Chapter V: Part 5

In _Blackwood's Magazine_ for 1818 there is an address, in blank verse, by Mr Patrick Fraser Tytler, "To my Dog." Mr Tytler's brother-in-law, Mr Hog,[101] recorded the fact on which this address was founded in his diary at the time. "Peter tells a delightful anecdote of Cossack, an Isle of Skye terrier, which belonged originally to his brother at Aldourie. It was amazingly fond of his children, one of which, having fallen on the gravel and hurt itself, began to cry out. Cossack tried in vain to comfort it by leaping upon it and licking its face. Finding all his efforts to pacify the child fruitless, he ran off to a mountain-ash tree, and leaping up, pulled a branch of red _rowan_ berries and carried it in his mouth to the child."

HORACE WALPOLE'S PET DOG ROSETTE.

Horace Walpole, writing to Lord Nuneham in November 1773,[102] says:--"The rest of my time has been employed in nursing Rosette--alas! to no purpose. After suffering dreadfully for a fortnight from the time she was seized at Nuneham, she has only languished till about ten days ago. As I have nothing to fill my letter, I will send you her epitaph; it has no merit, for it is an imitation, but in coming from the heart if ever epitaph did, and therefore your dogmanity will not dislike it--

'Sweetest roses of the year,
Strew around my Rose's bier,
Calmly may the dust repose
Of my pretty, faithful Rose!
And if yon cloud-topp'd hill[103] behind
This frame dissolved, this breath resign'd,
Some happier isle, some humbler heaven,
Be to my trembling wishes given;
Admitted to that equal sky,
May sweet Rose bear me company!'"

ARRIVAL OF TONTON, A PET DOG, TO WALPOLE.--TONTON DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH.

Horace Walpole, in May 1781,[104] had announced Tonton's arrival to his correspondent, the Hon. H. S. Conway. He says:--"I brought him this morning to take possession of his new villa, but his inauguration has not been at all pacific. As he has already found out that he may be as despotic as at St Joseph's, he began with exiling my beautiful little cat, upon which, however, we shall not quite agree. He then flew at one of my dogs, who returned it by biting his foot till it bled, but was severely beaten for it. I immediately rung for Margaret (his housekeeper) to dress his foot; but in the midst of my tribulation could not keep my countenance, for she cried, 'Poor little thing; he does not understand my language!' I hope she will not recollect, too, that he is a Papist!" In a postscript he tells the general that Tonton "is a cavalier, and a little of the _mousquetaire_ still; but if I do not correct his vivacities, at least I shall not encourage them, like my dear old friend."

In a letter of about the same date to Mason the poet, he again alludes to his fondness of Tonton, but adds--"I have no occasion to brag of my dogmanity."[105]

Horace Walpole, in 1774, thus refers to Margaret, in a letter to Lady Ossory:--"Who is to have the care of the dear mouse in your absence? I wish I could spare Margaret, who loves all creatures so well that she would have been happy in the ark, and sorry when the deluge ceased; unless people had come to see Noah's old house, which she would have liked still better than cramming his menagerie."[106] A sly allusion to the numerous fees Margaret got from visitors. Horace, in another of his letters, alludes to this, and, in a joke, proposes to marry Margaret to enrich himself.

HORACE WALPOLE.--DEATH OF HIS DOG TONTON.

Horace Walpole, writing to the Countess of Ossory, Feb. 24, 1789,[107] says:--"I delayed telling you that Tonton is dead, and that I comfort myself. He was grown stone deaf, and very nearly equally blind, and so weak that the two last days he could not walk up-stairs. Happily he had not suffered, and died close by my side without a pang or a groan. I have had the satisfaction, for my dear old friend's sake and his own, of having nursed him up, by constant attention, to the age of sixteen, yet always afraid of his surviving me, as it was scarcely possible he could meet a third person who would study his happiness equally. I sent him to Strawberry, and went thither on Sunday to see him buried behind the chapel near Rosette. I shall miss him greatly, and must not have another dog; I am too old, and should only breed it up to be unhappy when I am gone. My resource is in two marble kittens that Mrs Damer has given me, of her own work, and which are so much alive that I talk to them, as I did to poor Tonton! If this is being superannuated, no matter; when dotage can amuse itself it ceases to be an evil. I fear my marble playfellows are better adapted to me, than I am to being your ladyship's correspondent." Poor Tonton was left to Walpole by "poor dear Madame de Deffand." In a letter to the Rev. Mr Cole, in 1781, he announces its arrival, and how "she made me promise to take care of it the last time I saw her. That I will most religiously, and make it as happy as is possible."[108]

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY AND HIS DOGS.

"In these rambles he was generally attended by three uncompromising-looking dogs, the heads of which, if it were possible to draw them together in shamrock form, would forcibly suggest Cerberus. Richard Whately found, or thought he found, in the society of these dogs far brighter intelligence, and infinitely more fidelity, than in many of the Oxford men, who had been fulsomely praised for both.

"In devotion to his dogs, Dr Whately continued true to the end of his life, and during the winter season might be daily seen in St Stephen's Green, Dublin, playing at 'tig' or 'hide and seek' with his canine attendants. Sometimes the old archbishop might be seen clambering up a tree, secreting his handkerchief or pocket-knife in some cunning nook, then resuming his walk, and, after a while, suddenly affecting to have lost these articles, which the dogs never failed immediately to regain.

