  In my next work I shall treat of this subject with the fulness that it deserves—especially in its relation to the origin of instincts and the development of the moral sense; but to enter upon this topic at present would demand more space than can be allowed. To do full justice to the psychology of the dog a separate treatise would be required. Here I can only trace a sketch. Memory.As regards memory, one or two instances will suffice. Mr. Darwin writes: 'I had a dog who was savage and averse to all strangers, and I purposely tried his memory after an absence of five years and two days. I went near the stable where he lived, and shouted to him in my old manner; he showed no joy, but instantly followed me out walking, and obeyed me, as if I had parted with him only an hour before.' It is not only persons or places that dogs remember for long periods. I had a setter in the country, which one year I took up with me to town for a few months. While in town he was never allowed to go out without a collar on which was engraved my address. A ring upon this collar made a clinking sound, and the setter soon learnt to associate the approach of this sound with the prospect of a walk. Three years afterwards I again took this setter up to town. He remembered every nook and corner of my house in town, and also his way about the streets, and the first time that I brought his collar, slightly clinking as before, he showed by his demonstrations of joy that he well remembered the sound with all its old associations, although he had not heard this sound for three years. Emotions.The emotional life of the dog is highly developed—more highly, indeed, than that of any other animal. His Pride, sense of dignity, and self-respect are very conspicuously exhibited by well-treated dogs. As with man, so with the friend of man, it is only those whose lines of fortune have fallen in pleasant places, and whose feelings may therefore be said to have profited by the refining influences of culture, that display in any conspicuous measure the emotions in question. 'Curs of low degree,' and even many dogs of better social position, have never enjoyed those conditions essential to moral refinement, which alone can engender a true sense of self-respect and dignity. A 'low-life' dog may not like to have his tail pulled, any more than a gutter child may like to have his ears boxed; but here it is physical pain rather than wounded pride that causes the smart. Among 'high-life' dogs, however, the case is different. Here wounded sensibilities and loss of esteem are capable of producing much keener suffering than is mere physical pain; so that among such dogs a whipping produces quite a different and a much more lasting effect than in the case of their rougher brethren, who, as soon as it is over, give themselves a shake and think no more about it. As evidence of the delicacy of feeling to which dogs of aristocratic estate may attain, I shall give one or two among many instances that I could render. A reproachful word or look from any of his friends would make a Skye terrier that I owned miserable for a whole day. If we had ever ventured to strike him I do not know what would have happened, for his sentiments were quite abreast of the age with respect to moral repugnance to the use of the lash. Thus, for instance, at one time when all his own friends were out of town, he was taken for a walk every day in the park by my brother, to whose care he had been entrusted. He enjoyed his walks very much, and was wholly dependent upon my brother This terrier habitually exhibited a strong repugnance to corporal punishment, even when inflicted upon others. Thus, whenever or wherever he saw a man striking a dog, whether in the house or outside, near at hand or at a distance, he used to rush in to interfere, snarling and snapping in a most threatening way. Again, when driving with me in a dog-cart, he always used to hold the sleeve of my coat every time I touched the horse with the whip. As bearing upon this sensitiveness of feeling produced in dogs by habitually kind treatment, I shall here give an extract from the letter of one of my correspondents (Mrs. E. Picton). It relates to a Skye terrier which had a strong aversion to being washed:— In process of time this aversion increased so much that all the servants I had refused to perform the ablutions, being in terror of doing so from the ferocity the animal evinced on such occasions. I myself did not choose to undertake the office, for though the animal was passionately attached to me, such was his horror of the operation, that even I was not safe. Threats, beating, and starving were all of no avail; he still persisted in his obstinacy. At length I hit upon a new device. Leaving him perfectly free, and not curtailing his liberty in any way, I let him know, by taking no notice of him, that he had offended me. He was usually the companion of my walks, but now I refused to let him accompany me. When I returned home I took no notice of his demonstrative welcome, and when he came looking up at me for caresses when I was engaged either in reading or needlework, I deliberately turned my head aside. This state of things continued for about a week or ten days, and the poor animal looked wretched and forlorn. There was This strong effect of silent coldness shows that the loss of affectionate regard caused the terrier more suffering than beating, starving, or even the hated bath; and as many analogous cases might be quoted, I have no hesitation in adducing this one as typical of the craving for affectionate regard, which is manifested by