Sporting dogs,--the setter, the pointer, the fox-hound, and all the
several varieties of hound, have had their historians, from Dame
Juliana Berners to Peter Beckford, and that more recent Peter whose
patronymic was Hawker; while, on our side of the Atlantic, the late
"Frank Forester" has reduced kennel-practice to a system from which the
Nimrod of the ramrod may not profitably depart. Apart from history,
however, and from didactic argument, the individual trails of dogs
remarkable in their day have but too rarely been recorded. Certainly
the shepherd's colley has been admirably individualized by the Ettrick
Shepherd; but many a terrier--"a fellow of infinite fancy"--has passed
through the world's worry without ever seeing his name in
print,--unless, indeed, he happened to have fallen among thieves, and
found himself lamp-posted accordingly,--has passed the grizzle-muzzle
period of doghood unbiographied, and gone down to his last burrow
unsung.
Among the regrets with which we are saddled for our omissions, not the
least of mine is now galling me for having neglected to reduce to
writing, on the spot, curious facts which fell under my immediate
notice in the course of many years' companionship with a somewhat
miscellaneous assortment of canine friends,--
"The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart.
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