"That he was a close observer of the habits of dogs and other quadrupeds we have evidence in his able lecture on 'Animal Instinct.' Dr Whately, when referring to another subject, once said not irrelevantly, 'The power of duly appreciating _little_ things belongs to a great mind: a narrow-minded man has it not, for to him they are _great_ things.' Dr Whately was of opinion that some brutes were as capable of exercising reason as instinct. In his 'Lectures and Reviews' (p. 64) he tells of a dog which, being left on the bank of a river by his master, who had gone up the river in a boat, attempted to join him. He plunged into the water, but not making allowance for the strength of the stream, which carried him considerably below the boat, he could not beat up against it. He landed, and made allowance for the current of the river by leaping in at a place higher up. The combined action of the stream and his swimming carried him in an oblique direction, and he thus reached the boat. Dr Whately adopts the following conclusion--'It appears, then, that we can neither deny reason universally and altogether to brutes, nor instinct to man; but that each possesses a share of both, though in very different proportions.'"[109]

SIR DAVID WILKIE COULD NOT SEE A PUN.--"A DOG-ROSE."

The son and biographer of William Collins, the Royal Academician,[110] quotes from a manuscript collection of anecdotes, written by that charming painter of country life and landscape, the following on Sir David Wilkie:--"Wilkie was not quick in perceiving a joke, although he was always anxious to do so, and to recollect humorous stories, of which he was exceedingly fond. As instances, I recollect once when we were staying at Mr Wells's, at Redleaf, one morning at breakfast a very small puppy was running about under the table. 'Dear me,' said a lady, 'how this creature teases me!' I took it up and put it into my breast-pocket. Mr Wells said, 'That is a pretty nosegay.'--'Yes,' said I, 'it is a dog-rose.' Wilkie's attention, sitting opposite, was called to his friend's pun, but all in vain. He could not be persuaded to see anything in it. I recollect trying once to explain to him, with the same want of success, Hogarth's joke in putting the sign of the woman without a head ('The Good Woman') under the window from which the quarrelsome wife is throwing the dinner into the street."

ULYSSES AND HIS DOG.

Richard Payne Knight, in his "Inquiry into the Principles of Taste,"[111] when treating of the "sublime and pathetic," quotes the story of Ulysses and his dog, as follows:--"No Dutch painter ever exhibited an image less imposing, or less calculated to inspire awe and terror, or any other of Burke's symptoms or sources of the sublime (unless, indeed, it be a stink), than the celebrated dog of Ulysses lying upon a dunghill, covered with vermin and in the agonies of death; yet, when in such circumstances, on hearing the voice of his old master, who had been absent twenty years, he pricks his ears, wags his tail, and expires, what heart is not at once melted, elevated, and expanded with all those glowing feelings which Longinus has so well described as the genuine effects of the true sublime? That master, too--the patient, crafty, and obdurate Ulysses, who encounters every danger and bears every calamity with a constancy unshaken, a spirit undepressed, and a temper unruffled--when he sees this faithful old servant perishing in want, misery, and neglect, yet still remembering his long-lost benefactor, and collecting the last effort of expiring nature to give a sign of joy and gratulation at his return, hides his face and wipes away the tear! This is true sublimity of character, which is always mixed with tenderness--mere sanguinary ferocity being terrible and odious, but never sublime. [Greek: Agathoi polydakrytoi andres]--_Men prone to tears are brave_, says the proverbial Greek hemistich; for courage, which does not arise from mere coarseness of organisation, but from that sense of dignity and honour which constitutes the generous pride of a high mind, is founded in sensibility."

FOOTNOTES:

[46] "The Olio," by the late Francis Grose, Esq., F.A.S., p. 203.

[47] "Dogs and their Ways;" illustrated by numerous anecdotes, compiled from authentic sources, by the Rev. Charles Williams. 1863.

[48] It may interest the reader, who does not dive deep into literary curiosities, to refer to the original edition of Hayley's "Cowper" (4to, 1803, vol. i. p. 314), where the poet, in a letter to Samuel Rose, Esq., written at Weston, August 18, 1788, alludes to his having "composed a _spick_ and _span_ new piece called 'The Dog and the Water-lily;'" and in his next letter, September 11, he sent this piece to his excellent friend, the London barrister. Visitors to Olney and Weston, who have gone over the poet's walks, cannot but have their love for the gentle and afflicted Cowper most deeply _intensified_.--_See_ Miller's "First Impressions."

[49] This book, like Storer's other illustrations of the scenes of the poems of Burns and Bloomfield, drawn immediately after the death of these poets, will become year by year more valuable.

[50] "Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh," edited by his son, Robert James Mackintosh, Esq., vol. i. p. 164.

[51] "Bawsn't," having a white stripe down the face.--_Glossary to Burns's Poems._

[52] See an extract farther on, in proof of this.

[53] "The Jordan and the Rhine" (1854), p. 46, and pp. 91-93.

[54] _See_ Layard's "Nineveh and its Remains," vol. ii. (1849), p. 425.

[55] "Ladak, Physical, Statistical, and Historical," p. 218.

[56] "Memoir of Bishop Blomfield," by his son, i. 220.

[57] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 177.

[58] A selection from the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London, 1866, pp. 134-138.

[59] "Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.," edited by his son, Charles Buxton, Esq., B.A., third edition, p. 139.

[60] Moore's "Life of Byron," chap. vii. p. 74.

[61] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 279.

[62] "Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Collins, R.A.," by his Son, i. 105.

[63] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 203.

[64] _Loc. cit._ p. 213.

[65] "The Life, Character, and Literary Labours of Samuel Drew, A.M.," by his eldest son, p. 66.

