the present writer is aware, entirely original, and vastly more indicative of genius than the best of the platitudes incidentally referred to above. Some of the lower animals weep. The deer, for instance, has been observed to shed tears in the extremity of terror, and the hard-pressed hare cries like an ill-regulated child; but not one of them indicates any emotion analogous to the laughter of Man, excepting Dog. True it is, that we hear of a "horse-laugh." There is a beast, too, called the " laughing hyena,” and a dismal beast he is. Among the feathered tribes there flourishes an individual named the "laughing falcon." From inanimate creation the poet has evoked for us "Minni Haha," or the "laughing water"; and the expression, "it would make a cat laugh," is frequently made use of in reference to anything very ridiculous. But in every one of these cases of socalled laughing things, the sound only of the laughter is there, the sentiment is wanting. Not so with Dog, who, when the spirit of fun moves him, smiles beamingly with his eyes, giggles manifestly with his chops, or laughs uproariously with his tail, according as the occasion demands.

Yet, with all his wonderful gifts of intellectual ability, we cannot concede to Dog the possession of the supereminent faculty called reason,-the faculty which, as an eminent writer-Tupper, I thinkremarks, places Man immeasurably above all the other animals stationed so much lower down, and by virtue of which he is lord and master of them all, leading Behemoth over the land with a ring in his nose, and towing Leviathan across the waters with a harpoon in his ribs. Fine as the line may appear which separates instinct from the divine gift of reason, we must see that progress, an essential consequence of the latter, is denied to the former. It is quite possible that the dogs which accompanied the first mariner in the first argosy were educated to fetch and carry, or were even so far accomplished as to sit up and beg; and it is but little more their descendants

can do at the present day. But what of Man, who weathered safely the storm of storms in that same Ark? Compare that venerated bark, as imagined by us from traditionary description, with the least eligible of the ferry-boats which scud across our crowded rivers, and we have answer enough for the present, so far as progress is concerned.

Well, if Dog has never invented so much even as a patent rat-trap,—a thing, you see, that might have saved him some labor,-if he persists in disregarding the majesty of Fashion, and continues to move about in society with the same kind of coat on his back as that worn by his first ancestor, hatless, disaffected of shoes, and totally obtuse to the amenity of an umbrella,-if, in fact, his only approach to humanity, as distinguished by apparel, is his occasional adoption of a collar precisely similar in general effect to those in which Fashion, empress of Broadway and of a great many other ways, condemns her wretched votaries to partial strangulation, well, say I again, in spite of all this, Dog is prime company. Intimately associated as I have been from earliest boyhood with many excellent fellows of the family, from social communion with which I am at present debarred only by the direful necessity of dwelling in lodgings,-a necessity which, if distasteful to Man, to Dog, oh, how fatal!-bound, I may say, as I was for years, not by straps and chains only, but by ties of confident friendship also, to canine comrades possessing the purest elements of worth and humor, it is to me a task not altogether devoid of interest to fall back on such memories as may enable me to chronicle a few reminiscences of the nobilities and eccentricities of the race.

Before I discourse of individual dogs of the present century, however, with whom I have had the pleasure of being personally acquainted, let me reproduce the following short tale of a dog from an old French volume, a tome fittingly adorned with ears of that noble animal innumerable.

