ed in gamekeepers, no one can blame them.
Gipsies almost invariably prefer, as canine manifesters of devotion,
lurchers, a kind of dog which of all others can be most easily taught to
steal. It is not long since a friend of mine, early one morning between
dark and dawn, saw a lurcher crossing the Thames with a rabbit in his
mouth. Landing very quietly, the dog went to a Gipsy _tan_, deposited
his burden, and at once returned over the river.

Dogs once trained to such secret hunting become passionately fond of it,
and pursue it unweariedly with incredible secrecy and sagacity. Even
cats learn it, and I have heard of one which is "good for three rabbits a
week." Dogs, however, bring everything home, while puss feeds herself
luxuriously before thinking of her owner. But whether dog or cat, cock
or jackdaw, all animals bred among Gipsies do unquestionably become
themselves Rommanised, and grow sharp, and shrewd, and mysterious. A
writer in the _Daily News_ of October 19, 1872, speaks of having seen
parrots which spoke Rommany among the Gipsies of Epping Forest. A Gipsy
dog is, if we study him, a true character. Approach a camp: a black
hound, with sleepy eyes, lies by a tent; he does not bark at you or act
uncivilly, for that forms no part of his master's life or plans, but
wherever you go those eyes are fixed on you. By-and-by he disappears--he
is sure to do so if there are no people about the _tan_--and then
reappears with some dark descendant of the Dom and Domni. I have always
been under the impression that these dogs step out and mutter a few words
in Rommany--their deportment is, at any rate, Rommanesque to the highest
degree, indicating a transition from the barbarous silence of doghood to
Christianly intelligence. You may persuade yourself that the Gipsies do
not mind your presence, but rest assured that though he may lie on his
side with his back turned, the cunning _jucko_ is carefully noting all
you do. The abject and humble behaviour of a poor negro's dog in America
was once proverbial: the quaint shrewdness, the droll roguery, the demure
devilry of a real Gipsy dog are beyond all praise.

The most valuable dogs to the Gipsies are by no means remarkable for size
or beauty, or any of the properties which strike the eye; on the
contrary, an ugly, shirking, humble-looking, two-and-sixpenny-countenanced
cur, if he have but intellect, is much more their _affaire_. Yesterday
morning, while sitting among t