An affecting story has frequently been told of a dog who persevered in leaping upon the horse of a traveller, to call his attention to his money, which he had left on a bank where he halted to rest. His master, imagining he was mad, shot the poor animal, who retired to die upon the purse. Some dogs possess a singular knack of hunting out anything that has recently been in the possession of their masters. There is one ludicrous anecdote of this faculty, which we fear is too good to be true. A gentleman made a bet that his dog would identify a franc that he threw down upon the Boulevards at Paris. Before the dog had discovered the money, a passenger picked it up. Presently the dog caught the scent, followed him to his hotel, remained with him all day, and attended him to bed, to the great delight of his newly constituted master, who was extremely flattered by his sudden attachment. But the moment the gentleman pulled off bis small-clothes, in the pocket of which he had placed the franc, the dog barked at the door as if desirous to go out. The door was opened, the dog caught the breeches, and rushed away to his rightful master. Shortly afterwards arrived, all dfiskabills, the owner of the breeches, trembling for a purse of gold that lay in the same pocket with the important franc.

The dog is not always upon the side of the aggressed. There is no weapon of defence which cannot be converted into a weapon of attack, and so it is with an animal that can be formed to any thing at the pleasure of his master. Highwaymen have accordingly taught him to aid them in their violence! and pickpockets to filch from counters, and seize reticules in the streets.

Edwin Landseer happily called the Newfoundland dog ' a Distinguished Member of the Humane Society;' and he has richly earned the tribute that has been paid to him by that happy genius. His element is water, and his business to rescue those who are not at home in it as himself. This propensity of his nature is sometimes carried to a laughable excess. There was a Newfoundlander at Paris that would not even suffer that any one should bathe. He promenaded along the banks of the Seine, plunged in after the swimmers, and encumbered them with his help. While he was allowed to go at large no one could enjoy the luxury of a bath without being forcibly hurried back to land. Hence his officious zeal requires no stimulus when the danger is real. Nor is it a mechanical impulse. There have been instances in which he has summoned assistance when he has been insufficient by himself, or when no one was at hand to recover the object of his care. He counts his own life nothing in his generous efforts. He will make an attempt to carry a rope from a sinking vessel to the shore, though the sea rages to a degree that renders it impossible for him to stem the tide.

There is no sacrifice of which a dog is not capable on behalf of his master. The dread of fire is overwhelming with animals, and yet, (as we have already seen,) he has been found occasionally to brave the flames. It Libourne, in France, in 1835, one of the townsmen gave an old suit of clothes to dress up an effigy. His dog happened to be by when it was burnt, and taking it for his master, he jumped upon the fire again and again to tear it away, biting those who attempted to retain him, and would have been burnt to death unless his master had appeared.

Devoted to his master in life, the dog mourns him in death. There are few fields of battle which do not present him watching and moaning by the side of a master that has fallen in the fight. Wordsworth has consecrated a poem to the fidelity of the animal who was found whining over the skeleton of a traveller who had perished in the mountains of Cumberland three months before: -

1 How nourished there through such long time He knows, who gave that love sublime; Aim! gave that strength of feeling great Above all human estimate.'

Still wore affecting is the fate of a dog related by Daniel in his 'Rural Sports.' He belonged to a magistrate who was thrown into prison during the French Revolution. Denied admittance to the dungeon, he waited day alter day at the prison gate, till he woa upon the affections of the jailer. Put out every night, he returned every morning. He attended his master through the scenes of his trial and death, and accompanied him to hit burial-place. At the end of three months he refused to eat, and began to dig up the earth which separated him from the being he loved. His strength declined as he approached the body he shrieked in his exertions to complete his task, and expired in the midst of his convulsive efforts. Much has been written to demonstrate that the dog can even attain to the comprehensicm of the ordinary conversation between man and man. Gall declares that he had often spoken purposely of objects which might interest his dog, taking care not to mention bis name, or make any intonation or gesture which might awaken his attention, and that he showed by his behavior that be understood what was said.

Lord Brougham says that a most accurate and literal person gave him an account of which the substance was that his Shooting-dogs discovered by what they heard that he intended to go into Nottinghamshire on the following day. A mother asked her boy to fetch his sisters clothes, and on his -refusing peevishly, she said, to reproach him, ' Oh, Mungo will fetch them;' and the dog immediately executed the commission. We agree with Lord Brougham that these instances of presumed interpretation of our language are probably due to the microscopic eye of the dog for what passes around him, though, as he justly remarks, this only illustrates the more how well animals can profit by experience, and draw correct inferences from things observed by them. Where the words are addressed immediately to himself, it is not difficult to determine that he collects their purport either from the introduction of some well-learnt phrases, or from the tone and action which accompanies them. To take an example which at first sight appears to support the higher view of the understanding of the dog.