of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and should be looked after, but to do
things with one's hands for fun is only a giving direction to the natural
energies.

Before Edwin Landseer was eight years of age his father had taught him
the process of etching, and we see that even then the lad had a vivid
insight into the character of animals. He drew pictures of pointers,
mastiffs, spaniels and bulldogs, and gave to each the right expression.

The Landseers owned several dogs, and what they did not own they
borrowed; and once we know that Charles and Thomas "borrowed" a mastiff
without the owner's consent.

All children go through the scissors age, when they cut out of magazines,
newspapers or books all the pictures they can find, so as to add to the
"collection." Often these youthful collectors have specialties: one will
collect pictures of animals, another of machinery, and still another of
houses. But usually it is animals that attract.

Scissors were forbidden in the Landseer household, and if the boys wanted
pictures they had to make them.

And they made them.

They drew horses, sheep, donkeys, cattle, dogs; and when their father
took them to the Zoological Garden it was only that they might bring back
trophies in the way of lions and tigers.

Then we find that there was once a curiosity exhibited in Fleet Street in
the way of a lion-cub that had been caught in Africa and mothered by a
Newfoundland dog. The old mother-dog thought just as much of the orphan
that was placed among her brood as of her sure-enough children. The owner
had never allowed the two animals to be separated, and when the lion had
grown to be twice the size of his foster-mother there still existed
between the two a fine affection.

The stepmother exercised a stepmother's rights, and occasionally
chastised, for his own good, her overgrown charge, and the big brute
would whimper and whine like a lubberly boy.

This curious pair of animals made a great impression on the Landseers.
The father and three boys sketched them in various attitudes, and
engravings of Edwin's sketch are still to be had.

And so wherever in London animals were to be found, there, too, were the
Landseers with pencils and brushes, and pads and palettes.

In the back yard of the house where the Landseers lived were sundry pens
of pet rabbits; in the attic were pigeons, and dogs of various breeds lay
on the doorstep sleeping in the sun, or barked at y