sensitive dogs. In this connection I may point out the remarkable change which has been produced in the domestic dog as compared with wild dogs, with reference to the enduring of pain. A wolf or a fox will sustain the severest kinds of physical suffering without giving utterance to a sound, while a dog will scream when any one accidentally treads upon its toes. This contrast is strikingly analogous to that which obtains between savage and civilised man: the North American Indian, and even the Hindoo, will endure without a moan an amount of physical pain—or at least bodily injury—which would produce vehement expressions of suffering from a European. And doubtless the explanation is in both cases the same—namely, that refinement of life engenders refinement of nervous organisation, which renders nervous lesions more intolerable. As evidence of the idea of caste in a dog, I shall quote only one instance, although many others might be Dogs likewise display in a high degree the feelings of emulation and jealousy. I once had a terrier which took great pains, and manifested paternal delight, in teaching his puppy to hunt rabbits. But in time the puppy outgrew his father in strength and fleetness, so that in the chase, in spite of straining every nerve, the father used to be gradually distanced. His whole demeanour then changed, and every time that he found his son drawing away from him he used in desperation to seize the receding tail of the youngster. Although the son was now much stronger than the father, he never used to resent this exercise of paternal authority, even though the rabbit were close under his nose. Of jealousy in dogs innumerable instances might be given, but I shall merely quote one from my bulky correspondence on this head. It is sent me by Mr. A. Oldham:— He had grown old, and having some affection in his legs which made walking difficult to him, he had sunk into a very stagnant sort of life, when a Scotch terrier was brought to live with us, and treated with much favour. All Charlie's old vigour revived upon the advent of this rival. He exhibited agonies of jealousy, and has since spent his life in following, watching, and imitating him. He insists on doing everything that Jack does. Although he had previously given up walking, he now makes a point of going out whenever Jack does so. Several times he has started with us, but finding that Jack was not of the party, has turned back and quietly gone home. In the same way, Akin to jealousy is the sense of justice. If a master is not equal in his ways towards his dogs, the dogs are very apt to discover the injustice and to resent it accordingly. The well-known observation of the great Arago may be taken as a typical one in this connection. Having been detained by a storm at a country inn, and having ordered a chicken for his dinner, Arago was warming himself by the kitchen fire, when he saw the innkeeper put the fowl on the spit and attempt to seize a turnspit dog lying in the kitchen. The brute, however, refused to enter the wheel, got under a table, and showed fight. On Arago asking what could be the meaning of such conduct, the host replied that the dog had some excuse, that it was not his turn but his comrade's, who did not happen to be in the kitchen. Accordingly, the other turnspit was sent for, and he entered the spit very willingly, and turned away. When the fowl was half roasted Arago took him out, and the other dog, no longer smarting under the sense of injustice, now took his turn without any opposition, and completed the roasting of the fowl. Deceitfulness is another trait in canine character of which numberless instances might be given; but here, again, it seems unnecessary to quote more than one or two cases as illustrative of the general fact. Another of my correspondents, after giving several examples of the display of hypocrisy of a King Charles spaniel, proceeds: He showed the same deliberate design of deceiving on other occasions. Having hurt his foot he became lame for a time, during which he received more pity and attention than usual. For months after he had recovered, whenever he was harshly spoken to, he commenced hobbling about the room as if lame and suffering pain from his foot. He only gave up the practice when he gradually perceived that it was unsuccessful. The following instance, which I observed myself, I regard as more remarkable. It has already been published in 'Nature' (vol. xii., p. 66), from which I quote it: The terrier used to be very fond of catching flies upon the window-panes, and if ridiculed when unsuccessful was evidently much annoyed. On one occasion, in order to see what he would do, I purposely laughed immoderately every time he failed. It so happened that he did so several times in succession—partly, I believe, in consequence of my laughing—and eventually he became so distressed that he positively pretended to catch the fly, going through all the appropriate actions with his lips and tongue, and afterwards rubbing the ground with his neck as if to kill the victim: he then looked up at me with a triumphant air of success. So well was the whole process simulated that I should have been quite deceived, had I not seen that the fly was still upon the window. Accordingly I drew his attention to this fact, as well as to the absence of anything upon the floor; and when he saw that his hypocrisy had been detected he slunk away under some furniture, evidently very much ashamed of himself. This allusion to the marked effects of ridicule upon a dog leads to a consideration of the next emotion with which I feel certain that some dogs