[66] "Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq.," &c., by W. Cooke, Esq., vol. ii. p. 36.

[67] "Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.," by the late George William Fulcher, p. 155.

[68] _Edinburgh Review_, 1836, vol. lxiv. p. 17.

[69] "Life and Letters of Elizabeth, last Duchess of Gordon," by the Rev. A. Moody Stuart, 1865, pp. 198-200.

[70] Portion of the Journal kept by Thomas Raikes, Esq., from 1831 to 1837, vol. iii. p. 134.

[71] "Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds," by C. R. Leslie, R.A. and Tom Taylor, M.A., vol. ii. p. 191.

[72] "John Leifchild, D.D. His Public Ministry, &c.," by J. R. Leifchild, A.M., p. 143.

[73] Agnes Strickland, "Lives of the Queens of England," vol. v. p. 293 (ed. 1851).

[74] "A History of Peeblesshire," by William Chambers of Glenormiston, p. 428.

[75] Vol. i. p. 156.

[76] Memoir by his friend, the Rev. John W. Burgon, p. 204.

[77] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 44.

[78] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 43.

[79] "Charles Lamb: his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books," by Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., 1866, p. 161.

[80] Cunningham's Edition of Correspondence, viii. p. 331.

[81] "The Table Talk; or, Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther," p. 66.

[82] "The Diary of an Invalid; being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France in 1817-1819," p. 144.

[83] "Common-Place Book," 4th ser. p. 423.

[84] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 24.

[85] "Memoir of Baron Larrey, Surgeon-in-chief of the Grande Armee." London. 1861. P. 191.

[86] "England under the House of Hanover," by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., vol. ii. p. 57.

[87] "Memoir of Perthes," vol. ii. pp. 153-4.

[88] "Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great, collected from the conversation of several persons of distinction at St Petersburg and Moscow," by Mr Stoehlin, Member of the Imp. Acad., St Peters., p. 306.

[89] A denthtchick is a soldier appointed to wait on an officer.

[90] "Recollections and Anecdotes," 2d ser., by Capt. R. H. Gronow, p. 194 (1863).

[91] "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles," by Lord Mahon, vii. p. 261.

[92] See Mundy's "Life of Lord Rodney," vol. i. 258. "Remember me to my dear girls and poor Loup. Kiss them for me. I hope they were pleased with my letter." Vol. ii. p. 28.

[93] "Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M., the Keeper for almost fifty years of the Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh," p. 4.

[94] See her "Autobiography," p. 85, for an anecdote of her saving a little dog, tied in a basket of stones, from the water. She called it "Moses."

[95] Vol. ii. pp. 264, 265.

[96] "Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith," by his daughter, Lady Holland, &c., vol. i. p. 200.

[97] "Life of the Rev. Sydney Smith," by his daughter, Lady Holland, &c., vol. i. p. 379.

[98] Vol. i. p. 267.

[99] "Life and Correspondence," vol. v. p. 133.

[100] "John Leifchild, D.D., his Public Ministry, Private Usefulness, and Personal Characteristics," founded upon an autobiography, by J. R. Leifchild, A.M., p. 34.

[101] See Burgon's "Memoir of Patrick F. Tytler," p. 140.

[102] Letter first published in Cunningham's Chronological Edition, vol. vi. p. 4.

[103] Richmond Hill. The dog died at Strawberry Hill.

[104] Correspondence, chronologically arranged by Peter Cunningham, viii. p. 39.

[105] _Loc. cit._, p. 44.

[106] Vol. vi. p. 117.

[107] "The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford," edited by Peter Cunningham, now first chronologically arranged, ix. p. 173.

[108] _Loc. cit._, viii. p. 35.

[109] Fitzpatrick, "Memoirs of Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin," vol. i. pp. 21, 22 (1864).

[110] "Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, R.A.," by his son, W. Wilkie Collins, i. 193.

[111] Third edition, 1806, p. 385.

WOLF.

Surely the man should get a monument who is proved to have killed the last she-wolf in these islands. How closely allied the wolf is to the dog may be clearly read in the accounts of Polar winterings. Some of the larger butchers' dogs are singularly wolf-like, and it seems to be _that_ variety which occasionally, as it were, resumes its wolfish habits of prowling at night and killing numbers of sheep in certain districts, as we sometimes read in the country papers of the day. In Strathearn, we lately heard of a very recent instance of this wolf-like ferocity breaking out. The dog was traced with great difficulty, and at last shot. He proved to be of the kind alluded to.

POLSON AND THE LAST SCOTTISH WOLF.

Mr Scrope[112] describes, from traditions still existing on the east coast of Sutherland, the destruction of what is supposed to have been the last Scottish wolf and her cubs. This was between 1690 and 1700. This wolf had committed many depredations on their flocks, and the inhabitants had been unsuccessful in their attempts to hunt it down.

A man named Polson, attended by two herd boys, went in search of it.

