He was not merely an amateur zoologist and F.Z.S., but a devoted lover and keen observer of animals.  It would take long to tell the story of all his dogs, from the spaniel Dash, commemorated in his earliest poems, and Wisie, whose sagacity is related in “Praeterita,” down through the long line of bulldogs, St. Bernards, and collies, to Bramble, the reigning favourite; and all the cats who made his study their home, or were flirted with abroad.  To Miss Beever, from Bolton Abbey (January 24th, 1875) he describes the Wharfe in flood, and then continues:  “I came home (to the hotel) to quiet tea, and a black kitten called Sweep, who lapped half my cream-jugful (and yet I had plenty), sitting on my shoulder.”  Grip, the pet rook at Denmark Hill, is mentioned in “My First Editor,” as celebrated in verse by Mr. W.H.  Harrison.

Ruskin had not Thoreau’s intimate acquaintance with the details of wild life, but his attitude towards animals and plants was the same; hating the science that murders to dissect; resigning his Professorship at Oxford, finally, because vivisection was introduced into the University; and supporting the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with all his heart.  But, as he said at the Annual Meeting in 1877, he objected to the sentimental fiction and exaggerated statements which some of its members circulated.  “They had endeavoured to prevent cruelty to animals,” he said, “but they had not enough endeavoured to promote affection for animals.  He trusted to the pets of children for their education, just as much as to their tutors.”

It was to carry out this idea (to anticipate a little) that he founded the Society of Friends of Living Creatures, which he addressed, May 23rd, 1885, at the club, Bedford Park, in his capacity of—­not president—­but “papa.”  The members, boys and girls from seven to fifteen, promised not to kill nor hurt any animal for sport, nor tease creatures; but to make friends of their pets and watch their habits, and collect facts about natural history.

I remember, on one of the rambles at Coniston in the early days, how we found a wounded buzzard—­one of the few creatures of the eagle kind that our English mountains still breed.  The rest of us were not very ready to go near the beak and talons of the fierce-looking, and, as we supposed, desperate bird.  Ruskin quietly took it up in his arms, felt it over to find the hurt, and carried it, quite unresistingly, out of the way of dogs and passers-by, to a place where it might die in solitude or recover in safety.  He often told his Oxford hearers that he would rather they learned to love birds than to shoot them; and his wood and moor were harbours of refuge for hunted game or “vermin;” and his windows the rendezvous of the little birds.

He had not been abroad since the spring of 1877, and in August 1880 felt able to travel again.  He went for a tour among the northern French cathedrals, staying at old haunts,—­Abbeville, Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, Rouen,—­and then returned with Mr. A. Severn and Mr. Brabazon to Amiens, where he spent the greater part of October.  He was writing a new book—­the “Bible of Amiens”—­which was to be to the “Seven Lamps” what “St. Mark’s Rest” was to “Stones of Venice.”