are to be accredited. I mean the emotion of the ludicrous. This same terrier used, when in good humour, to perform several tricks, which I know to have been self-taught, and which clearly had the object of exciting laughter. For instance, while lying on his side and violently grinning, he would hold one leg in his mouth. Under such circumstances, nothing pleased him so much as having his joke duly appreciated, while if no notice was taken of him he would become sulky. On the other hand, nothing displeased him so much as being laughed at when he did not intend to be ridiculous, as could not be more conclusively General Intelligence.I have very definite evidence of the fact that dogs are able to communicate to one another simple ideas. The communication is always effected by gesture or tones of barking, and the ideas are always of such a simple nature as that of a mere 'follow me.' According to my own observations, the dogs must be above the average of canine intelligence, and the gesture they invariably employ is a contact of heads, with a motion between a rub and a butt. It is quite different from anything that occurs in play, and is always followed by a definite course of action. I must add, however, that although the information thus conveyed is always definite, I have never known a case in which it was complex—anything like asking or telling the way, which several writers have said that dogs can do, being, I believe, quite out of the question. One example will suffice. A Skye terrier (not quite pure) was asleep in the room where I was, while his son lay upon a wall which separates the lawn from the high road. The young dog, when alone, would never attack a strange one, but was a keen fighter when in company with his father. Upon the present occasion a large mongrel passed along the road, and shortly afterwards the old dog awoke and went sleepily downstairs. When he arrived upon the door-step his son ran up to him and It is almost superfluous to give cases illustrating the well-known fact that dogs communicate their desires and ideas to man; but as the subject of the communication by signs will afterwards be found of importance in connection with the philosophy of communication by words, I shall here give a few examples of dogs communicating by signs with man, which for my purpose will be the more valuable the less they are recognised as unusual. Lieutenant-Gen. Sir John H. Lefroy, C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., writes me that he has a terrier which it is the duty of his wife's maid to wash and feed. 'It was her habit after calling her mistress in the morning to go out and milk a goat which was tethered near the house, and give "Button" the milk. One morning, being rather earlier than usual, instead of going out at once she took up some needlework and began to occupy herself. The dog endeavoured in every possible way to attract her attention and draw her forth, and at last pushed aside the curtain of a closet, and never having been taught to fetch or carry, took between his teeth the cup she habitually used, and brought it to her feet. I inquired into every circumstance strictly on the spot, and was shown where he found the cup.' Similarly I select the following case from a great number of others that I might quote, because it is so closely analogous to the above. It is communicated to me by Mr. A. H. Baines:— There is a drinking-trough for him in my sitting-room: if at any time it happens to be without water when he goes to drink, he scratches the dish with his fore-paws in order to call attention to his wants, and this is done in an authoritative way, which generally has the desired effect. Another Pomeranian—a member of the same family—when quite young used to soak One more instance of the communication of ideas by gestures will no doubt be deemed sufficient. It is one of a kind which has many analogies in the literature of canine intelligence. Dr. Beattie relates this case of canine sagacity, of which the scene was a place near Aberdeen. The Dee being frozen, a gentleman named Irvine was crossing the ice, which gave way with him about the middle of the river. Having a gun, he was able to keep himself from sinking by placing it across the opening. 'The dog made many fruitless efforts to save his master, and then ran to a neighbouring village, where he saw a man, and with the most significant gestures pulled him by the coat, and prevailed on him to follow. The man arrived on the spot in time to save the gentleman's life.' Numberless other instances of the same kind might be given, and they display a high degree of intelligence. Even the idea of saving life implies in itself no small amount of intelligence; but in such cases as these we have added the idea of going for help, communicating news of a disaster, and leading the way to its occurrence. Having thus as briefly as possible considered the emotional and the more ordinary intellectual faculties of the dog, I shall pass on to the statement of cases showing the higher and more exceptional developments of canine sagacity. Were the purpose of this work that of accumulating anecdotes of animal intelligence, this would be the place to let loose a flood of facts, which might all be well attested, relating to the high intelligence of dogs. But as my aim is rather that of suppressing anecdotes, except in so far as facts are required to prove the presence in animals of the sundry psychological faculties which I believe the different classes to present, I shall here, as elsewhere, follow the method of not multiplying anecdotes further than seems necessary