SALLY.
(Zoölogical Gardens, London. )
A greater physiologist, Professor Agassiz, would not have pets. He must experiment, and he said that when he came to feel for an animal the affection of intimacy, experiment became impossible. And then, when it was a question of experiment, a good fortune, peculiar to himself, attended him—whatever he wanted was sure to turn up, whether a rare specimen or common one; whether bird or insect, fish or reptile. Birds, indeed, were his familiar friends, and he had a faculty of taming them not unlike that of Madame George Sand. Snakes, too, were friendly; and I have myself seen him put his hand in the water, and a little fish move tranquilly back and forth between his outspread fingers. If he had lived in the time of those great primeval creatures—mammoths, pterodactyls, and the like—he certainly would have been on friendly terms with them.
It may be said in passing that the first skeleton of a pterodactyl ever seen was discovered by an English woman—Mary Anning of Lyme-Regis. She became a capital geologist, and made many important “finds.” Her assistant, although devoted, and, to her, invaluable, is not so well known, being only—a little dog! He was, so long as he lived, the companion of her walks; and when she found a valuable specimen embedded in the rocks, would stand guard until she could get it removed, sharing faithfully in her toil, and grudging her none of the glory.
Very little appreciated in general are pigs! Pork is one thing, the pig another. The merits of pork are well understood; the merits of Piggy doubtful. Charles Lamb could sing with delicious enthusiasm the praises of roast pig—that “young and tender suckling, under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the sty”; but if he had been asked to take Piggy, unroasted, alive, into his good graces, he probably would have declined with a shrug.
But still, to a degree, the pig is appreciated. Jerrold’s sketch, called “The Manager’s Pig,” had a foundation in fact. The manager of a London theater, anxious for novelty, had a play written expressly to bring a pig upon the stage. It was very successful, and after a run of forty nights, it was suggested that the principal actor should be prepared for the manager’s table, and the other actors invited to partake. Whether this was done I cannot learn. A poor reward, indeed, for Piggy—the glory of being eaten!
The old poet, Robert Herrick, had a pet pig, and did not find his affection for it at all inconsistent with writing lovely verses to violets, daffodils, roses and fair maidens. Sir Walter Scott had a similar pet; so had Miss Martineau, and so had Lord Gardenstone, of legal fame, who cultivated his favorite’s society to a degree quite unusual. In its pigdom it followed him everywhere, and even shared his bed. But, says Chambers, “when it attained the mature years and size of swinedom, this, of course, was inconvenient. However, his lordship, unwilling to part with his friend, continued to let it sleep in the same room, and, when he undressed, laid his clothes upon the floor as a bed for it. He said that he liked it, for it kept his clothes warm till the morning!”
This was even outdoing Mr. Hawker, the clergyman, whose eccentric ways have been so delightfully described by Baring-Gould. Gyp, a black Berkshire pig, was one of his eccentricities. Being daily washed and curried, it grew up cleanly and intelligent, and followed its master exactly like a dog. It even followed him into ladies’ drawing-rooms—not always to the satisfaction of those present. In this case, he would order it to go home, and it would obey, slinking off with an air of conscious disgrace, and its tail hanging limply, out of curl.
Gyp was not the only pet at the vicarage; birds, horses, a pair of stags and a family party of nine cats added considerable variety to the good clergyman’s life. Especially the cats! They convoyed him, like a bodyguard, to and from church, and either frisked in the chancel during service, or, rubbing up against him, purred an accompaniment to his prayers. One black-letter Sunday the best-loved cat of all yielded to temptation—forgetful of the day, she caught a mouse! Never again was this sinner allowed to enter the church its conduct had disgraced; hereafter, eight cats only formed their master’s escort—the ninth staid at home in solitary shame.
How delighted Mr. Hawker would have been with a squirrel which was once chronicled in the New York Tribune. Its owner is a member of the great family Anonymous, but, thanks to his humorous, sympathetic observation, the personality of his(?) pet is more distinct. “He began life,” says the Unknown, “by tumbling out of the nest when an infant. He fell into the hands of my nephew, then at Harvard, and lived in his pockets. He could be put to sleep at any moment if made to stand on his head—which was odd but convenient. He always went to recitation, which must have been very gratifying to the professors.”