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6 Our Dumb Animals 1 (1873-1874)

handle is hein.journals/animals6 and id is 1 raw text is: b VPf RR, A V XS NIV'7' SPEA I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility, the man Vho needlessly sets foot upon a worm. - Cowtper. Vol. 6. BOSTON, JUNE, 1873. . No. 1. Our Dumb Animals. Published on the first Tuesday of each Month by the AT THE SOCIETY'S ROOMS, 46 Washinaton Street . . Boston. TERMS.- $1.00 per annum, in advance. Postage in the city, FREE. To all parts of the United States, outside of Boston, TWELVE CENTS PER ANNUM for each pack- age of two ounces, payable in advance, at the office where received, or at our office. Articles for the paper, and subscriptions, may be sent to the Secretary. GEORGE T. ANGELL . . . . . . . President. HENRY SALTONSTALL . . . . . . Treasurer. FRANK B. FAY . . . . . . . . . Secretary. CHARLES A. CURRIER . . . . . . Special Agent. A DOG THAT STOOD ON HIS DIGNITY. HE was not our dog. . . . We had been terribly frightened about mad dogs when we were children, and so had grown up with a most unreasonable dread of the whole canine race. . . . Bruno was a great, shaggy, black dog, as big as a calf of six weeks old. He was kept as a watch-dog in a large store; and when our home fell to us in the rooms over said store, he seemed to think that he had us also in his charge. The people before us had made much of him, inviting him up stairs, letting the baby ride on his back, or go to sleep with him on the floor, and treating him to a taste of all the nice tidbits that were brought into the house. Of course he soon concluded that he had the freedom of the place. He had such large, pleasant eyes, so full of be- nevolence, and of fun too, that it is a mystery how I could help liking him. But if he had been a lion or a big bear, I could not have been more nearly scared to death than I was the day of our arrival, when, looking up from a basket of dishes that I was unpacking, I saw his huge form in the doorway. Over went the basket, and,-with a marvellous spring, I went over the basket, clear into an adjoining room, where I shut the door with a bang, locked it, and then screamed for dear life. Just then some one out of doors whistled cheerily, and the monstrous fellow went bouncing down the stairs, to my great relief. I saw no more of him that day; but the next morning he paid me a visit. I had just placed the gridiron over a nice bed of coals, and held in my hand a plateful of juicy steak cut ready for broil- ing, when I heard a panting sound close by me, and, looking round, there stood Bruno, with his great open mouth nearly on a level with my shoulder. I was too frightened to scream or to run away. My first thought was the necessity of coaxing rather than fighting, if haply I might escape with my life. Trembling, I held out to him a bit of the raw meat. The immense jaw gave one snap, and the bit van- isbed. Another and another followed, until only a tiny morsel remained for my husband's breakfast. Could I not, in some way, save that? I made sev- eral steps backward towards the door, and hope began to spring up in my heart. But Bruno, alas I had been taught to speak for what he wanted; and now, with one eye on the remnant in the dish, he tipped his head back, and - spoke. That was enough. I threw him the meat in despair, just man- aging, as I did so, to get out of the room. I don't think my husband particularly enjoyed breakfasting on dry toast alone; but he had taken an unaccounta- ble fancy to the dog, and I remember that I thought the scanty fare a. suitable punishment for such a taste. He'll run mad, and bite you; and then you will have the hydrophobia, and bite me, I said, when, manlike, he tried to reason with me. As if a woman's fears could ever be made amenable to rea- son I . If you really do not like to have him come up stairs, said Bruno's master, you have only to tell him so. He will understand, and take the hint. I had never yet spoken to him, except to coax him hypocritically when his presence frightened me. Poor Bruno ! Good fellow! was all I had ven- tured to utter. But I had little faith in the remarkable intelli- gence that would enable him to take a hint that was sometimes thrown away upon my own species. Nev- ertheless, I thought the experiment worth trying. That very noon Bruno appeared about dinner-time, just dropping in a moment to see what I was up to. He had a habit of doing thi*s at meal times; and, if he was hungry, it was a particularly inconvenient time to receive him. So, without even the politeness of saying good-morning, I began:- Bruno He looked up, and opened his mouth expectantly. Bruno, said I, speaking slowly but impressively, you must go down stairs directly; and don't you ever show your face up here again. Poor Bruno! He had been wagging his tail ever since he came in, out of pure good will. He looked up at me wistfully, just a moment, to be sure that I was in earnest. I can't say that there were not tears in his eyes: I am sure the happy liht went out of them; but, with only the mute pretest of a look, he turned away, and went out of the room. At first I could not believe he so well understood me; but no persuasion of my husband's, not even the promise of the nicest beefsteak, could induce him to enter our doors. Neither could he be coaxed to ap- proach me. He never seemed to be aware of my pres- ence; and if I met him anywhere about the premises, and stopped to speak to him, he passed on as compos- edly as if I had been invisible. Somehow I got the better of my cowardice when I found that he would have nothing to do with me; and I actually sought an intimacy with him, but in vain. He would guard most faithfully any thing that I intrusted to his care, -magnanimously returning good for evil, and heap- ing coals of fire on my head; but I had rejected the affection he offered me, and lost it forever. - Mrs. H. C. Gardner, in Unitarian Herald. THE WHALE'S COMPASS. THE unerring exactness with which the sperm whale will pursue his way across the trackless ocean for a whole day without deviating from his course a single point of the compass, as whalemen have often remarked them to do, is truly astonishing. The manner in which their reason or instinct guides them on such an unvarying course must needs be a matter of conjecture. May it not be that their vis- ual organs being as well adapted to the watery ele- ments in which they move as ours are to the air, they are able to penetrate the watery depths and recesses, and are guided by the visible objects be- neath them? Without some such guidance no ani- mal, not even that reasoning creature, man himself, can long pursue an unvarying course. Instinct may urge an animal when to move, but something dis- cernible must aid its way through the deep with such precision. He - Whose creating hand Nothing imperfect or deficient left Of all that he created has made the hidden highways of the seas they in- habit as clear to their perceptions as are the high- ways of the land to ours. p1w,

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