possible doubt that Mayhew's pages are the
_ne plus ultra_ of canine pathology. There is nothing comparable to his
treatment of all diseases for gentleness, simplicity, mercy to the animal,
and effect. I have no hesitation in saying, that any person with
sufficient intelligence to make a diagnosis according to his showing of
the symptoms, and patience to exhibit his remedies, precisely according
to his directions, cannot fail of success.

I have this year treated, myself, two very unusually severe cases of
distemper, one of acute dysentery, one of chronic diarrhoea, and one of
most aggravated mange, implicitly after his instructions, and that with
perfect, and, in three instances, most unexpected, success. The cases of
distemper were got rid of with less suffering to the animals, and with
less--in fact, no--prostration or emaciation than I have ever before
witnessed.

I shall never attempt any practice other than that of Mayhew, for
distemper; and, as he says, I am satisfied it is true, that no dog, taken
in time, and treated by his rules, _need_ die of this disease.

Colonel Hutchinson's volume, which is to dog-breaking, what Mayhew's is to
dog-medicining--science, experience, patience, temper, gentleness, and
judgment, against brute force and unreasoning ignorance--I have so far
abridged as to omit, while retaining all the rules and precepts, such
anecdotes of the habits, tricks, faults, and perfections of individual
animals, and the discursive matter relative to Indian field sports, and
general education of animals, as, however interesting in themselves, have
no particular utility to the dog-breaker or sportsman in America. Beyond
this I have done no more than to change the word September to the more
general term of Autumn, in the heading of the chapters, and to add a few
short notes, explanatory of the differences and comparative relations of
English and American game.

I will conclude by observing, that although this work is exclusively on
breaking for English shooting, there is not one word in it, which is not
applicable to this country.

The methods of woodcock and snipe shooting are exactly the same in both
countries, excepting only that in England there is no summer-cock
shooting. Otherwise, the practice, the rules, and the qualifications of
dogs are identical.

The partridge, in England, varies in few of its habits from our quail--I
might almost say in none--unless that it prefers turnip fields, potatoe