Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/550

532 The peasants' dogs of the southwest of France dislike the country millers, because of the long whips which they are always carrying and snapping, and with which the dogs, running after them, are often struck. From as far off as the snapping of the whip can be heard, the dogs come to wait for the millers and pursue them; and it is easy to recognize when the millers are passing, by the behavior of the dogs. There is in this also a significance, at once aggressive and defensive, in the cries which one can, by giving a little attention, soon learn to distinguish.

Another example of the reality of the various meanings of the cries of the dog under different circumstances is afforded by the companies that collect around a female in heat.

I have a very intelligent and experienced brach-hound, the same which with the bitch had to face the attack of the wolf. He amuses me much at my country lunches. Hunting-dogs which have been much with their masters at lunch do not like to have the drinking-glass offered them. This dog was much afraid of the glass, and I had only to present it to him at lunch-time to make him keep his distance. I used to keep my door open at lunch, for the amusement of observing how I could make him stop exactly at the threshold without stepping over it. If he had passed over it I could always send him back by casting toward him a few drops of water from the bottom of the glass after drinking. Sitting, as was his habit, on the sill of the door, with the tip of his muzzle never extending beyond the plane of the panels, he would follow my motions with the closest attention, reminding me, if I failed to give him a sign of attention, by a discreet, plaintive cry, that he was there. But if I touched my glass he would spring up at once; if I filled it, he would put himself on guard, utter a kind of sigh, sneeze, lick his lips, yawn, and, shaking his ears briskly, make little stifled cries. Then he would grow impatient, and more and more watchful and nervous. When I lifted my glass to my lips he would draw back, working gradually nearer to the farther door, and at last disappear and hide. One who was looking at him without seeing me could tell by his wails and his attitude the level and position of my glass. When the glass was horizontal, I could see only about half of his head, with one eye regarding me fixedly, for that was usually the critical moment—the one, also, when the wails and restraints were most demonstrative of the anxious fear of my poor animal.

When we dine in the kitchen, which is on the ground floor, the dogs are usually all put out. There are four of them, three young and not experienced, and this old, sagacious brach-hound. He insists on coming in, and, to gain his purpose, tries to have the door opened. Although no person may be coming up the walk, he dashes down it barking, all the others going along too