The Opelousas courier., 1892-07-16
FOUR. FOOTED SEN IlNELS.
ANIMALS UTILIZED IN MILITARY
OPERATIONS.

Valuable Aids on the Battle Field
Horses of the Cossacks as Pieke6s
-Simian Sentries.
~ OGS have been utilized for
military purposes with great
success in France, Prussia and
o. Italy, but especially in Austria.
Were regular drill barracks for the
training Of our-footed soldiers have
been established at three different points
One on the Militar Crane (the "mili-
tary frontier" of the Turkish border),
one at Temesvar, and one near Wells on
the Traun River, in the foothills of the
Austrian Alps.
AT the latter place surprising results
have been obtained with Ahine %collies,
who range d territory of genty and
thirty square miles and contrive to
discover sscripples" in all sorts of hid
ing places.
Dogs of the same breed are also trained
to carry messages, in a small leather bag
attached to a ring in the collar, between
different detachments of a corps engaged
in active service. On field maneuvers
these four-footed adjutants may be seen
darling along the line of the imaginary
battle front, needless of the crash of big
and small gurs, but Withsl taking care
to confuse the aim of hostile marksmeu
by running zigzag, or taking advantage
of every bit of cover the ground affords.
Knowing that the miniature mailbag is
not apt to be detached by the scraping'
of a bush, the dog will prefer thickets to,
open fields, but in default of a better
chance he will ruin along the safe side of
rocks or fallen trees and occasionally stop
and look about for a moment, as if cal
culating the best route for avoiding an
encounter with a party Of hostile skirm-
lshers.
Arriving at the post of the addresses
the shaggy mail carrier will look about
for a commissioned officer or a sergeant,
apt to be stationed near d fugleman, but
.privates attempting to touch the collaF
swiIl be stood off with d warning gtoWl..
Should no answer be needed the dog will
take a short rest and recenuiter the
ground before running the gauntlet of
another bullet shower. A reply depos-
tied in his collar bag is, however, the
signal of instant departure, and within
half an hour the feet messenger may thus
make a round trip of five or six miles.
Near Wells the operations of a train
ing party involved a considerable ex-
pense of gunpowder to accustom the
ro,-~ f1o&oI roor,rs%s fn the nnIco rf fire..
arms. Horn signals guide the scattered
s~kirmishers, and a stranger passing a
night at the summer hotel of the little
town might easily be led to believe
that the neighboring highland must
he the favorite rampage ground of
the wild huntsman, or that all the fog
hunters of the Austro-H Hungarian Empire
must have met in general. convention.
An hour before daYbreak the echoes of
rifle shots and horn blasts may be heard
all along the river cliffs. and soon the
shouts of the skirmishes will be answered
by dog voices as m~ultitudinous as those:
of a frst-class bench show, the object
being to conclude the somewhat extern
sive maneuvers during the cool of the
morning. An average of four out of ten
recruits will prove intelligent enough to,
graduate. The rest are sold or returned
to their breeders, or possibly assigned to
a different training post, since some ex-
cellent messenger dogs are too deficient
in scent to make good scouts.
A breed of Hungarian dogs resembling
our Spanlsh-American b~loodhounds make
the best sentries, and a competent Aus
trian army officer maintains that after
dark their efficiency surpasses that of
the best human sentinels by as much as
the. range of a good feld-glass exceeds
that of the unassisted eye.
Horses, too, will scent danger before
a man with his esF on the ground can
hear the sIightaG8 sound of an approach
ing footstep. The Cossaek ranges
habitually tass @sis ponies on picket
duty, and more eaaa one of our Western
scouts owes his life to the timely snort
ing of his horses
Still stranger s%entries are employed by
the Kafir nomads of the Orange River.
Dogs being rather expensive pets in a
country where every scrap of animal food
is nesded for culinary purposes the ma
tiyes have ~bethought themselves of do,
m~esticating a species of their DarwInian
relatives, the chacma balloons that haunt
the rocks of Southern Africa aud whose
senses have been miraculousiy sharpened
by the exigeneies of their defensive war
fare against the prowling carnivora Of
that wilderness. In frosty nights, when
dogs curl themselves up N the lee side
of a board wall, leopards may approach
a Kafir village unpereeived, but they
cannot battle the vigilance of balloons
that seem to sleep with one eye open and
shrek out their alarm signal at the
slightest intimation Of danger. That
they are by no means deficient in the
faculty of scent is proved BY the circum-
stances that they can detect edible roots
under a four-inch stratum. of drift sand
and find hidden springs by nosing along
the ground like dogs. Their hearing,
too, equals that of a cat, and altogether
would make ideal s~entries if their
better talents were not rivaled BY their
capability for mischief, for in the course
of a single night a pet of that sort kept
on a Transvaal plantation once managed
to turn fourteen hens and dozen young
ostriches into Platonic definition of a
human being dipped without feathers
and without the power Of flight. San