Persimel St. Remi was a gentleman of fortune, whose income was derived principally from large rented farms, the dues arising from which he sometimes collected himself, in preference to intrusting that important duty to a steward or agent. On his excursions for that purpose, he was generally accompanied by a favorite little spaniel, of a kind too small to be of any service to him as an escort, but inestimable for his qualities as a companion. One day M. St. Remi had ridden a long way to collect certain sums of money due him in arrears of rent, but which he had little expectation of being able to obtain without further trouble. To his agreeable surprise, however, his tenants paid him the whole arrears,-an event so unexpected that he could not conceal his exultation as he clinked the heavy bag of money on the pommel of his saddle, when cordially taking leave of his farmers. Merle that was the little dog's name—was equally delighted; for his moods were always regulated by those of his master, such is the mysterious sympathy between Dog and us; and ever as his master laughed cheerily to the chink of the gold, on his homeward ride, Merle barked and bounded alongside of him, clearly understanding that gold is a thing to be laughed with and not at, and that it is no laughing matter to be without it. This is what the old French writer asserts respecting the inward sentiments of that small dog. How he arrived at a knowledge of them, I know not, nor is it any business of mine. Well, Persimel St. Remi galloped on and until they reached the way-side well about half way home, the old stone trough, with the water sparkling into it from the grotesque spout carved out of the rock. Here he pulled bridle to water his horse, refreshed him further by slackening the girths of the saddle, and, unstrapping the bag of gold which was attached to the holsters, he placed it by his side on the rock, while he splashed his hands and face in the cool water. By-and-by he drew up the girths, mounted his horse dreamily, for he was a man of contem

on,

plative moods, and rode away from the way-side well, forgetful of his treasure, which lay temptingly on the flat rock, ready to the hand of the first comer. Not so his faithful dog, who, having in vain tried to lift the bag, which was too heavy for him, ran swiftly after the rider, whose attention he strove to arouse by barking violently, and careering round and round the horse when he slackened his pace. Failing thus to attract notice, he went so far in his zeal as to bite the horse pretty severely in the fetlock, which caused him to swerve on one side, and wake up his master to a vague sense of something wrong, the first idea that occurred to him being that his dog had gone mad. Cases of hydrophobia had lately occurred in the neighborhood, and St. Remi was convinced of the seizure by it of his poor dog when they reached the brook which flowed across the road. Instead of luxuriating and drinking in this, as he usually did, the spaniel circled away to where it narrowed, and leaped across it in his run. Then St. Remi, drawing a pistol from his holsters, fired at and shot his faithful companion, averting his eyes as he touched the fatal trigger, and galloping rapidly away from the death-cry that smote upon his ear; and, as he dashed the spurs into his reeking horse, he invoked maledictions on the money which was the cause of this unfortunate journey. The money! but where was it? Suddenly he pulled up his harassed steed, and the unhappy truth flashed upon him: he had left his treasure by the way-side well, and had shot his faithful dog for trying to remind him of it. Riding back to the well with mad speed, he found by traces of blood upon the path that the poor spaniel had dragged himself thither again to guard his master's gold to the last. There he found him, stretched out beside the bag of money, with just strength enough left to raise his head towards his master, with a look of forgiveness, ere he died.

The chronicler does not state what M. St. Remi did with all that money,though we may be safe in supposing that

he very exactly knew; but we would fain hope that he expended a moiety of it in founding a retreat for decayed dogs, as a monument to the poor little spaniel so faithful to him in life and in death.

Sporting dogs, the setter, the pointer, the fox-hound, and all the several varieties of hound, have had their historians, from Dame Juliana Berners to Peter Beckford, and that more recent Peter whose patronymic was Hawker; while, on our side of the Atlantic, the late "Frank Forester" has reduced kennelpractice to a system from which the Nimrod of the ramrod may not profitably depart. Apart from history, however, and from didactic argument, the individual traits of dogs remarkable in their day have but too rarely been recorded. Certainly the shepherd's colley has been admirably individualized by the Ettrick Shepherd; but many a terrier-"a fellow of infinite fancy - has passed through the world's worry without ever seeing his name in print,-unless, indeed, he happened to have fallen among thieves, and found himself lamp-posted accordingly, has passed the grizzlemuzzle period of doghood unbiographied, and gone down to his last burrow unsung.

Among the regrets with which we are saddled for our omissions, not the least of mine is now galling me for having neglected to reduce to writing, on the spot, curious facts which fell under my immediate notice in the course of many years' companionship with a somewhat miscellaneous assortment of canine friends,—

"The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart." Nevertheless, I will endeavor to bring together in this paper such stray reminiscences of doggery in general as may occur to me while I write, illustrating the subject, as I proceed, with occasional passages from the careers of humble, but eccentric individuals of the race.