Polson was an old hunter, and had much experience in tracing and destroying wolves and other predatory animals. Forming his own conjectures, he proceeded at once to the wild and rugged ground that surrounds the rocky mountain-gulley which forms the channel of the burn of Sledale. Here, after a minute investigation, he discovered a narrow fissure in the midst of a confused mass of large fragments of rock, which, upon examination, he had reason to think might lead to a larger opening or cavern below, which the wolf might use as his den. Stones were now thrown down, and other means resorted to, to rouse any animal that might be lurking within. Nothing formidable appearing, the two lads contrived to squeeze themselves through the fissure, that they might examine the interior, while Polson kept guard on the outside. The boys descended through the narrow passage into a small cavern, which was evidently a wolf's den, for the ground was covered with bones and horns of animals, feathers, and egg-shells; and the dark space was somewhat enlivened by five or six active wolf cubs. Not a little dubious of the event, the voices of the poor boys came up hollow and anxious from below, communicating this intelligence. Polson at once desired them to do their best, and to destroy the cubs. Soon after, he heard the feeble howling of the whelps as they were attacked below, and saw almost at the same time, to his great horror, a full-grown wolf, evidently the dam, raging furiously at the cries of her young, and now close upon the mouth of the cavern, which she had approached unobserved, among the rocky irregularities of the place. She attempted to leap down at one bound from the spot where she was first seen. In this emergency, Polson instinctively threw himself forward on the wolf, and succeeded in catching a firm hold of the animal's long and bushy tail, just as the forepart of the body was within the narrow entrance of the cavern. He had unluckily placed his gun against a rock, when aiding the boys in their descent, and could not now reach it. Without apprising the lads below of their imminent peril, the stout hunter kept firm grip of the wolf's tail, which he wound round his left arm; and although the maddened brute scrambled, and twisted, and strove with all her might to force herself down to the rescue of her cubs, Polson was just able, with the exertion of all his strength, to keep her from going forward. In the midst of this singular struggle, which passed in silence--for the wolf was mute, and the hunter, either from the engrossing nature of his exertions, or from his unwillingness to alarm the boys, spoke not a word at the commencement of the conflict--his son within the cave, finding the light excluded from above, asked in Gaelic, and in an abrupt tone, "Father, what is keeping the light from us?"--"If the root of the tail break," replied he, "you will soon know that." Before long, however, the man contrived to get hold of his hunting-knife, and stabbed the wolf in the most vital parts he could reach. The enraged animal now attempted to turn and face her foe, but the hole was too narrow to allow of this; and when Polson saw his danger, he squeezed her forward, keeping her jammed in, whilst he repeated his stabs as rapidly as he could, until the animal, being mortally wounded, was easily dragged back and finished.

* * * * *

A similar story has been given, with the wilds of Canada for the scene. The young Highlander was said to be dirking pigs, while the father was keeping guard. "Phat's keeping out the licht, fayther?" shouts the son.--"If ta tail preaks, tou 'lt fine tat," were the question and answer.

FOOTNOTES:

[112] "The Art of Deer-Stalking," &c., by William Scrope, Esq., F.L.S., p. 371.

FOX.

The sharp-faced fox is a very epitome of cunning, and his name is a by-word for slyness. Farmers know well that no fox, nestling close to their houses, ever meddles with their poultry. Reynard rambles a good way from home before he begins to plunder. How admirable is Professor Wilson's description of fox-hunting, quoted here from the "Noctes." Sir Walter Scott, in one of his topographical essays, has given a curious account of the way in which a fox, acquainted with the "ins and outs" of a certain old castle, outwitted a whole pack of dogs, who had to jump up singly to get through a small window to which Reynard led them. His large tail, so bushy and so free, is of great use to Reynard. He often brushes the eyes of his pursuers with it when sprinkled with water anything but sweet, and which, by its pungency, for a time blinds them. The pursuit of the fox is most exciting, and turns out the lord "of high degree," and the country squire and farmer. It is the most characteristic sport of the "better classes" in this country.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC FOX-HUNTING SURGEON.[113]

A medical gentleman, named Hansted, residing near Newbury, who was very fond of fox-hunting, ordered his gardener to set a trap for some vermin that infested his garden. As ill luck would have it, a fox was found in the morning with his leg broken, instead of a plant-eating rabbit. The gardener took Reynard to the doctor, when he exclaimed, "Why did you not call me up in the night, that I might have set the leg?" Better late than never: the surgeon set the leg; the fox recovered, and was killed in due form, after a capital run.

FOX-HUNTING.

(_From the "Noctes Ambrosianae," April 1826._[114])

_North._ It seems fox-hunting, too, is cruel.

_Shepherd._ To wham? Is't cruel to dowgs, to feed fifty or sixty o' them on crackers and ither sorts o' food, in a kennel like a Christian house, wi' a clear burn flowin' through 't, and to gie them, twice a-week or aftener, during the season, a brattlin rin o' thretty miles after a fox? Is that cruelty to dowgs?

_North._ But the fox, James?

_Shepherd._ We'll come to the fox by and by. Is't cruel to horses, to buy a hundred o' them for ae hunt, rarely for less than a hundred pounds each, and aften for five hundred--to feed them on five or sax feeds o' corn _per diem_--and to gie them skins as sleek as satin--and to gar them nicher (_neigh_) wi' fu'ness o' bluid, sae that every vein in their bodies starts like sinnies (_sinews_)--and to gallop them like deevils in a hurricane, up hill and doun brae, and loup or soom canals and rivers, and flee ower hedges, and dikes, and palings, like birds, and drive crashin' through woods, like elephants or rhinoceroses--a' the while every coorser flingin' fire-flaughts (_flakes_) frae his een, and whitening the sweat o' speed wi' the foam o' fury--I say, ca' you that cruelty to horses, when the hunt charge with all their chivalry, and plain, mountain, or forest are shook by the quadrupedal thunder?

_North._ But the fox, James?

_Shepherd._ We'll come to the fox by and by. Is 't cruel to men to inspirit wi' a rampagin happiness fivescore o' the flower o' England or Scotland's youth, a' wi' caps and red coats, and whups in their hauns--a troop o' lauchin, tearin', tallyhoin' "wild and wayward humorists," as the doctor ca'd them the tither Sunday?

