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Show An Explanation Wanted of tho Frescses of Thcso Tan Snots. Can any of your readers explain tha meaning of the tan spots seen so com rnonly over thfe eyes in black and tan dogs of most ltfeds? When in Melbourne last year, I werrt . carefully over all tho dogs in a shov? with one of the stewards, and we found the spots in all the black and tan terriers, ter-riers, foxhounds, doerhounds, colliea, lurchers, etc, but I could get no infos tnntirm rficrnrrlinff fhnm frnm thn ot. perts. In some of the highly bred toy dogs, 03 the small black and tan terriers, 2 found on inquiry thac these spots, formerly for-merly so very conspicuous, wero being bred out and had nearly disappeared. Their persistence through so many strongly marked varieties, except thosj of late date, is singular, fear thero li feirly good proof that when first domesticated domes-ticated ths dog "iras reu or brown, like ho pariah, dingo, eta As far as I can see, wo do not find &e spots white on a blaok or dark ground, nor yet blaok or dark on white or light ground. My explanation Is that they havo arisen as a permanent marking after the dogs "sported" to black under domestication and hava icn preserved and developed through natural selection. Possibly thoy aro protective pro-tective and simulate eyes. One morning, just at dawn, I had ott assion to go out into the garden, asd while stooping to examine some flowers, near a fence partly covered with creepers, creep-ers, I suddenly saw an animal's head looking through, and what seemed to t two seemingly large and ferocious black eyes glared at ma Suspecting that a black leopard was about to spring over, I started back, clapped my hands and shouted. T- my relief, however, I saw a tail wag and found that the spectator spec-tator was a cooly's dog I knew very well and which recognized me. Tha use of the tan spots in this caso a4 least then occurred to me. May it not bo that the spots thus eervo a protective purpose and have often of-ten saved the lives of dogs (blaok dogs) from their enemies, tho smaller felines, such as the clouded leopard, etc. ? Perhaps Per-haps tho matter is not new, but if it is it seems worth looking into. I havo several dogs about hero now frith blaok bodies and heads. Tho tan spots, rathor pale, are of the 6izo of s ahilling. I havo shot one, keeping ths kin of tho head as a ouriosity. 8. S Peal in Nature. One canno? travel in Ireland without percoiving that the so many horsepower and perpetual catching of trains theory of life is not ode that is accepted by the w. ma is noc ono mac is accepted by tha Irish people, and I do not think it over will bo. Their religion, their traditions, tneir chief occupations, their temperament, tempera-ment, all of which I supposo are closely allied, aro opposed to it. The saying, "Takoitaisy, andifycra ean'e take it aisy take it as aisy as you oau," doubtless represents their theory of life, and, for- my part, if it wero a question either of dialectics or of mor- ais, i would sooner have to defend that view of existenco than the so man horsopow er one. So far from a wise man getting all ho can out of himself in one direction, ho will, it Beoms to me, rigidly rig-idly and carefully abstain from doin w in tho interests of that catholic and harmonious development which require that ho should get a little out of hin xslf in every direction. One would not like to assert that ths bulk of the Irish people are "harmoniously "harmo-niously developed. " But neither, if I may bo permitted to say eo, "are the English or tho Scotch people, and as In reality all three probably err by lob-sided lob-sided activity or lobsided inactivity, ij still remains to bo seen whether toe much perpetual catching of trains or toe much taking it "aisy" is, on thewholo, bo wiser course and sho less insane is terpretation of the purport and upea c-Hfo,Blaokwoofl'f c-Hfo,Blaokwoofl'f Mnpazina Noticp to Tax-Payers Pir the collection of 1895 taTeB my office will clos'fi on the evening of Saturday Sat-urday November 23. The names f personB owing taxes unpaid after that date will be publish -ed according jo law entailing additional addi-tional expense. Levi Openshaw. Collector for Utah County. t |