Extinction has been the fate of some varieties of the dog, which have been

either superseded by the progress of machinery, or have gone to decay in consequence of the annihilation of the animals for the chase of which they were maintained. When there were wolves in the mosses and caverns of Ireland, for example, there were wolf-dogs to hunt them. The last wolf of that countryand he was a wonder, from the then rarity of the animal-was killed about one hundred and fifty years ago; and although the breed of hound then known as the Irish wolf-dog-one of the largest, noblest, and most courageous of the canine race was kept up to some extent for nearly a century later, we doubt much whether a single pure specimen of the variety is now in existence; unless, indeed, it may so happen that some ultimus Romanorum of the tribe still licks his patrician chops in the kennels of the Marquis of Sligo, in the possession of which family the last litter was many years ago supposed to be.

Reverting to times when I was a boy, I remember me of a generation of bandylegged, foxy little curs, long of body, short of limb, tight of skin, and "scant of breath," which were regarded as the legitimate descendants of a superseded class, the Turnspit of good old times. The daily round of duty of that useful aide-de-cuisine transpired in the revolution of a wheel, along the monotonous journey of which he cantered, as a squirrel does in his rolling cage, keeping in motion, by his professional exertions, the wheels and spinners of the spit upon which the joint was kept turning before the fire. The tight skin of this ugly dog was evidently a provision of Nature to secure him from entanglement with the machinery amid which his business was conducted. Had a Scotch terrier, for instance, whiskered and plumed, descended from his own more aristocratic circle to disport himself in that where turnspit was the principal mover,—the kitchen-wheel, he might have found himself cogged, and caught up, and spitted, and associated promiscuously with leg of mutton as roasted hare; in which

capacity he might eventually have been eaten with currant-jelly and considerable relish, receiving more honor, perhaps, "in that connection," than had ever in his lifetime been lavished on him as a member of society.

But Turnspit's profession is a thing of the past, his very existence a myth. The roasting-jack, with a wind-up weight by which the spit was turned, cut him out first of all; other inventions further diminished his importance. But the teakettle-which he somewhat resembled in figure, by-the-by-scalded him clean off the face of creation; for the bright steam-engine, attached nowadays to the kitchens of our principal hotels, has given a new turn to affairs, ruling the roast after a fashion that sets back old Turnspit into the remotest corner under the backstairs of the Dark Ages. I have alluded to his alleged descendants, as pointed out to my observation in boyhood; but they were an effete and degenerate race, purposeless, and wallowing much with the pigs, whom their grandsires would have recognized only to roast.

In one instance only, and that on this side of the Atlantic, do I remember having been introduced to any dog whose profession was at all analogous to that of the turnspit of other days. Falling into conversation with an old Dutch-Yankee farmer, in a remote and very rural district, I made some remarks about his dog, which was a very large, heavy one, of that no-particular-kind happily classified by the comprehensive natural philosophers of the barn-floor as "yellow dog." Farmer assured me that this fine fellow - whose name I am ashamed to say I have forgotten-did all the churning of the farm-dairy by imparting his motive power to a wheel. This piece of ingenuity, Farmer informed me, was originally and exclusively an inspiration from the intellect which animated his, Farmer's, proper clod; nor was he greatly exhilarated when I narrated to him the tradi

which dwelleth in the pastoral associa tions of the dairy.

Although not strictly in connection with the subject of this article, I will here relate a story told to me, on the same occasion, by that old farmer, because it struck me as being rather a good one, and is not particularly long.

Seeing that I took notice of a smockfrocked rustic employed in foddering the cattle, a rustic whose legs and accent were to me exclusively reminiscent of the pleasant roads and lanes of cheery Somersetshire,- Farmer informed me that he was a newish importation, having made his appearance about there early in the previous winter. While snow, of such quality and in such quantity as they have it in that region, was yet a novelty to the bumpkin, he was dispatched on horseback, one day, to the neighboring village, strict instructions being given him to ride carefully in the middle of the track, as, treading in the deep snow, the horse might "ball," an expression applied to taking up snow in the hollow of the hoof, which causes the animal to stumble. An unusually long time elapsed before the messenger made his appearance from his mission, and then he was seen making his way painfully through the snow, leading the horse after him by the bridle.

