The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-07-02
Animal Affection.

vellyn" Is given with sufficient detail m ! Wordsworths verses, For three months 1t remained the only mourner by the body of its master. until it was found by a shepherd, who recognized It as the dog which he had seen with the lost man on the high passes late one summer evening. A shepherd gave the following account of the incident some years afterwards. The unfortunate man, he said. twas O resident of Man chester, who was in the habit of visit | ing the lakes, andI trusting In his knowledge of the country. had yentured to cross ore of the passes of HelVellyn late in the afternoon accompanied only | by his dog. In the dusk he wandered from the track, fell over the rocks. and l perished, After many weeks Of fruit- | less search the dog was discovered guarding his masters body The shepherd had never heard the poem, but concluded his story with exactly the same sentiment, if not the same words. God knows" he said, how the poor beast was supported so long.
 The dog of Helvellyn" gained @ monu- ment in Wordsworths verse.
 Another dog-mourner has been hon. ored by a monument of stone, This is the Edinburgh dog. "Greyfriars' Bob by" which followed it's masters body to the funeral. and, after the burial, lay so constantly by the grave that the keepers of the graveyard gave 1t a small kennel in which to lie. Its mas ters grave became from that time its home, and on It's death 1t was honored with a monument recording it's devo- l ton. In the case of the dog the strongest forms of the emotions of af- ! lection, jealousy and grief center round l human beings. They are shown in a very minor degree in their relation to each other. Perhaps the most curious | instance is that of a female dog which mated for life with handsome male dog 1 for which she reserved her entire affec- l tions, and after his death would associ- l ate with no other---an instance both of grief and constancy. But the minor forms of sorrow are very readily evoked in their dealings with men, why should I leave the dog at homer asks { the sportsman in MT, Oswald Craw- { furd's witty account of a Portuguese
 "cacada." of leave him at home, he will howl all day, and my wife will wish i herself dead" Their sensitiveness un- l der temporary disgrace or neglect is no 1 less obvious; but canine sorrow is in it's
 strongest form reserved to deplore the loss of human friends or masters. In no other domestic animal is the emo ton so constantly exhibited. or in so strong a form, although MT. Rudyard
 Kipling's story of My Lord the Ele- phant" Of founded on facD shows that
 that animal Is sometimes capable of as great devotion as the dog.
 Horses and cattle, though attached to I individuals, do not usually exhibit emo- 1 tion at their loss. In all the ruminant animals the expression of emotion is 1 very limited and not easily recognized. l Cows certainly are much distressed at l the loss of a calf, and deer by that of a fawn On the other hand the former are so inexplicably dull of comprehen-
 sion that in India it Is the custom to l stuff the skin of a calf which has been 1 turned into veal, and set 1t in the cow ! stable, which at once induces the COW l to continue giving milk Cats, when in I distress, seem moved by exactly oppo- site causes to those which induce sor- row in the dog, They are infinitely l miserable at the loss of their kittens, 1 and frequently adopt some other crea- i ture in their place, but they seem little | moved by the death or sickness of hu-
 man friends. But this Is not always the case. During the last influenza epi-
 demic a lady who was attacked was
 moved into different room from that
 which she usually occupied. Her cat, a
 gray Angora, at once discovered this
 and came and sat outside for some
 days, but was not admitted. for fear it
 might also catch the universal plague.
 on the bed, purring and showing as
 much pleasure as it had previously
 shown dejection
 Wild animals naturally limit both
 their affections and regrets to each oth-
 CTS society. In the social life of most
 animals there Is so little difference be-
 tween the individuals that the loss of
 one Is easily replaced. It leaves no gap
 in the daily life. as the loss of human
 being may in that of domestic animal.
 But Lord Lovat has given a sufficient number of instances of the grief felt by 1 wild deer at the death or wounding of | their companions to supplement the les- son of Sir F. Landseer's picture entitled [ Highland Nurses" in which the minds are watching by a wounded stag.
 Birds, which since the days when Aes- chylus described the hurried and anx- ious flight of the yultures robbed of their young, have always shown the ut ] most distress and grief at the loss of their nestlings, seem seldom affected to
 sorrow by any other circumstance, | though Miss Benson, in her book, ''Sub- ject to Vanity has lately given an ac-
 count of the "inhuman" indifference of
 a hen Budierigar parrakeet when its
 mate was i'll, and of the obvious dejec-
 tion which this indifference caused in
 the sick bird But it is now doubted
 whether "love-birds" die of grief after
 the loss of their mate, though the fact
 that one usually dies very soon, often
 only a few hours after the other is not
 disputed. But they are delicate birds
 and the same unsuitable food or sudden
 draught which kills one usually affects
 the other. They are probably victims
 not of sorrow, but of errors in "domes-
 tic hygiene. ."-London Spectator.
 GRASSHOPPERS Sf EACH,