Colonel Hamilton Smith is our authority for the anecdote of a dog that followed its owner, who was on horseback, and who contrived to drop some cakes from his basket as he cantered home. On his arrival, he found that his trusty follower had gathered up some of the lost cakes and carried them home and had gone for the remainder, which it duly returned with untasted. ‘Dogs,’ says Colonel Smith, ‘have an instinctive comprehension of the nature of property;’ and it is really most remarkable, considering that they have not human speech, how frequently, and how well, they make us understand their views on this point. The colonel alludes to the case of a lady at Bath who was somewhat alarmed by the behaviour of a strange mastiff that seemed anxious to prevent her going on. Finding she had lost her veil, she turned back, the dog going before her until she came to the missing article and picked it up. As soon as the dog saw she had regained her property, it scampered off to its master. Anecdotes of this character are innumerable, as are also those of dogs reclaiming property belonging, or which has belonged, to their owners. Sir Patrick Walker furnishes a most valuable instance of this propensity in our canine cousins. A farmer having sold a flock of sheep to a dealer, lent him his dog to drive them home, a distance of thirty miles, desiring him to give the dog a meal at the journey’s end and tell it to go home. The drover found the dog so useful, that he resolved to steal it, and instead of sending it back, locked it up. The collie grew sulky, and at last effected its escape. Evidently deeming the drover had no more right to detain the sheep than he had to detain itself, the honest creature went into the field, collected all the sheep that had belonged to its master, and, to that person’s intense astonishment, drove the whole flock home again! Dogs are not only honest in themselves, but will not permit others to be dishonest. The late Grantley Berkeley was wont to tell of his two deerhounds ‘Smoker’ and Smoker’s son ‘Shark,’ a curiously suggestive instance of parental discipline. The two dogs were left alone in a room where luncheon was laid out. Smoker’s integrity was invincible; but his son had not yet learned to resist temptation. Through the window, Mr Berkeley noticed Shark, anxiously watched by its father, steal a cold tongue and drag it to the floor. ‘No sooner had he done so,’ says his master, ‘than the offended sire rushed upon him, rolled over him, beat him, and took away the tongue;’ after which Smoker retired gravely to the fireside. Mr Blaine, among many similar records, tells of a spaniel he had which protected the dinner-table, during its master’s absence, from the attempts of a cat which sought to make too intimate an acquaintance with the leg of mutton. Both the animals belonged to Mr Blaine, and were on friendly terms with each other; but one was honest, and the other was not.