used a sudden and natural death from heart-disease.

I should like to ask naturalists who think animals know that they must
die, where they draw the line. They must stop somewhere between a dog
and a dormouse. Poets have made far more frequent allusion to the
subject than naturalists, and they may be quoted on both sides. Philip
James Bailey, in illustration of his contention that hope is universal,
says: "and the poor hack that sinks down on the flints, upon whose eye
the dust is settling, he hopes to die." But we have on the other hand
Shelley's Skylark, with its "ignorance of pain," because it differs from
men who "look before and after." Wordsworth's little girl of eight knew
less than her dog, if she had one, for, says the poet, "what could she
know of death?" I admit that when the carnivora have crushed their prey
to death they cease to mangle them; but I fancy that is only because
there is no more resistance; and a bull will trample on a hat and leave
it when it becomes a shapeless mass. The nearest thing I ever saw to an
apparent foreknowledge of death, was in the case of that least
intelligent of dogs, a greyhound. I had to shoot it to prevent useless
suffering from disease. It followed me willingly, but when I led it to a
pit prepared as its grave it instantly rushed off at its best speed. I
suggest that it saw instinctively something unpleasant was about to
happen, but it does not follow that death was present to its mind.
Domestic poultry will furiously attack one of their number that
struggles on the ground in its death-agony. They do not dream of death;
they think its contortions are a challenge to combat.

R. SCOTT SKIRVING.

OUR FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDS, BIG AND LITTLE.

[_Nov. 8, 1873._]

May I be permitted to question, in the most friendly way, the assumption
of "Lucy Field," in your last issue, that the lives of small dogs are in
constant jeopardy from "a race of giant dogs, and exceptionally large
dogs," at Muswell Hill? If it be so, then, surely the "giant dogs" of
that region are exceptions. My experience goes to confirm the truth
taught by Sir Edwin Landseer's "Dignity and Impudence," a fine print of
which adorns my portfolio. I had a broken-haired friend, weight about
eight pounds, learned in two languages, canine and English, who rejoiced
in the name of Teens, given him by babes with whom he condescended to
play, because he was a "tiny, teeny dog." I must confess that my lat