_North._ I like the expression, James.

_Shepherd._ So do I, or I would not have quoted it. But it's just as applicable to a set o' outrageous ministers, eatin' and drinkin', and guffawin' at a Presbytery denner.

_North._ But the fox, James?

_Shepherd._ We'll come to the fox by and by. Is't cruel to the lambs, and leverets, and geese, and turkeys, and dyucks, and patricks, and wee birds, and ither animal eatables, to kill the fox that devoors them, and keeps them in perpetual het water?

_North._ But the fox, James?

_Shepherd._ Deevil take baith you and the fox; I said that we would come to the fox by and by. Weel, then, wha kens that the fox isna away snorin' happy afore the houn's? I hae nae doubt he is, for a fox is no sae complete a coward as to think huntin' cruel; and his haill nature is then on the alert, which in itsel' is happiness. Huntin' him fa'in into languor and ennui, and growin' ower fat on how-towdies (_barn-door fowls_). He's no killed every time he's hunted.

_North._ Why, James, you might write for the "Annals of Sporting."

_Shepherd._ So I do sometimes--and mair o' ye than me, I jalouse; but I was gaun to ask ye if ye could imagine the delicht o' a fox gettin' into an undiggable earth, just when the leadin' houn' was at his hainches?--ae sic moment is aneuch to repay half an hour's draggle through the dirt; and he can lick himsel' clean at his leisure, far ben in the cranny o' the rock, and come out a' tosh and tidy by the first dawn o' licht, to snuff the mornin' air, and visit the distant farm-house before Partlet has left her perch, or Count Crow lifted his head from beneath his oxter on his shed-seraglio.

_North._ Was ye ever in at a death? Is not that cruel?

_Shepherd._ Do you mean in at the death o' ae fox, or the death o' a hundred thousand men and sixty thousand horses?--the takin' o' a Brush, or a Borodino?

_North._ My dear James, thank ye for your argument. As one Chalmers is worth a thousand Martins, so is one Hogg worth a thousand Chalmerses.

_Shepherd._ Ane may weel lose patience, to think o' fules being sorry for the death o' a fox. When the jowlers tear him to pieces, he shows fecht, and gangs aff in a snarl. Hoo could he dee mair easier?--and for a' the gude he has ever dune, or was likely to do, he surely had leeved lang eneuch.

ARCTIC FOX (_Vulpes lagopus_).

This inoffensive and pretty little creature is found in all parts of the Arctic lands. Its fur is peculiarly fine and thick; and as in winter this is closer and more mixed with wool than it is in summer, the intense cold of these regions is easily resisted. When sleeping rolled up into a ball, with the black muzzle buried in the long hairs of the tail, there is not a portion of the body but what is protected from the cold, the shaggy hairs of the brush acting as a respirator or boa for the mouth and a muff for the paws. Our Arctic travellers have remarked, that it is a peculiarly cleanly animal, and its vigilance is extreme. It is almost impossible to come on it unawares, for even when appearing to be soundly asleep, it opens its eyes on the slightest noise being made. During the day it appears to be listless, but no sooner has the night set in than it is in motion, and it continues very active until morning. The young migrate to the southward in the autumn, and sometimes collect in great numbers on the shores of Hudson's Bay. Mr Graham noticed that they came there in November and left in April.

Sir James Ross found a fox's burrow on the sandy margin of a lake in the month of July. It had several passages, each opening into a common cell, beyond which was an inner nest, in which the young, six in number, were found. These had the dusky, lead-coloured livery worn by the parents in summer; and though four of them were kept alive till the following winter, they never acquired the pure white coats of the old fox, but retained the dusky colour on the face and sides of the body. The parents had kept a good larder for their progeny, as the outer cell and the several passages leading to it contained many lemmings and ermines, and the bones of fish, ducks, and hares, in great quantities. Sir John Richardson[115] observed them to live in villages, twenty or thirty burrows being constructed close to each other. A pair were kept by Sir James Ross for the express purpose of watching the changes which take place in the colour of their fur. He noticed that they threw off their winter dress during the first week in June, and that this change took place a few days earlier in the female than in the male. About the end of September the brown fur of the summer gradually became of an ash colour, and by the middle of October it was perfectly white. It continued to increase in thickness until the end of November.[116] A variety of a blackish-brown colour is occasionally met with, but this is rare: such specimens, Ross remarks, must have extreme difficulty in surprising their prey in a country whose surface is of an unvaried white, and must also be much more exposed to the persecutions of their enemies. The food of this fox is various, but seems to consist principally of lemmings and of birds and their eggs. He eats, too, the berries of the _Empetrum nigrum_, a plant common on our own hills, and goes to the shore for mussels and other shell-fish. Otho Fabricius[117] says he catches the Arctic salmon as that fish approaches the shore to spawn, and that he seizes too the haddock, having enticed it near by beating the water. Crantz, in his "History of Greenland," evidently alludes to this cunning habit when he observes, "They plash with their feet in the water, to excite the curiosity of some kinds of fishes to come and see what is going forward, and then they snap them up; and _the Greenland women have learnt this piece of art from them_." Captain Lyon noticed a fox prowling on a hill-side, and heard him for some hours afterwards in the neighbourhood imitating the cry of the brent-goose. In another part of his Journal he mentions that the bark is so modulated as to give an idea that it proceeds from a distance, though at the time the fox lies at your feet. It struck him that the creature was gifted "with this kind of ventriloquism in order to deceive its prey as to the distance it is from them." It sometimes catches the ptarmigan; and though it cannot swim, it manages occasionally to get hold of oceanic birds; in fact, nothing alive which it can master seems to come amiss, and failing to make a meal from something it has caught and killed, the Arctic fox is glad, like foxes in more favoured lands, to feed on carrion.