fully to demonstrate the As showing the high general intelligence of the dog, I shall first begin with the collie. It is certain that many of these dogs can be trusted to gather and drive sheep without supervision. It is enough on this head to refer to the well-known anecdotes of the poet Hogg in his 'Shepherd's Calendar,' concerning his dog 'Sirrah.' Williams, in his book on 'Dogs and their Ways,' says (p. 124) that a friend of his had a collie which, whenever his master said the words 'Cast, cast,' would run off to seek any sheep that might be cast, and on finding it would at once assist it to rise. He also knew of another dog (p. 102), which would perform the same office even in the absence of his master, going the round of the fields and pastures by himself to right all the sheep that he found to be cast. One of my correspondents (Mr. Laurie Gentles) sends me an account of a sheep-dog belonging to a friend of his (Mr. Mitchell, of Inverness-shire) which strayed to a neighbouring farm, and took up his residence with the farmer. On the second night after the dog arrived at the farm the farmer 'took the dog down to the meadow to see if the cattle were all right. To his dismay he found that Colonel Hamilton Smith says that the cattle-dogs of Cuba and Terra Firma are very wise in managing cattle, but require to display different tactics from the cattle-dogs of Europe:— When vessels with live stock arrive at any of the West India harbours, these animals, some of which are nearly as large as mastiffs, are wonderfully efficient in assisting to land the cargo. The oxen are hoisted out with a sling passing round the base of their horns; and when an ox, thus suspended by the head, is lowered, and allowed to fall into the water, so that it may swim to land, men sometimes swim by the side of it and guide it, but they have often dogs of this breed which will perform the service equally well; for, catching the perplexed animal by the ears, one on each side, they will force it to swim in the direction of the landing-place, and instantly let go their hold when they feel it touch the ground, as the ox will then naturally walk out of the water by itself. That this sagacity need not be due to special tuition, may be inferred from a closely similar display spontaneously My attention was called to my dog appearing in a great state of excitement, not barking (he seldom barks), but whining and performing all sorts of antics (in a human subject I should have said 'gesticulating'). The herdmen and myself returned to the sty; we caught but one pig, and put him back; no sooner had we done so than the dog ran after each pig in succession, brought him back to the sty by the ear, and then went after another, until the whole number were again housed. In Lord Brougham's 'Dialogues on Instinct' (iii.) there is narrated the story told to the author by Lord Truro of a dog that used to worry sheep at night. The animal quietly submitted to be tied up in the evening, but when everybody was asleep he used to slip his collar, worry the sheep, and, returning before dawn, again get into his collar to avoid suspicion. I allude to this remarkable display of sagacity because I am myself able fully to corroborate it by precisely similar cases. A friend of mine (the late Mr. Sutherland Murray) had a dog which was always kept tied up at night, but nevertheless the neighbouring farmers complained of having detected him as the culprit when watching to find what dog it was that committed nightly slaughter among their sheep. My friend, therefore, set a watch upon his dog, and found that when all was still be slipped his collar, and after being absent for some hours, returned and slipped his head in again. A precisely similar case is given further back, and others are communicated to me by two correspondents (Mr. Goodbehere, of Birmingham, and Mr. Richard Williams, of Buffalo). The latter says:— And here let me ask if you are aware of the cunning and sagacity of these sheep-killing dogs, that they never kill sheep on the farm to which they belong, or in the immediate vicinity, but often go miles away; that they always return before daylight, In Germany I knew a large dog that was very fond of grapes, and at night used to slip his collar in order to satisfy his propensity; and it was not for some time that the thief was suspected, owing to his returning before daylight and appearing innocently chained up in his kennel. A closely similar case is recorded in Mr. Duncan's book on 'Instinct' of a dog belonging to the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of Colton. The only difference is that the delinquent dog slipped and afterwards readjusted a muzzle instead of a collar. In connection with sly sagacity I may also give another story contained in my correspondence, although in this case I am specially requested by my correspondent not to publish his name. I can, therefore, only say that he occupies a high position in the Church, and that the dog (a retriever) was his own property:— The dog was lying one evening before the kitchen fire where the cook had prepared a turkey for roasting. She left the kitchen for a few moments, when the dog immediately carried away the turkey and placed it in the cleft of a tree close to the house, but which was well concealed by the surrounding laurels. So rapid were his movements that he returned to his post before the cook had come back, and stretching himself before the fire, looked 'as innocent as a child unborn.' Unfortunately for him, however, a man who was in the habit of taking him to shoot, saw him carrying away his prize