Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of AnimalsLee, R., Mrs.
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Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals
Lee, R., Mrs.
Animal behavior -- Juvenile literature
I have already spoken of dogs which attach themselves to communities,
and now I have a similar instance of a deer to offer, in combination,
however, with a dog, who attached himself to the 42nd Highlanders,
having been presented to that regiment by a friend of one of the
officers. The dog had belonged to a captain in the navy, who dined at
the mess, while the regiment was stationed in Malta, and so attached
himself to that community, that nothing would induce him to leave it; so
his master was forced to leave his favourite Newfoundland behind him;
who, from that moment, would never follow any one who did not wear the
uniform of his friends. The soldiers subscribed, and gave him a collar
with the name of the regiment on it, and called him Peter. A mutual
attachment soon took place between the deer and the dog; and they
regularly appeared on parade together. The latter frequented the
cook-house, where the cook ill-treated him, which was not forgotten, and
one day when the bathing time was come, at which recreation Peter was
the first in and the last out of the water; the cook joined the others
of his corps; and Peter, knowing his power in his own element, pulled
him down, and would have drowned him, had not the soldiers come to his
rescue.
Both dog and deer marched with the band, and remained with it when in
quarters. The latter was very fond of biscuit; but if it had been
breathed upon he would not touch it, and although many ways of cheating
him were tried, he invariably detected the contamination. At one time he
became very irritable; and if a stranger passed between the band and the
main body of the regiment, he attacked him with his antlers. He was
grazing one day when a cat from the neighbourhood bristled up her hair,
and set up her back at him; and the poor deer, seized with a sudden and
unaccountable panic, sprang over a precipice two hundred feet high, and
was killed on the spot. Peter being close by, rushed to the battlements,
and barked and yelled most piteously. His own end was a tragic one; he
snarled at an officer who had often ill-used him, and the unfeeling man
ordered the poor dog to be shot by those who loved him, and lamented him
as long as they lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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