to the chief object of his affections.  When I return from an absence, or when he meets an old friend of mine, or of his own (which is the same thing to him) his ecstacy is unbounded; he tears and curvets about the room as if mad; and if out of doors, he makes the welkin ring with his clear and joyous note.  When he sees a young person in company he immediately selects him for a play fellow.  He fetches a stick, coaxes him out of the house, drops it at his feet; then retiring backwards, barking, plainly indicates his desire to have it thrown for him.  He is never tired of his work.  Indeed, I fear poor fellow, that his teeth, which already show signs of premature decay, have suffered from the diversion.  But though Rover has a soul for fun, yet he is a game dog too.  There is not a better cocker in England.  In fact he delights in sport of every kind, and if he cannot have it with me, he will have it on his own account.  He frequently decoys the greyhounds out and finds hares for them.  Indeed he has done me some injury in this way, for if he can find a pointer loose, he will, if possible, seduce him from his duty, and take him off upon some lawless excursion; and it is not till after an hour’s whistling and hallooing that I see the truants sneaking round to the back door, panting and smoking, with their tails knitted up between their legs, and their long dripping tongues depending from their watery mouths—­he the most bare-faced caitiff of the whole.  In general, however, he will have nothing to say to the canine species, for notwithstanding the classification of Buffon, he considers he has a prescriptive right to associate with man.  He is, in fact, rather cross with other dogs; but with children he is quite at home, doubtless reckoning himself about on a level with them in the scale of rational beings.  Every boy in the village knows his name, and I often catch him in the street with a posse of little, dirty urchins playing around him.  But he is not quite satisfied with this kind of company; for, if taking a walk with any of the family, he will only just acknowledge his plebeian play-fellow with a simple shake of the tail, equivalent to the distant nod which a patrician school-boy bestows on the town-boy school-fellow whom he chances to meet when in company with his aristocratical relations.  The only approach to bad feeling that I ever discovered in Rover is a slight disposition to jealousy; but this in him is more a virtue than a vice; for it springs entirely from affection, and has nothing mean or malicious in it, one instance will suffice to show how he expresses this feeling.  One day a little stray dog attached himself to me and followed me home; I took him into the house and had him fed, intending to keep him until I could discover the owner.  For this act of kindness the dog expressed thanks in the usual way.  Rover, although used to play the truant, from the moment the little stranger entered the premises, never quitted us till he saw him fairly off.  His manner towards