and watched his progress. On coming into the kitchen the man found the dog in his old place pretending to be asleep. Diver's conduct was all along dictated by a desire to conceal his theft, and if he were a man I should have said that he intended, in case of inquiry, to prove an alibi. Mr. W. H. Bodley writes me of a retriever dog that belonged to him:— Before he came to me he lived where another dog of similar size was kept, and on one occasion they fought. Having been chastised for this, on future occasions when they quarrelled they used to swim over a river of some breadth, where they It is, of course, a well-known thing that dogs may easily be taught the use of coin for buying buns, &c. In the 'Scottish Naturalist' for April, 1881, Mr. Japp vouches for the fact that a collie which he knew was in the habit of purchasing cakes with coppers without ever having been taught the use of coin for such purposes. This fact, however, of a dog spontaneously divining the use of money requires corroboration, although it is certain that many dogs have an instinctive idea of giving peace-offerings, and the step from this to the idea of barter may not be large. Thus, to give only two illustrations, Mr. Badcock writes to me that a friend of his had a dog which one day had a quarrel with a companion dog, so that they parted at variance. 'On the next day the friend appeared with a biscuit, which he presented as a peace-offering.' Again, Mr. Thomas D. Smeaton writes to me of his dog that he 'has an amusing practice when he is restored to favour after some slight offence, of immediately picking up and carrying anything that is handiest, stone, stick, paper: it is a deliberate effort to please, a sort of good-will offering, a shaking hands over the past.' I am indebted for the following to Mr. Goodbehere, of Birmingham; it may be taken as typical of many similar cases:— My friend (Mr. James Canning, of Birmingham) was acquainted with a small mongrel dog who on being presented with a penny or a halfpenny would run with it in his mouth to a baker's, jump on to the top of the half-door leading into the shop, and ring the bell behind the door until the baker came forward and gave him a bun or a biscuit in exchange for the coin. The dog would accept any small biscuit for a halfpenny, but nothing less than a bun would satisfy him for a penny. On one occasion the baker (being annoyed at the dog's too frequent visits), after receiving the coin, refused to give the dog anything Mr. R. O. Backhouse writes to me:— My dog is a broken-haired rabbit-coursing dog, and is very intelligent. I took him one day to an exhibition of pictures and objects of interest, among which were statues and a bust of Sir Walter Scott. It was a local exhibition, and as there was jewellery, some one had to sit up all night with it as guard. I volunteered, and as we were looking about and sitting on a stand of flowers, my dog suddenly began to bark, and made as if he had found some one hiding. On looking round I found that it was the bust of Sir Walter Scott standing among the flowers, and in which he evidently recognised sufficient likeness to a human being to think the supposed man had no business there at so late an hour. I adduce this instance because it serves as a sort of introduction to the more remarkable faculty which I cannot have the least doubt is manifested by some dogs—the faculty, namely, of recognising portraits as representing persons, or possibly of mistaking portraits for persons. Mr. Crehore, writing to 'Nature' (vol. xxi., p. 132), says:— A Dandie-Dinmont terrier, after the death of his mistress, was playing with some children in a room into which was brought a photograph (large) of her that he had never previously seen. It was placed upon the floor leaning against the wall. In the words of my informant, who witnessed it, the dog, when he suddenly caught sight of the picture, crouched and trembled all over, his whole body quivering. Then he crept along the floor till he reached it, and, seating himself before it, began to bark loudly, as if he would say, 'Why don't you speak to me?' The picture was moved to other parts of the room, and he followed, seating himself before it and repeating his barking. Mr. Charles W. Peach also gives an account in 'Nature' (vol. xx., p. 196) of a large dog recognising his portrait:— When it (the portrait) was brought to my house, my old dog was present with the family at the unveiling; nothing was said to him, nor invitation given to him to notice it. We saw that his gaze was steadily fixed on it, and he soon became excited and From this account it appears that when in the first instance the dog's attention was drawn to the picture it was on the floor in the line of the dog's sight; the behaviour of the animal then and subsequently was too marked and peculiar to admit of mistake. Another correspondent in 'Nature' (vol. xx., p. 220), alluding to the previous letter, writes:— Having read Mr. Peach's letter on 'Intellect in Brutes,' as shown by the sagacity he witnessed in his dog, I have been asked to send a similar anecdote, which I have often told to friends. Many years ago my husband had his portrait taken by J. Phillips, R.A., and subsequently went to India, leaving the portrait in London to be finished and framed. When it was sent home, about two years after it was taken, it was placed on the floor against the sofa, preparatory to being hung on the wall. We had then a very handsome black-and-tan setter, which was a great pet in the house. As soon as the dog came into the room he recognised his master, though he had not seen him for two years, and went up to the picture and licked the face. When this anecdote was told to Phillips, he said it was the highest compliment that had ever been paid him. Similarly, in the same periodical (vol. xx., p. 220), Mr. Henry Clark writes:— Some years ago a fine arts exhibition was held at Derby. A portrait of a Derby artist (Wright) was thus signalised:—'The Again, I learn from Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.S., that a friend of his, whom I shall call Mrs. E., has a terrier which recognised her portrait. 