The dogs most to be envied in England are certainly those at Sandringham, King Edward’s Norfolk home. Here Queen Alexandra, kindest and most feminine of queens, whose love of animals is quite unbounded, has always several beautiful indoor pets who are looked after with the most loving care; whilst the splendid condition of a number of more robust dogs, who live out of doors under the most perfect conditions possible, attests the great attention devoted to their welfare. Besides dogs, I have had many horses which were more or less pets. Such a one was a mare, Black Bess by name, who was so gentle that I could ride her up close to a street door and ring the bell from her back. I rode more or less for the greater portion of my life, but I cannot say that I was ever very devoted to riding—perhaps I had too much of it when I was a child, when a very great deal of my time was spent in the saddle. The first horse which I recollect being allowed to have for my very own was a beautiful grey mare, Testina, so called on account of her little head. She was the daughter of my father’s racehorse, Clearwell, the winner of the Two Thousand Guineas, and on her, as a little girl, I rode with him from Antwerp to Munich in the ’thirties, when railways were scarcely in existence. After this I had many other horses, but I eventually gave up riding with but little regret; my early experiences with Testina, who was seventeen hands high, and extremely difficult to manage, having rather set me against that form of exercise. Driving appealed to me much more in the ’sixties and early ’seventies. I had two ponies which I really loved. These I used to drive in the low pony-chaise so fashionable at that date, controlling them with the whip combined with a parasol, which the present generation only knows from Leech’s drawings in _Punch_. At the slightest touch they would (though in reality perfectly manageable) perform the most astounding antics, rearing up in the air and shaking their heads in a manner which startled every one except myself, who knew the real gentleness of their disposition. These ponies lived to a great age, and when they were past work I took care that they should spend their last years in well-earned peace and happiness in a pleasant paddock. Birds of all sorts I have owned in numbers, amongst them a parrot which never talked at all for a year, till one day when we had a luncheon-party it burst out into a torrent of bad language which much disconcerted everybody.