I was wondering how these dogs could ever be trained to hunt for what appeared so foreign to their nature, and turning over in my hand one of these shapeless fungi, the others being safely placed in my pocket, I felt something cold touch me; and lo and behold! there was mistress Nell standing up on her hind legs in an endeavour to truffle-hunt in my pocket, but soon recalled to her usual good manners by an imperative Nell!' from her master..

“Would she have eaten them?' I said, surprised.

"Oh dear, yes, dogs likes 'em beyond everything else; it's their food, only we don't let them have any, as it would spoil their training. But that's why they hunt for 'em-they want to eat 'em. A good dog will hunt, however, all day without touching them, but we generally carry a bit of bread with us as a reward to the dog, and to take off his attention from the truffles.' Need I say that it was from my hand that little Nell received her reward that day? which she took as became her, gently and affectionately, after the day's hunt

was over.

my

"Pigs, were trained in France to hunt for truffles, but, said informant, they were such fools that immediately they found they eat 'em.' One can imagine piggy, if he could have understood the remark, giving his tail a complacent whisk and quietly grunting aside-not quite the fool you think!""

The interesting and valuable Memoir of that original genius and great moralist, the matchless Thomas Bewick, written by himself, contains this anecdote:

"Whilst I was at Woodhall, I was struck with the sagacity

of a dog belonging to Mr. Smith. The character for sagacity of the shepherd's dog was well known to me, but this instance of it was exemplified before my own eyes. Mr. Smith wished to have a particular ram brought out from amongst the flock, for the purpose of my seeing it. Before we set out, he observed to the shepherd that he thought the old dog (he was grey-headed and almost blind), would do well enough for what he wanted with him.

"Before we reached the down where the flock was feeding, I observed that Mr. Smith was talking to the dog before he ordered him off on his errand; and while we were conversing on some indifferent subject, the dog brought a ram before us. Mr. Smith found a deal of fault with the dog, saying, Did I not order you so and so?' and he scolded him for bringing a wrong sheep, and then, after fresh directions, set him off again to bring the one he wished me to see. We then returned home, and, shortly after our arrival there, the dog brought the very ram wanted, along with a few other sheep, into the fold, where I took a drawing of him.”

Bewick kewise says, "I have often watched to see the wary, circumspect plan that a strange dog adopts on his being obliged to pass through a village, or through amongst those of his equally ill-behaved brethren, the butcher's dogs in a town. It is curious to see the stranger, upon these occasions, view his danger, and then affect lameness, and go hirpling' through amongst them unmolested."

The least honourable traits of the dog are those perhaps which he sometimes exhibits towards his own species; but we have here an example to spare the weak—a virtue

rarely displayed by man to his fellow-man. It is the weak -that is, the poor, the despised, the fallen-who know most of some of the worst chambers of the heart of man. Those, on the contrary, who enjoy the warm sunbeams of prosperity, wealth, influence, station, and power-those, in short, who have means to give-often remain unacquainted with much of the tyranny, insolence, and baseness to which their less fortunate fellow-creatures are too often exposed; though, on the other hand, they see more of sycophancy and servility.

Dogs in England some years ago turned water-wheels at wells, and also spits. At Caerleon, near Newport, Monmouthshire, in the kitchen of the Hanbury Arms Inn, two years since, was a turnspit-wheel worked by a long-backed little dog. Indeed, it probably still exists. The wheel was attached to the ceiling, and the dog worked inside it like a squirrel in its cage, consequently when once in motion he was forced to continue running. In former days, when this mode of turning a spit was common, the wheel was in a line with and attached to the spit, or rather was on it, the spit forming the axle of the wheel; but in the present one a chain passing round the wheel also wound round the spit.

In the beginning of the present century many of the butchers' carts in London were drawn by teams of dogs, often five in number. The carts had high wheels, and in the double shafts in front two large dogs were harnessed; three smaller ones ran underneath. They went at a high speed, and only appeared in the morning and evening in the streets.

Newfoundlands, large bulldogs, great butchers' curs, and others, formed the teams. They generally barked whilst

running, and the noise and excitement created in a race between rivals may be well imagined.

These carts were humanely abolished in and near London by Act of Parliament. When the dog-tax became law, "Dent received some hundred dead dogs packed up as game. The slaughter was so great, and the consequent nuisance, men not thinking themselves bound to bury their dogs, that the magistrates in some places were obliged to interfere. At Cambridge the high-constable buried above 400. About Birmingham more than 1000 were destroyed." A horrid and similar slaughter was perpetrated in Liverpool in 1864.

"1800. Some years ago, the person who lived at the turnpike about a mile from Stratford-upon-Avon had a dog so well trained to fetch and carry that he used to go with a note round his neck to the town, and return with any bundle of goods suited to his strength. A safer messenger could not bave been chosen. One day, however, when he was bringing home tea and sugar from the grocer's, he fell in with a party who were hunting water-rats. The temptation was too great. He joined the terriers, and plunged into the ditches with them."

A dog possessed by a gang of poachers had all the qualities of a terrier, a hound, and a lurcher; he was reckoned by them invaluable. He ran mute; never rended his game; and if by accident caught in a snare, made no noise, but gnawed himself out. When the ground was rotten and slippery after a frost, he caught many hares. A dog is well aware when he is engaged in unlawful pursuits, even if accompanied and encouraged by his owner. This is proved

by anecdotes respecting sheep-stealers who employed dogs to aid them. The author once came suddenly on a black greyhound in a cover where the dog had a lair, and appeared to have lived some time. Instead of acting as a dog generally does, he slunk off at a trot with his tail down, and disappeared immediately among the brushwood.