File:Birds and nature (1900) (14752063642).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature751900chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ith excitement; they lis-ten for the second sound, sure to come,which will betoken that the varmintis treed. They are not long kept insuspense, for faint, away down in thevalley, comes the joyful bay, and at thesignal the whole party stampede, spiteof all ole uncle Caesars attemptsto restrain them, and rush pellmellthrough bush and brake in the direc-tion of the sound. They arrive pant-ing and breathless from the wild race,in twos and threes, and are soon all as-sembled at the foot of a a small sap-ling, in the branches of which the pos-sum has taken temporary refuge fromhis pursuers. Soon a nimble young buck shins thetree, and the marsupial is shaken offafter some difficulty, for he clings withthe utmost tenacity to the limb, usingthe tail not the least in this battle forfreedom. The anxious dogs belowawait his fall, and his death is com-passed in less time than it takes to tellit. This is the only method employedin the capture of the opossum, andthis is rapidly becoming traditional.
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SOMETHING ABOUT DOGS. BLENHEIM or Marlboroughspaniels, which greatly resem-ble the latter in form and gen-eral appearance, get their Eng-lish name from Blenheim Palace, inOxfordshire, where the breed has beenpreserved since the beginning of theeighteenth century. Mastiff is the term applied to a verylarge and powerful species of the ca-nine family, and there is considerableconflict of opinion regarding the originof the word. Some claim that it is de-rived from the Italian mastifio, orthe French masdn, both of which sig-nify large-limbed. This word, they say, was graduallycorrupted into masty, a Lincolnshireexpression, meaning very large, muscu-lar, or big, until it gradually assumedits present form. Others, again, sayits true origin is the old German mas-ten, to fatten, because the mastiff is alarge dog, and seems better fed thanany other. These animals were very highlyprized by the early Romans, whomatched them to fight in the arenawith wild animals. It is related thatvery often two

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