The striking appearance of a landscape covered with new-fallen snow, and the effects produced on the lower animals by its fall, are thus graphically described by the poet of the Seasons :—

"The cherished fields

Put on their winter robe of purest white.

"T is brightness all; save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods

Bow their hoar heads; and, ere the languid sun,
Faint from the west, emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill,
Is one wild-dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toils. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then brisk alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And picks, and starts, and wonders where he is;

Till, more familiar grown, the table crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset

By death in various forms,-dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men,-the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad, dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow."

TWELFTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

SAGACITY AND FIDELITY OF THE DOG IN SNOW.

I WELL remember with what delight I listened to an interesting conversation, which, while yet a schoolboy, I enjoyed an opportunity of hearing in my father's manse,* between the poet Burns, and another poet, my near relation, the amiable Blacklock. The subject was the fidelity of the dog. Burns took up the question with all the ardor and kindly feeling with which the conversation of that extraordinary man was so remarkably imbued. It was a subject well suited to call forth his powers, and, when handled by such a man, not less suited to interest the youthful fancy. The anecdotes by which it was illustrated, have long escaped my memory; but there was one sentiment expressed by Burns, with his own characteristic enthusiasm, which, as it threw a new light into my mind, I shall never forget. Man," said he, is the god of the dog. He knows no other; he can understand no other :-And see how he worships him! With what reverence he crouches at his feet, with what love he fawns upon him, with what dependence he looks up to him, and with what cheerful alacrity he obeys him! His whole soul is wrapped up in his god; all the powers and faculties of his nature are devoted to his service, and these powers and faculties are ennobled by the intercourse. Divines tell us that it ought just to be so with the Christian; but the dog puts the Christian to shame."

The truth of these remarks, which forcibly struck me at the time, has since been verified in my own experience; and often have events occurred which, while they reminded me that "man is the god of the dog," have forced from me the humiliating confession, that "the dog puts the Christian to shame."

* Lochrutton in Galloway.

The dog was certainly created to be a companion and assistant to the human race. It is well observed by Goldsmith, that the generality of animals have greater agility, greater swiftness, and more formidable arms, from Nature, than man; their senses, and particularly that of smelling, are often far more perfect. This is the case with the dog; the having gained, therefore, a new assistant, in this sagacious and quick-scented animal, was the gaining of new powers, of which man stood in need. There are various important services rendered to man by the dog, which may be more properly noticed afterwards. At present, I shall confine myself to a few instances, in which he contributes, by his docility, his sagacity, and his attachment, to lessen the dangers of the winter storm, or to mitigate, by his useful labors, the rigors of an ungenial climate.

I begin by abridging Captain Parry's account of the manner in which dogs are employed by the Esquimaux, in conveying them from place to place in sledges over the ice or frozen snow ;-premising that does of this species are somewhat smaller in size than those of Newfoundland, and bear a strong resemblance to the wolf of their native country, and that they have very firm bone in their fore-legs, with great strength in their loins, two essential qualities for the purpose of draught. When drawing a sledge, the dogs have a simple harness of deer or seal-skin going round the neck by one bight or loop, and another for each of the fore-legs, with a single thong leading over the back, and attached to the sledge as a trace. Though they appear at first sight to be huddled together without regard to regularity, there is, in fact, considerable attention paid to their arrangement, particularly in the selection of a dog of peculiar spirit and sagacity, who is allowed, by a longer trace, to precede the rest as a leader, and to whom, in turning to the right or left, the driver usually addresses himself. This choice. is made without regard to age or sex, and the rest of the dogs take precedence according to their training or sagacity, the least effective being placed nearest the sledge. The leader is usually from eighteen to twenty feet from

the forepart of the sledge, and the hindmost dog about half that distance; so that, when ten or twelve are running together, several are nearly abreast of each other. The driver sits quite low, on the forepart of the sledge, with his feet overhanging the snow on one side, and having in his hand a whip, of which the handle is eighteen inches, and the lash more than as many more feet in length. The men acquire from their youth considerable expertness in the use of the whip, the lash of which is left to trail along the ground by the side of the sledge, and with which they can inflict a very severe blow on any dog at pleasure. The dogs are kept in training entirely by the fear of the whip; but in directing the sledge it acts no very essential part, the driver for this purpose using certain words, as wagoners do with us, to make the dogs turn to the right or left. To these a good leader, when admonished by name, attends with admirable precision, at the same time looking behind over his shoulder with great earnestness, as if listening to the directions of the driver. With "good sleighing," that is, on good roads, six or seven dogs will draw from eight to ten hundred weight, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, for several hours together. With a smaller load, they will run ten miles an hour, and are, in fact, almost unmanageable. To the women, who nurse them when ill, and treat them with greater kindness than the men, they are affectionate in the highest degree. From the men they receive little, except blows and rough treatment ; still they are faithful and enduring.

Another dog, of a kind not dissimilar to that of the Esquimaux, performs to man, in a different region, a service of a different kind, for which still greater sagacity is necessary. I allude to the Alpine spaniel, which is employed by the monks of the convent of the great St. Bernard, on their errands of humanity. This convent is situated near the top of that high mountain, not far from the region of perpetual snow, where the traveller is often suddenly overtaken with the most severe weather, and is liable to a thousand accidents. The sun becomes suddenly darkened; the wind howls; the snow comes

n twirls through the air, and drifts up his path; the faal avalanche falls from the impending cliff, and sweeps trees and rocks into the valley, along with the helpless passengers, or buries them deep beneath its thundering mass. The pious and generous monks devote themselves in this region of horrors, to offices of humanity; and in their truly Christian task they are admirably assisted by a noble breed of dogs, whom they have trained, and keep in their establishment, for the purpose of rescuing travellers from destruction. Benumbed with cold, weary in the search of a lost track, his senses yielding to the stupifying influence of frost, which betrays the exhausted sufferer into a deep sleep, the unhappy man sinks upon the ground, and the snow-drift covers him from human sight. It is then that the keen scent and the exquisite docility of these admirable dogs are called into action. Though the perishing man lie ten, or even twenty feet below the snow, the delicacy of smell with which they can trace him, offers a chance of escape. They scratch away the snow with their feet, and they set up a continued hoarse and solemn bark, which brings the monks and laborers to their assistance. To provide for the chance, that, without human help, the dogs may succeed in discovering the unfortunate traveller, one of them has a flask of spirits round his neck, to which the fainting man may apply for support, and another carries, strapped on his back, a cloak to cover him. These wonderful exertions are often successful. One of those noble creatures was decorated with a medal, in commemoration of his having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, who but for his sagacity must have perished. He, himself, however, met an untimely fate, in 1816, in an attempt to convey a poor Piedmontese courier to his anxious family. The traveller, with two guides and this remarkable animal, were descending the mountain, and some members of his family were toiling upward in search of him, when two avalanches overwhelmed them all in one common destruction.*

*Foot note to Goldsmith's Animated Nature,' Brown's edition, vol. ii. p. 207.

I.

29

VII.