Captain M'Clintock, who commanded the yacht _Fox_ on the Franklin Arctic search in 1857 and 1858, wintered in the ice pack of Baffin's Bay. One of the party shot an Arctic fox when they were 140 miles from the land. He records in a letter to his brother,[118] that this wanderer from the shore "was very fat, living upon such few dovekies as were silly enough to spend their winter in the pack."

Martens, in his "Spitzbergen," says, that some of the ship's crew informed him, that the fox when he is hungry "lies down as if he was dead, until the birds fly to him to eat him, which by that trick he catches and eats." Our author believed it a fable, but it may nevertheless be one of the many expedients used by a species of a group whose name is proverbial for craftiness and cunning.

The flesh of the fox is occasionally eaten by the Esquimaux: Captain Lyon, in his "Private Journal," says that at first all of his party were horrified at the idea of eating foxes--"But very many soon got the better of their fastidiousness and found them good eating; not being myself very nice, I soon made the experiment, and found the flesh much resembling that of kid, and afterwards frequently had a supper of it."

Sir James Clarke Ross, during his five years' imprisonment in Boothia Felix and the adjoining seas, had ample means of judging of its flavour; he tells us that some of his party, who were the first to taste them, named them "lambs," from their resemblance in flavour to very young lamb. He adds, that the flesh of the old fox is by no means so palatable. During that disastrous expedition the flesh of this fox formed one of the principal luxuries of their table, and it was always "reserved for holidays and great occasions. We ate them boiled, or, more frequently after being parboiled, _roasted_, in a pitch kettle."

When the Arctic Expedition in search of Franklin wintered in Leopold Harbour in 1848-49, the commander, Sir J. C. Ross, made use of the Arctic fox as a messenger. Having caught some of these animals in traps, a collar with information for the missing parties was put round the neck of each before liberation, as the fox is known to travel great distances in search of food. On Captain Austin's subsequent expedition in 1850-51 the same plan was carried out, but it was found to be equally without result. Commander Osborn thus facetiously describes the circumstance.[119] "Several animals thus intrusted with despatches or records were liberated by different ships; but, as the truth must be told, I fear in many cases the next night saw the poor 'postman,' as Jack termed him, in another trap, out of which he would be taken, killed, the skin taken off, and packed away to ornament at some future day the neck of some fair Dulcinea. As a 'sub,' I was admitted into this secret mystery, or, otherwise, I with others might have accounted for the disappearance of the collared foxes by believing them busy on their honourable mission. In order that the crime of killing 'the postmen' may be recognised in its true light, it is but fair that I should say, that the brutes, having partaken once of the good cheer on board or around the ships, seldom seemed satisfied with the mere empty honours of a copper collar, and returned to be caught over and over again. Strict laws were laid down for their safety, such as that no fox taken alive in a trap was to be killed: of course no fox was after this taken alive; they were all unaccountably dead, unless it was some fortunate wight whose brush and coat were worthless; in such case he lived either to drag about a quantity of information in a copper collar for the rest of his days, or else to die a slow death, as being intended for Lord Derby's menagerie. The departure of 'a postman' was a scene of no small merriment; all hands, from the captain to the cook, were out to chase the fox, who, half frightened out of its wits, seemed to doubt which way to run, whilst loud shouts and roars of laughter, breaking the cold, frosty air, were heard from ship to ship, as the foxhunters, swelled in numbers from all sides, and those that could not run mounted some neighbouring hummock of ice and gave a loud halloo, which said far more for robust health than for tuneful melody."

The Arctic fox as a captive has often amused our Arctic voyagers, and accounts of it are to be met with in most of their narratives. Captain Lyon made a pet of one he captured, and confined it on deck in a small kennel with a piece of chain. The little creature astonished the party very much by his extraordinary sagacity, for, on the very first day, having been repeatedly drawn out by his chain, he at length drew his chain in after him whenever he retreated to his hut, and took it in with his mouth so completely, that no one who valued his fingers would venture afterwards to take hold of the end attached to the staple.

Sir J. C. Ross observed in Boothia Felix a good deal of difference in the disposition of specimens, some being easily tamed, whilst others would remain savage and untractable even with the kindest treatment. He found the females much more vicious than the males. A dog-fox which his party captured lived several months with them, and became so tame in a short time that he regularly attended the dinner-table like a dog, and was always allowed to go at large about the cabin. When newly caught their rage is quite ungovernable, and yet when two are put together they very seldom quarrel. They soon get reconciled to confinement. Captain Lyon[120] notices that their first impulse on getting food is to hide it as soon as possible, and this, he observed, they did, even when hungry and by themselves; when there was snow on the ground they piled it over their stores, and pressed it down forcibly with their nose. When no snow was to be obtained, he noticed his pet fox gather the chain into his mouth, and then carefully coil it so as to cover the meat. Having gone through this process, and drawn away his chain after him on moving away, he has sometimes repeated his useless labours five or six times, until disgusted, apparently, at the inability of making the morsel a greater luxury by previous concealment, he has been forced to eat it. These creatures use snow as a substitute for water, and it is pleasing to see them break a large lump with their feet, and roll on the pieces with evident delight. When the snow lay lightly scattered on the decks, they did not lick it up as dogs do, but by pressing it repeatedly with their nose, collected a small lump which they drew into their mouth.