'The portrait is now (1881) hanging in the Royal Academy. When it first arrived home the dog barked at it, as it did at strangers; but after a day or two, when Mrs. E. opened the door to show the portrait to some friends, the dog went straight to the picture and licked the hand. The picture is a three-quarter length portrait of a lady with the hand at the bottom of the picture.' Lastly, my sister, who is a very conscientious and accurate observer, witnessed a most unmistakable recognition of portraits as representative of persons on the part of a small but intelligent terrier of her own. At my request she committed the facts to writing shortly after they occurred. The following is her statement of them:— I have a small terrier who attained the age of eight months without ever having seen a large picture. One day three nearly life-sized portraits were placed in my room during his absence. Two were hung up, and one left standing against the wall on the floor awaiting the arrival of a picture-rod. When the dog entered the room he appeared much alarmed by the sight of the pictures, barking in a terrified manner first at one and then at another. That is to say, instead of attacking them in an aggressive way with tail erect, as he would have done on thus encountering a strange person, he barked violently and incessantly at some distance from the paintings, with tail down and body elongated, sometimes bolting under the chairs and sofas in the extremity of his fear, and continuing barking from there. Thinking it might be merely the presence of strange objects in the room which excited him, I covered the faces of the portraits with cloths and turned the face of the one on the floor to the wall. The dog soon after emerged from his hiding-place, and having looked intently at the covered pictures and examined the back of the frame on the ground, became quite quiet and contented. I then uncovered one of the pictures, when he immediately flew at it, barking in the same frightened manner as before. I then re-covered that one and took the cover off another. The dog left the covered one and rushed at the one which was exposed. I then turned the face of the one on the floor to the room, and he It will have been observed that in all these cases the portraits, when first recognised as bearing resemblance to human beings, were placed on the floor, or in the ordinary line of the dog's sight. This is probably an important condition to the success of the recognition. That it certainly was so in the case of my sister's terrier was strikingly proved on a subsequent occasion, when she took the animal into a picture-shop where there were a number of portraits hanging round the walls, and also one of Carlyle standing on the floor. The terrier did not heed those upon the walls, but barked excitedly at the one upon the floor. This case was further interesting from the fact that there were a number of purchasers in the shop who were, of course, strangers to the terrier; yet he took no notice of them, although so much excited by the picture. This shows that the pictorial illusion was not so complete as to make the animal suppose the portrait to be a real person; it was only sufficiently so to make it feel a sense of bewildered uncertainty at the kind of life-in-death appearance of the motionless representation. If, notwithstanding all this body of mutually corroborative cases, it is still thought incredible that dogs should be able to recognise pictorial representations, Coming now to cases more distinctly indicative of reason in the strict sense of the word, numberless ordinary acts performed by dogs indisputably show that they possess this faculty. Thus, for instance, Livingstone gives the following observation. Again, it is not an unusual thing for intelligent dogs, who know that their masters do not wish to take them out, to leave the house and run a long distance in the direction in which they suppose their masters are about to go, in order that when they are there found the distance may be too great for their masters to return home for the purpose of shutting them up. I have myself known several terriers that would do this, and one of the instances I shall give in extenso (quoted from an account which I published at the time in 'Nature'); for I think it displays remarkably complex processes of far-seeing calculation:— The terrier in question followed a conveyance from the house in which I resided in the country, to a town ten miles distant. He only did this on one occasion, and about five months afterwards was taken by train to the same town as a present to some friends there. Shortly afterwards I called upon these friends in a different conveyance from the one which the dog had previously followed; but the latter may have known that the two conveyances belonged to the same Complicated as this train of reasoning is, it is the simplest one I can devise to account for the fact that slightly beyond the third milestone the terrier was awaiting me, lying right in the middle of the road with his face towards the town. I