Birds and All Nature, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 1898: Illustrated by Color PhotographyVarious
History
Birds and All Nature, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 1898: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
One of the most remarkable instances of carrying on a career of theft
came under our own observation, says a writer in _Cassell's Magazine_.
A friend in northeast Essex had a very fine Aberdeenshire Terrier, a
female, and a very affectionate relationship sprang up between this
Dog and a Tom cat. The Cat followed the Dog with the utmost fondness,
purring and running against it, and would come and call at the door
for the Dog to come out. Attention was first drawn to the pair by this
circumstance. One evening we were visiting our friend and heard the Cat
about the door calling, and some one said to our friend that the cat
was noisy. "He wants little Dell," said he--that being the Dog's name;
we looked incredulous. "Well, you shall see," said he, and opening
the door he let the Terrier out. At once the Cat bounded toward her,
fawned round her, and then, followed by the Dog, ran about the lawn.
But a change came. Some kittens were brought to the house, and the
Terrier got much attached to them and they to her. The Tom cat became
neglected, and soon appeared to feel it. By and by, to the surprise
of every one, the Tom somehow managed to get, and to establish in the
hedge of the garden, two kittens, fiery, spitting little things, and
carried on no end of depredation on their account. Chickens went; the
fur and remains of little Rabbits were often found round the nest, and
pieces of meat disappeared from kitchen and larder. This went on for
some time, when suddenly the Cat disappeared--had been shot in a wood
near by, by a game-keeper, when hunting to provide for these wild
kittens, which were allowed to live in the hedge, as they kept down the
Mice in the garden. This may be said to be a case of animal thieving
for a loftier purpose than generally obtains, mere demand for food and
other necessity.
That nature goes her own way is illustrated by these anecdotes of birds
and animals, and by many others even more strange and convincing.
The struggle for existence, like the brook, goes on forever, and the
survival, if not of the fittest, at least of the strongest, must
continue to be the rule of life, so long as the economical problems of
existence remain unsolved. Man and beast must be fed. "Manna," to some
extent, will always be provided by generous humanitarianism. There will
always be John Howards. Occasionally a disinterested, self-abnegating
soul like that of John Woolman will appear among us--doing good from
love; and, it may be, men like Jonathan Chapman--Johnny Appleseed, he
was called from his habit of planting apple seeds whereever he went,
as he distributed tracts among the frontier settlers in the early days
of western history. He would not harm even a Snake. His heart was
right, though his judgment was little better than that of many modern
sentimentalists who cannot apparently distinguish the innocuous from
the venemous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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