Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-11-03

| jackdaw of the writer's acousintance had
an ingenious method of torrnentipe tbe
numerous dogs of the establishment.
which was most comic to behold, and
which owed something of its finish to a
| more artistic conception of the humorous
side OF teasing than most jsckdsws ars
credited with. 1t was an extremely hot
summer; and the dogs, of which there
were three, spent the greater part of the
day doing pescefully on the lawn. Being
all either Clumber spsniels or settlers, they
had fine silky coats, which extended to
their feet, little tufts of fiossy fur sticking
out between their toes. When q dog was
comfortably asleep, with it's feet stretched
out, dreaming of partridges, the jaekdaw
would hop gently round. and then make
sudden dive at these fluffy tassels between
Its toes, which never failed to wake the
dog up with . quick sense of discomfort,
which tug at the hair anywhere else on
its body would never have provoked.
At another house a tame magpie was
kept In stabley yard with a couple of kes-
trels. The kestrels were in the habit of
sitting on the sides of the water pals set
to warm in the sun outside the stable
doors The magpie, bsing In want of
amusement, hit on the following plan:
He cautiously approached q kestrel from
behind, and, seizing the birds long tail In
his beak, gave it one or two violent pulls
and pushes, and having worked the kes-
trel quite off its balance, with o good for
ward push, pitched it into the pail. or 90
far In as Its tapping wings allowed. The
msgpie then Saved itself' with great
haste in the hay-rack above the msnger.
In this case the joke was psid for; one of
the kestrels, more wide awake than usual,
caught the msgpie as 1t was approaching,
and drove Its claws into the practical
ioker's legs until his screams brought
help. Sometimes the animal practical
joke takes a more refined form. We re-
Gently heard of young cat which con-
ceived great dislike for q peacock which
was fed from the windows of the house,
and took the following method of express
ing its aversion: When the peacock was
anxious to display it's charms and had
spread Its tail and was moving slowly
backwards and forwards, the cat used to
rush out on to the lawn and jump through
the peacock's tail. The effect of this was
to entirely disconcert the peacock's swag-
ger and leave the cat a moral victory.
Even this, though the effects were hardly
such as the human sense of humor inter
prets with satisfaction, may have been due
to another feeling. The cat, for instance,
may have taken the pescock's movements
may be only due to the incongruity of the
peacock's frame of mind and the cats in
depreciation. But We have no doubt
whatever that the dog does really possess
a sense of humor of a kind not very diff
ferent from our own. 1t is by no means
universal, or even common. But then hu-
NOR, or even a slight sense of the comical,
is by no means equally distributed among
men.
There are prosaic men and women and
there are matter-of-fact dogs. These have
their good qualities like matter of fact peo-
pie. For purely business purposes they
are often the best. We once owned, for
instance, an excellent retrieving spaniel of
the simple order of mind, without a grain
of humor. This dog accompanied us un-
asked when We wanted to shoot bullhnch
in the garden to stuff. The gun went off
and the Door bullfinch dropped. Now
this dog had been used, when the gun was
fred, to go and look for a dead or wound |
ed rabbit. So, instead of looking under |
the apple tree, he disappeared into the |
hedge, and in few minutes he returned |
with a rabbit in his mouth. So much for |
the value of a matter-of- fact dog The Sc
rious business of dogs life-if we ex-
cept collies and the Dutch cart -dogs-is |
sport; and it is in matters connected with |
sport that the development of humor is |
most often seen. The first and most |
step il to zee the grave and seri-
ous dog unhend to suit the humor of his
master. The spectacle of a carefully edu-
Gated setter's demesn0r at a stack-thresh-
ing, should his master take a share In
hunting mica, can never be forgotten. At
first he sits down and looks on. Then, af-
ter little encouragement, he joins in the |
fun, with a look which clearly says:
fWHll if will do II T DOME Ind sns
for once" Then all his dignity goes He |
curls his tail, jumps about and enjoys the |
joke, but never loses his sense of the i'm |
propriety Of the whole thing ST. John |
had dog which always Joined in the rat
catcher's work, but cut him and his ours
if he saw his master. Our own dog never |
took part unless he saw his master en-
gagged also, except when he went to bed at |
night in the stable. Then his whole de- |
meanor changed. He would wag his tail |
like cur, and sit waiting till the corn. bin |
was opened to give the horse his last feed, |
and try to catch the mice that rushed out |
when the lid was raised. His appreciation
of the ludicrous grew with his knowledge
of the world, and though he never showed
the slightest inclination to indulge it by
annoying other creatures and never even
chased a cat unless he were told to, he was
always immensely amused when we did
which struck him as incorrect.
His behavior on the first occasion on
which he saw wild duck shot was unmis |
taxable. The bird-a teal-fell in pond,
and the setter, who was an excellent water
dog, swan in and brought it to land. The |
bird was alive, aud as soon as he had |
reached the bank the dog set 1t down and |
danced round it. and then came back and |
looked up doubtfully, wagging bis tail just
as he did when mouse hunting, evidently
meaning to say: "Here'c lark, you've
shot duck" AS he had left it on the
other eide of ditch, we told him to 60
and fetch it. But Jack" like Sally Ha-
rowwell In Tom Brown would have moth
ing more to do with it, and though we en-
desvored to persuade him that it was all
right, like true born Suffolker as he Was,
he "knowed better" and we had to fetch
it ourselves. He behaved in exactly the
same way when We shot black rabbit.
Nothing would persuade him that 1t was
not cat; and he would do no serious
work for the rest of the day.