These contribute largely to future health and usefulness. Vegetable food should preponderate until an age is acquired when the dog is to take the field. After three months a small quantity of wellboiled fresh meat, once a day, will generally prevent worms. But a solid meat diet will create plethora, a bountiful source of membranous diseases of the mouth and nose, mange, distemper and madness. Boiled Indian corn meal is the best, and cheapest vegetable we can use. Bones are destructive to the teeth, and contain little nutriment. I have, (then 1831,) two Pointers, now ten years of age. One of them was given me when five years old. The other I reared myself. The given dog has no teeth above the gums: the other has a full and perfect set. This great advantage has been obtained by a proper attention to the selection of his food. After mature age (fifteen months), a generous daily allowance of beef, boiled with vegetables, (potatoes, beans and cabbage,) will be advisable. These articles, always at command, are cheap and wholesome; and will be eaten freely. They keep the bowels soluble, prevent worms, prolapsi and piles. On days of sporting, a little raw meat before "going out" will be better than a full meal of the usual aliments. Full feeding, after the exercises of the day, will never be omitted by a just master. Mutton, for obvious reasons, should never be given to any dog, even if it could be procured free of cost An ample, weather-proof board house, having a movable top, with hay, straw or shavings, as a bed, should constitute the only lodging. Even during cold weather sleeping in dwelling houses, or any approach to fires, must be prohibited. The bed litter should be renewed frequently, and the kennel whitewashed within and without, quarterly.

No man deserves to have a good dog who will not be mindful of his comfort as well as his health. A good substantial kennel may be built at a very trifling expense; large enough for as many dogs, as any gentleman in this country ought to keep - even for five or six couple of hounds. The rules laid down by Somerville, as to situation and exposure for the kennel are worthy of attention.

" Upon some little eminence erect,

And fronting to the ruddy dawn; its courts. On either hand, wide opening to receive

The suns all cheering beams, when mild he shines And gilds the mountain tops."

And again he says -

"O'er all let cleanliness preside, no scrape Bestrew the pavement, and no half-pick'd bones To kindle fierce debate, or to disgust That nicer sense, on which the sportsman's hope And all his future triumphs must depend."

I knew, adds Doctor S., a noble, well-trained Pointer destroyed in his fourth year by permitting him to lay on a hearth rug, before a fire, during the winter. Early in March he was on the marshes, after snipe; and by reason of his tenderness, contracted a regular intermittent, which continued till midsummer. Under one of the paroxysms he was pursued and slain as a mad dog, by ruffians who were unworthy to clean his kennel; and that too in spite of benevolent and earnest protestations of his innocence by a friendly neighbour.

There is a strong tendency in the skins of all young dogs to disease, requiring particular counteracting attentions; the most certain of which consist in ablution with warm soap suds, followed by the use of a fine comb. This washing and combing, often repeated, during the first six months, is attended with astonishing benefits, which continue through life. During this early period no personal familiarities are required, beyond an occasional caress.

The period of gestation with the bitch is sixty-three days; and her pups are whelped and remain blind ten days. The question has been much mooted among naturalists whether the wolf is, or is not, the original type of the cants familiaris, or domestic dog. It is not the design of these mere notes to go into a discussion of that question.