should add that the second two miles of the road were quite straight, so that I could easily have seen the dog if he had been merely running a comparatively short distance in front of the horses. Why this animal should never have returned to his former home on his own account I cannot suggest, but I think it was merely due to an excessive caution which he also manifested in other things. However, be the explanation of this what it may, as a fact he never did venture to come back upon his own account, although there never was a subsequent occasion upon which any of his former friends went to the town but the terrier was seen to return with them, having always found some way of escape from his intended imprisonment. The Rev. J. C. Atkinson gives an account ('Zoologist,' Cases of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, and they appear to show a true faculty of reason or inferring. Professor W. W. Bailey, writing from Brown University to 'Nature' (xxii., p. 607), says:— A friend of mine, a naturalist, and a very conscientious man, whose word can be implicitly trusted, gives the following, to which he was an eye-witness. His grandfather, then a very old but hale and hearty man, had a splendid Newfoundland. There was a narrow and precipitous road leading from the fields to the house. It was regarded as a very dangerous place. One day when the old gentleman was doing some work about the farm his horse became alarmed, and started off with the waggon along this causeway. The chances were that he would dash himself and the empty waggon to pieces. At once the dog seemed to take in the situation, although until that time he had been impassive. He started after the horse at full speed, overtook him, caught the bridle, and by his strength arrested the frightened creature until help could reach him. My friend gives many other stories of this fine dog, and thinks he had a decided sense of humour. I will repeat that both of these tales come to me well authenticated, and I could, by seeking permission, give names and places. Couch gives the following, which is worth quoting, as showing the intelligence of dogs in attacking unusual prey:— On the first discovery of the prey (crabs) a terrier runs in to seize it, and is immediately and severely bitten in the nose. But a sedate Newfoundland dog of my acquaintance proceeds more soberly in his work. He lays his paw on it to arrest it in its escape; then tumbling it over he bares his teeth, and, seizing it with the mouth, throws the crab aloft. It falls upon the stones; the shell is cracked beyond redemption, and then the dainty dish is devoured at his leisure. I myself know a large dog in Germany which used to kill snakes by dexterously tossing them in the air a great number of times, too quickly to admit of the snake biting. When the snake was thus quite confused, the dog would tear it in pieces. This dog can never have been poisoned by the bite of a snake; but he seems to have had an instinctive idea that the snake might be more harmful in its bite than other animals; for while he was bold in fighting with dogs, and did not then object to receiving his fair share of laceration, he was extremely careful never to begin to tear a snake till he had thoroughly bewildered it by tossing it as described. The reasoning displayed by dogs may not always be of a high order, but little incidents, from being of constant occurrence among all dogs, are the more important as showing the reasoning faculty to be general to these animals. I shall therefore give a few cases to show the kind of reasoning that is of constant occurrence. Mr. Stone writes to me from Norbury Park concerning two of his dogs, one large and the other small. Both being in a room at the same time, one of them, the larger, had a bone, and when he had left it the smaller dog went to take it, the larger one growled, and the other retired to a corner. Shortly afterwards the larger dog went out, but the other did not appear to notice this, and at any rate did not move. A few minutes later the large dog was heard to bark out of doors; the little dog then, without a moment's hesitation, went straight to the bone and took it. It thus appears quite evident that she reasoned—'That dog is barking out of doors, therefore he is not in this room, therefore it is safe for me to take the bone.' The action was so rapid as to be clearly a consequence of the other dog's barking. Again, Mr. John Le Conte, writing from the University of California, tells me of a dog which used to hunt rabbits in an extensive pasture-ground where there was a hollow tree, which frequently served as a place of refuge for the rabbits when they were pressed:— On one occasion a rabbit was 'started,' and all of the dogs, with the exception of 'Bonus,' dashed off in full pursuit. We were astonished to observe that the sedate 'Bonus,' foregoing Similarly, Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., writes me as follows:— There is a shrubbery near the house, about 200 or 300 yards long, and running in the shape of a horseshoe. A small terrier used to start a rabbit nearly every morning, at the end of the shrubbery next the house, and hunt him through the whole length of it to the other end, where the rabbit escaped into an old drain. The dog then appears to have come to the conclusion that the chord of a circle is shorter than its arc, for he raised the rabbit again, and instead of following him through the shrubbery as usual, he took the short cut to the drain, and was ready and in waiting on the rabbit when he arrived, and caught him. A somewhat similar instance is