It may be added that the specific name _lagopus_, or "hare-foot," was given to this fox from the soles of its feet being densely covered with woolly hair, which gives them some resemblance to the feet of a hare. Cuvier remarks that other foxes acquire this hair on the soles when taken to northern lands.

The specimens, figured so admirably by Mr Wolf, were drawn from some brought alive to the Zoological Gardens by one of the late Arctic expeditions.--_A. White, in "Excelsior" (with additions)._

FOOTNOTES:

[113] _Edinburgh Review_, 1841, vol. lxxiv. p. 77.

[114] "Noctes Ambrosianae." Works of Professor Wilson, vol. i. pp. 136-138.

[115] "Fauna Boreali-Americana." Mammalia, p. 87.

[116] Appendix to "Second Voyage," p. xii.

[117] "Fauna Groenlandica," p. 20.

[118] _Dublin Nat. Hist. Review, 1858_, p. 166.

[119] "Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal," p. 176.

[120] "Private Journal," p. 105.

JACKAL.

The boy who used to read, long ago, "The Three Hundred Animals," was ever familiar with "_the Lion's Provider_," as the menagerie showmen, even now, somewhat pompously style this hungry howler of the desert.

The jackal is a social kind of dog, and a pack of hungry or excited jackals can howl in notes fit to pierce the ears of the deafest. He is a mean, starved-looking creature in ordinary circumstances, seeming as if his social life prevented his getting what is called _a lion's_ share on any occasion.

JACKAL AND TIGER.

As Burke was declaiming with great animation against Hastings, he was interrupted by little Major Scott. "Am I," said he, indignantly, "to be teased by the barking of this _jackal_, while I am attacking the royal _tiger_ of Bengal?"[121]

CATS.

Another fertile subject for anecdote. Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread about it. Cats certainly get much attached to individuals, as well as to houses and articles in them. They want the lovableness and demonstrativeness of dogs; but their habits are very different, and they are strictly organised to adapt them to watch and to pounce on their prey.

As we have elsewhere remarked, and the remark was founded on observation of our eldest daughter when a very young child, "Your little baby loves the pussy, and pussy sheathes her claws most carefully, but should baby draw back her arm suddenly, and pussy accidentally scratch that tender skin, how the little girl cries! It is, perhaps, her first lesson that sweets and bitters, pleasures and pains, meekness and ferocity, are mingled in this world."[123]

JEREMY BENTHAM AND HIS PET CAT "SIR JOHN LANGBORN."

Dr, afterwards Sir John, Bowring, in the life of that diligent eccentric "codificator," Jeremy Bentham,[124] thus alludes to some of his pets:--"Bentham was very fond of animals, particularly '_pussies_,' as he called them, 'when they had domestic virtues;' but he had no particular affection for the common race of _cats_. He had one, however, of which he used to boast that he had 'made a man of him,' and whom he was wont to invite to eat maccaroni at his own table. This puss got knighted, and rejoiced in the name of Sir John Langborn. In his early days, he was a frisky, inconsiderate, and, to say the truth, somewhat profligate gentleman; and had, according to the report of his patron, the habit of seducing light and giddy young ladies of his own race into the garden of Queen's Square Place; but tired at last, like Solomon, of pleasures and vanities, he became sedate and thoughtful--took to the church, laid down his knightly title, and was installed as the Reverend John Langborn. He gradually obtained a great reputation for sanctity and learning, and a doctor's degree was conferred upon him. When I knew him, in his declining days, he bore no other name than the Reverend Doctor John Langborn; and he was alike conspicuous for his gravity and philosophy. Great respect was invariably shown his reverence; and it was supposed he was not far off from a mitre, when old age interfered with his hopes and honours. He departed amidst the regrets of his many friends, and was gathered to his fathers, and to eternal rest, in a cemetery in Milton's Garden.[125]

"'I had a cat,' he said, 'at Hendon, which used to follow me about even in the street. George Wilson was very fond of animals too. I remember a cat following him as far as Staines. There was a beautiful pig at Hendon, which I used to rub with my stick. He loved to come and lie down to be rubbed, and took to following me like a dog. I had a remarkably intellectual cat, who never failed to attend one of us when we went round the garden. He grew quite a tyrant, insisting on being fed and on being noticed. He interrupted my labours. Once he came with a most hideous yell, insisting on the door being opened. He tormented Jack (Colls) so much, that Jack threw him out of the window. He was so clamorous that it could not be borne, and means were found to send him to another world. His moral qualities were most despotic--his intellectual extraordinary; but he was a universal nuisance."

"'From my youth I was fond of cats, as I am still. I was once playing with one in my grandmother's room. I had heard the story of cats having nine lives, and being sure of falling on their legs; and I threw the cat out of the window on the grass-plot. When it fell it turned towards me, looked in my face and mewed. "Poor thing!" I said, "thou art reproaching me with my unkindness." I have a distinct recollection of all these things. Cowper's story of his hares had the highest interest for me when young; for I always enjoyed the society of tame animals. Wilson had the same taste--so had Romilly, who kept a noble puss, before he came into great business. I never failed to pay it my respects. I remember accusing Romilly of violating the commandment in the matter of cats. My fondness for animals exposed me to many jokes.'"

BISSET AND HIS MUSICAL CATS.

