs know at least the names of different people, and may take note of the manner, cordial or otherwise, in which we pronounce them. Whatever they may know of spoken language, it is quite clear that they understand the language of manner, and have a very delicate appreciation of human behaviour. Besides the love which the dog has for his master, and for him alone, he has his friendships and acquaint- ances with humanity. And as a married man may quite innocently establish friendships with ladies whom he likes and respects, so the most faithful of dogs may have kindly feelings for men who stand in no nearer relation to him than that of acquaintance. All my 28 Chapters on Animals. friends' dogs are polite acquaintances of mine, and con- duct themselves with becoming courtesy. One fat lady is the happy owner of the tiniest creature that ever aspired to the dignity of dog-hood, and as our ac- quaintance seemed to have ripened into an intimacy, I invited Bellona (for such was her warlike name) to share with me the perilous pleasures of a canoe-voy- age. This, however, was presuming too far, and at the first landing she deserted the ship and fled homewards, like a frightened rabbit, across the fields. There are limits to these liaisons. On the other hand, I once invited a friend's dog to accompany me on an equestrian excursion, and he followed my horse for eighty miles, enjoying the change of scene and the meals we shared together. It has also happened to me, to send a formal written invitation to a friend's dog to come and stay with me for a fortnight. He accepted the invitation, came by railway, and behaved himself in the most charming manner, renewing our ancient friendship with the most amicable demonstrations. It is needless to add that he was received with all the honour that the laws of hospitality exact. Sometimes a dog will for- get a mere friend, though he never forgets his master, I remember crossing a public square in winter, at mid- night, and seeing a poor lost dog that I recognised as an old acquaintance. There could be no mistake about it, she had every physical mark and sign of the gentle little creature that I knew, the only cause of doubt was that she could not be induced to give the slightest, no, not the very slightest, sign of recognition. I caught Dogs. 29 her and carried her in my arms to the hotel, held her up to the light, examined, every mark the body was all there, but where was the friendly heart that used to beat with gladness when we met, far in the quiet country, in the lanes and fields about her home? I put her down, and she immediately escaped and was lost again in the windings of the streets. The next morning I went early to the farm she lived at and inquired if she were lost. Yes, it was true, she had been lost in the confusion of the fair. Later, she found her own way back again and behaved to me as amiably as ever. Probably, in the town, the sight of so many people had bewildered her till she could not recognise a friend, but a dog knows his master everywhere. One of my dog-friends knew me, however, and be- haved well to me under very trying circumstances indeed, for he was suffering from hydrophobia. I was perfectly aware myself of the terrible nature of his ail- ment, but he came to me and put his head between my knees, like a sick child, and I caressed it out of very profound pity. ' When the paroxysms became violent as the disease advanced, the dog still controlled him- self, and his master took him in his arms and carried the poor beast up into a vacant garret and locked the door. Then he made a hole in the thin brick parti- tion, and with a small rifle, of the kind used for rook- shooting, put an end to an existence that had become intolerable. Of all the ills that flesh is heir to there is not one so terrible as this mysterious madness. Every year its human victims perish in unutterable agony. 3