Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/197

Rh strain desperately at the full length of his tether, that he might smell at the mouth of the dog, and use all his arts to induce him to have a romp, even though he had never set eyes on that especial dog before.

In 1822 some white rats were trapped in Colonel Berkeley's stables. Mr. Samuel Moss, of Cheltenham, took a fancy to a youngster, and determined to make a pet of him. He was soon tamed, and christened Scugg. Then he was formally introduced to a rat-killing terrier, a ceremony so well understood by Flora that she not only refrained from assaulting the new-comer, but actually constituted herself his protectress, mounting guard over Scugg whenever a stranger came into the room, growling, snarling, and showing her teeth, until convinced he had no evil intentions toward her protégé. These two strangely-assorted friends lapped from the same saucer, played together in the garden, and, when Flora indulged in a snooze on the rug, Scugg ensconced himself snugly between her legs. He would mount the dinner-table and carry off sugar, pastry, or cheese, while Flora waited below to share in the plunder. One day a man brought Mr. Moss another white rat, while the terrier and Scugg were racing about the room. The stranger was shaken out of the trap, and presently two white rats were scampering across the floor pursued by Flora. The chase did not last long, one of them quickly falling a victim to the terrier's teeth, much to the experimentalist's alarm, as his eyes could not distinguish one rat from the other. Looking around, however, his mind was relieved, for there in his corner was Scugg, with Flora standing sentry before him—a position she held until the man and the dead rat were out of the room. When his master took a wife to himself, a new home was found for Scugg; but the poor fellow died within a month of his removal, and it is not improbable that the separation from his canine friend was the primary cause of the rat's untimely decease.

St. Pierre pronounced the mutual attachment displayed between a lion at Versailles and a dog to be one of the most touching exhibitions Nature could offer to the speculations of the philosopher. Such exhibitions are by no means rare. Captive lords of the forest and jungle have often admitted dogs to their society and lived on affectionate terms with them. Not long ago, an ailing lioness in the Dublin Zoölogical Gardens was so tormented by the rats nibbling her toes that a little terrier was introduced into the cage. His entrance elicited a sulky growl from the invalid; but, seeing the visitor toss a rat in the air and catch it with a killing snap as it came down, she at once came to the sensible conclusion that the dog's acquaintance was worth cultivating. Coaxing the terrier to her side, she folded her paw round him and took him to her breast; and there he rested every night afterward, ready to pounce upon any rat daring to disturb the slumbers of the lioness.

The last time we visited the lion-house of the Regent's Park Zoölogical Gardens, we watched with no little amusement the antics of a dog, who was evidently quite at home in a cage occupied by a tiger and