S. Bisset, to whom we referred before, was a Scotchman, born at Perth. He went to London as a shoemaker; but afterwards turned a broker. About 1739 he turned his attention to the teaching of animals. He was very successful, and among the subjects of his experiments were three young cats. Wilson, in his "Eccentric Mirror,"[126] has recorded that "he taught these domestic tigers to strike their paws in such directions on the dulcimer, as to produce several tunes, having music-books before them, and squalling at the same time in different keys or tones, first, second, and third, by way of concert. In such a city as London these feats could not fail of making some noise. His house was every day crowded, and great interruption given to his business. Among the rest, he was visited by an exhibitor of wonders. Pinchbeck advised him to a public exhibition of his animals at the Haymarket, and even promised, on receiving a moiety, to be concerned in the exhibition. Bisset agreed, but the day before the performance, Pinchbeck declined, and the other was left to act for himself. The well-known _Cats' Opera_ was advertised in the Haymarket; the horse, the dog, the monkeys, and the cats went through their several parts with uncommon applause, to crowded houses, and in a few days Bisset found himself possessed of nearly a thousand pounds to reward his ingenuity."

CONSTANT, CHATEAUBRIAND, AND THE CAT.

"Benjamin Constant was accustomed to write in a closet on the third story. Beside him sat his estimable wife, and on his knee his favourite cat; this feline affection he entertained in common with Count de Chateaubriand."[127]

LISTON THE SURGEON AND HIS CAT.

Robert Liston, the great surgeon, was, it seems, very fond of a cat. Dr Forbes Winslow asks, "Who has not seen Liston's favourite cat Tom? This animal is considered to be a unique specimen of the feline tribe; and so one would think, to see the passionate fondness which he manifests for it. This cat is always perched on Liston's shoulder, at breakfast, dinner, and tea, in his carriage, and out of his carriage. It is quite ludicrous to witness the devotion which the great operator exhibits towards his favourite."[128]

Liston was a curious man. He often called on his friends as early as six o'clock in the morning. In most cases, such calls must have been visits of formality or quiet jokes at the lazy manners of most men of the present age. We know one person whom he called on usually at this early hour. It would be more healthy for the young, if they would imitate this talented surgeon. We may here say that he used to allow one particular nail to grow long. It was a nail he used to guide his knife when operating. When at college in 1833 or 1834, we heard a student, who knew this clever operator well, happily apply the _double-entendre_, "_homo ad unguem factus_," a phrase, Dr Carson, our noble rector at the High School, taught us to translate "_an accomplished man_."

THE BANKER MITCHELL'S ANTIPATHY TO KITTENS.

Mr J. T. Smith, once Keeper of the Prints in the British Museum, author of the "Life and Times of Nollekens, the Royal Academician,"[129] tells a story of Mr Matthew Mitchell, a banker, who collected prints.

"Mr Mitchell had a most serious antipathy to a kitten. He could sit in a room without experiencing the least emotion from a cat; but directly he perceived a kitten, his flesh shook on his bones, like a snail in vinegar. I once relieved him from one of these paroxysms by taking a kitten out of the room; on my return he thanked me, and declared his feelings to be insupportable upon such an occasion. Long subsequently, I asked him whether he could in any way account for this agitation. He said he could not, adding that he experienced no such sensations upon seeing a full-grown cat; but that a kitten, after he had looked at it for a minute or two, in his imagination grew to the size of an overpowering elephant."

JAMES MONTGOMERY AND HIS CATS.[130]

The poet Montgomery was very fond of cats. His biographers say--"We never recollect the time when some familiar 'Tabby' or audacious 'Tom' did not claim to share the poet's attention during our familiar interviews with him in his own parlour. We well recollect one fine brindled fellow, called 'Nero,' who, during his kittenhood, 'purred' the following epistle to a little girl who had been his playmate:--

"HARTSHEAD, NEAR THE HOLE-IN-THE-WALL,
"_July 23, 1825_.
"_Harrrrrrr_,

"_Mew, wew, auw, mauw, hee, wee, miaw, waw, wurr, whirr, ghurr, wew,
mew, whew, isssss, tz, tz, tz, purrurrurrur._"

DONE INTO ENGLISH.

"HARRIET,

"This comes to tell you that I am very well, and I hope you are so too. I am growing a great cat; pray how do you come on? I wish you were here to carry me about as you used to do, and I would scratch you to some purpose, for I can do this much better than I could while you were here. I have not run away yet, but I believe I shall soon, for I find my feet are too many for my head, and often carry me into mischief. Love to Sheffelina, though I was always fit to pull her cap when I saw you petting her. My cross old mother sends her love to you--she shows me very little now-a-days, I assure you, so I do not care what she does with the rest. She has brought me a mouse or two, and I caught one myself last night; but it was in my dream, and I awoke as hungry as a hunter, and fell to biting at my tail, which I believe I should have eaten up; but it would not let me catch it. So no more at present from

TINY.

"_P.S._--They call me Tiny yet, you see; but I intend to take the name of Nero, after the lion fight at Warwick next week, if the lion conquers, not else.

"_2d P.S._--I forgot to tell you that I can beg, but I like better to steal,--it's more natural, you know.

"HARRIET, at Ockbrook."

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S VISIT TO THE BLACK DWARF.--DAVID RITCHIE'S CAT.

David Ritchie, the prototype of the "Black Dwarf," inhabited a small cottage on the farm of Woodhouse, parish of Manor, Peeblesshire. In the year 1797, Walter Scott, then a young advocate, was taken by the Fergusons to see "Bowed Davie," as the poor misanthropic man was generally called.