full; and I thought,--but dare not be sure, and had no time or courage
to be minute,--that where the nose should be, there was a small shining
black snail, probably the _Limax niger_ of M. de Ferussac, curled up,
and if you look at any dog's nose you will be struck with the typical
resemblance, in the corrugations and moistness and jetty blackness of
the one to the other, and of the other to the one. He was a
strongly-built, wiry, bandy, and short-legged dog. As I was staring upon
him, a beam--Oh, first creative beam!--sent from the sun--

"Like as an arrow from a bow,
Shot by an archer strong"--

as he looked over Benvorlich's shoulder, and piercing a cloudlet of mist
which clung close to him, and filling it with whitest radiance, struck
upon that eye or berry, and lit up that nose or snail: in an instant he
sneezed (the _nisus (sneezus?) formativus_ of the ancients); that eye
quivered and was quickened, and with a shudder--such as a horse executes
with that curious muscle of the skin, of which we have a mere fragment
in our neck, the _Platysma Myoides_, and which doubtless has been
lessened as we lost our distance from the horse-type--which dislodged
some dirt and stones and dead heather, and doubtless endless beetles,
and, it may be, made some near weasel open his other eye, up went his
tail, and out he came, lively, entire, consummate, _warm_, wagging his
tail, I was going to say like a Christian, I mean like an ordinary dog.
Then flashed upon me the solution of the _Mystery of Black and Tan_ in
all its varieties: the body, its upper part gray or black or yellow
according to the upper soil and herbs, heather, bent, moss, &c.; the
belly and feet, red or tan or light fawn, according to the nature of the
deep soil, be it ochrey, ferruginous, light clay, or comminuted mica
slate. And wonderfullest of all, the DOTS of TAN above the eyes--and who
has not noticed and wondered as to the philosophy of them?--_I saw made_
by the two fore feet, wet and clayey, being put briskly up to his eyes
as he sneezed that genetic, vivifying sneeze, and leaving their mark,
forever.

He took to me quite pleasantly, by virtue of "natural selection," and
has accompanied me thus far in our "struggle for life," and he, and the
S. Q. N., and the Duchess, and the Maid, returned that day to Crieff,
and were friends all our days. I was a little timid when he was crossing
a burn lest he should wash away his feet, but he merely colored the
w