"What's wrong now?" inquired Farmer, as he glanced at the animal's knees; "been down, I guess; did Old Horse ball?"

"Noa," replied Bumpkin, "a didn't joost bawl, but a groonted consoomedly every toime a coom down. Oi thowt a wur a-gwoan to bawl the last toime we coom down together, and zo oi joost stayed down and walked 'im whoam."

When doggy men beyond ocean talk about a terrier, they usually pronounce it tarrier, and not terrier, as we mostly call him on this bank of the Atlantic. There is no authority for the former pronunciation, that I know of, beyond usage, which, however, is much taken as a standard in England. Thus, an English merchant will talk to you about his clarks, an American about his clurks. The French

word terrier-derived, of course, from terre signifies not only the dog, but a burrow in the earth; a kind of retreat in which such dogs are supposed to pass a portion of their existence, occupied in the subterrene branches of the chase. It means, also, a land-roll or register. In Lower Canada, which is essentially France, I recollect the label, “Papier Terrier," upon the door of a public-landoffice. A friend of mine, clandestinely and under cover of darkness, removed the label, substituting for it a scurrilous one setting forth "Pasteboard Poodle," an announcement which did not appear to convey any particular idea whatever to the unsettled mind of the haggard provincial chef du bureau, as it flashed upon him next morning in the light of the glad young autumn-day. But, reverting to pronunciation, tare-ier would, of course, more correctly reverberate the sound of the French original than either of the other usages, while it would possess the advantage of conveying a suggestion of that proclivity for tearing, so characteristic of the animal designated by the term. On this important question the learned philologists wrangle. For my part, I stick to tarrier, which comes oncommon handy," as the horse-dealer hinted, when reproved by the Cambridge student for reducing a noble animal nearly to the level of a donkey by calling him "an 'oss."

And of all the terrier tribe, there is no quainter little fellow than he of the Island of Skye,-known to his friends and admirers as the "Skye dog." This little animal, which, in length of spine, shortness of legs, wildness of hair, and litheness of movement, resembles one of those long, hirsute caterpillars oft-times to be observed by the happy rambler in the country, as it promenades across his path, possesses many distinctive traits, which separate him, in a manner, from Dog in general, assimilating him somewhat, indeed, to the feræ, which find in rapine and carnage the subsistence which Nature evidently has not intended that they should realize in communion with man.

The peculiar odor of the fox is his, though in a mitigated degree. He loves to make a lair under the bushes by tearing up the turf with his teeth and paws, and to lie in it. He is of a shy and reserved disposition, and usually more lively at night than by day. These are attributes of beasts of prey. Unlike all other members of the terrier family, he cares nothing about rats. He will sit down and bark in a tone of contempt at one turned out before him in a close passage or room, declining, in fact, to recognize rats as game, unless entered at them while very young. I speak only of the pure, unmixed Isle-of-Skye dog, or "tassel terrier," as he is sometimes called by rabbithunters, a breed difficult to obtain in perfection, and one which is particularly scarce in this country. The proper game or quarry of this animal is the otter, which he does not hesitate to follow into his very burrow in the river-banks; nor is he afraid to attack one nearly double his

size.

Having, time after time, possessed several of these dogs, verified as being derived from the best stock on the island, from which their parents-who understood no language but Gaelic- were brought direct, I have noted some of their odd, whimsical ways, a few of which I will illustrate, taking for my exponent one very remarkable little fellow who was a genuine type of his kind.

This animal was one of the smallest of his family, and of a color uncommon among them; for they are mostly either of a yellowish dun, or of that slaty mouse-color known among dog-fanciers as "blue,""-a tint, by the way, particularly appropriate for a dog of Skye. Sometimes they are black; but Sambo, better known to his familiars as Sam, was of a sooty brindle, with a very dark muzzle, and eyes burning out like black stars from the cloud of shaggy hair that mantled upon his brow. Next to the shortness of his legs, the length of his body was one of the most remarkable physical freaks I remember to have observed; neither of these attributes, howev