Badger-baiting with terriers is not an amusement which commends itself to humane sportsmen.  It is hard luck on the terriers, even more than on the badger.  The dogs have a very bad time if they go anywhere near him.

Talking of terriers, how endless are the instances of superhuman sagacity in dogs of all kinds!  I once drove twenty-five miles from a place near Guildford in Surrey to Windsor.  In the cart I took with me a little liver-coloured spaniel.  When I had completed about half the journey I put the spaniel down for a run of a few miles:  this was all she saw of the country.  In Windsor, through some cause or other, I lost her; but when I arrived home a day or two afterwards, she had arrived there before me.  It should be mentioned that the journey was not along a high-road, but by cross-country lanes.  How on earth she got home first, unless she came back on my scent, then, finding herself near home, took a short cut across country, so as to be there before me, it is impossible to imagine.

How curious it is that all animals seem to know when Sunday comes round!

Fish and fowl are certainly much tamer on the seventh day of the week than on any other.  We had a terrier that would never attempt to follow you when you were going to church so long as you had your Sunday clothes on; whilst even when he was following you on a week day, if you turned round and said “Church” in a decisive tone, he would trot straight back to the house.  As far as we know he had no special training in this respect.  This terrier, who was a rare one to tackle a fox, has on several occasions spent the best part of a week down a rabbit burrow.  When dug out he seemed very little the worse for his escapade, though decidedly emaciated in appearance.  Poor little fellow! he died a painless death not long ago from sheer old age.  I was with him at the time, and did not even know he was ill until five minutes before he expired.  The most obedient and faithful, as well as the bravest, little dog in the world, he could do anything but speak.  How much we can learn from these little emblems of simplicity, gladness, and love.  Implicit obedience and boundless faith in those set over us, to forgive and forget unto seventy times seven, to give gold for silver, nay, to sacrifice all and receive back nothing in return,—­these are some of the lessons we may learn from creatures we call dumb.  Perhaps they will have their reward.  There is room in eternity for the souls of animals as well as of men; there is room for the London cab-horse after his life of hardship and cruel sacrifice; there is room for the innocent lamb that goes to the slaughter; there is room in those realms of infinity for every bird of the air and every beast of the field that either the necessity (that tyrant’s plea) or the ignorance of man has condemned to torture, injustice, or neglect!