communicated to me by Mr. William Cairns, of Argyll House, N.B.:— I was watching the operations of a little Skye terrier on a wheatstack which was in the course of being thrashed, when suddenly a very large rat bounced off, just from under Fan's nose. It darted into a pit of water about a dozen yards from the stack, and tried to escape. Fan, however, plunged after, and swam for some distance, but found she was being left behind. So she turned to the shore again and ran round to the other side of the pit, and was ready and caught it just on landing. I never saw anything more remarkable. If it was not reason, I do not know how it is possible that it could come much more closely to the exercise of that faculty. Dr. Bannister, editor of the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,' writes me from Chicago, that having spent a winter in Alaska, he 'had a good opportunity to study animal intelligence in the Eskimo dogs,' and he reports it as 'a fact of common occurrence,' when the dogs are drawing sledges on the ice near the coast, that It will be remembered in connection with these dogs, that Mr. Darwin in the 'Descent of Man' (p. 75) quotes Dr. Hayes, who, in his work on 'The Open Polar Sea,' 'repeatedly remarks that his dogs, instead of continuing to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged and separated when they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be more evenly [and widely] distributed. This was often the first warning which the travellers received that the ice was becoming thin and dangerous.' Mr. Darwin remarks, 'This instinct may possibly have arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs were first employed by the natives in drawing their sledges; or the Arctic wolves, the parent stock of the Esquimaux dog, may have acquired an instinct, impelling them not to attack their prey in a close pack when on thin ice.' Mrs. Horn writes me:— One morning, soon after his usual time for starting, I saw the dog looking anxiously about, evidently afraid that my brother had gone without him. He looked into the room where we had breakfasted, but my brother was not there. He went up two or three stairs, and listened attentively. Then, to my astonishment, he came down, and going to the hat-stand in the hall, stood on his hind legs and sniffed at the great-coats hanging there, undoubtedly trying to ascertain whether my brother's coat was there or not. Another correspondent (Mr. Westlecombe) writes:— My cat had kittens, of which two were preserved, the rest being drowned. The dog tolerated the two kittens, but did not care about them with any friendship. When the kittens were a few weeks old, I—finding that I could get but one of them off my hands—determined to kill the other, and, as the quickest mode of death, to shoot it by a pistol close behind its head. The Mr. W. F. Hooper writes me of a Newfoundland dog that was in the habit of accompanying the nursemaid and baby belonging to its mistress. On one occasion a keen wind began to blow, and the nursemaid drew her shawl over the child:— The nursemaid had not taken many steps towards home before her progress was barred by the dog, who placed himself in the centre of the path and growled whenever she advanced. She was much alarmed, and tried to coax the dog to move, but Leo would not, and abated nothing of the hostile display. Half an hour passed, and the girl became nearly distracted. What could be the matter with the dog? Was she to be a prisoner all day? Would the animal fly at her throat? Was Leo suffering from hydrophobia? These and similar questions crossed the girl's mind. At length a suggestion of despair—it was nothing more—occurred to her. She thought it might win the dog round to good humour if she showed it the baby; so she removed the folds of her shawl and presented it at arm's length to the dog. The result was magical, and far in excess of all expectation, for not only did the dog cease to growl, but he began to gambol and caress, and removed himself from the path altogether, so that there was now a free course, and home was soon reached. The explanation of the whole affair is, when the nursemaid turned on her path thinking she had gone sufficiently far, the dog missed sight of the baby, and believed it was gone. Under this impression the dog converted himself into a sentinel, with the resolve that not one step should be taken towards home without the baby; and faithfully did the animal keep watch and ward until the demonstration was given that the child had not been left behind, but was still in the nurse's arms alive and well. I think this is an exhibition of intelligence worthy of being known to you. I extract the following instance from Col. Hutchinson's 'Dog-breaking.' It is briefly alluded to in the 'Descent of Man.' The observer and narrator is Mr. Colquhoun:— I may mention a proof of his sagacity. Having a couple of long shots across a pretty broad stream, I stopped a mallard with each barrel, but both were only wounded. I sent him The following, communicated to me by Mr. Blood, is a closely analogous, and therefore confirmatory case. He was out shooting with a companion, and three wild ducks were simultaneously dropped into a lake—one falling dead and the other two winged. Mr. Blood sent in his spaniel to retrieve, and of course when the wounded birds saw her coming they swam out, so that she first reached the dead duck. She swam up to it, paused for a moment, and passing it went after the nearest wounded bird. Having caught this, she again hesitated, and apparently after consideration she gave it a chop and let it go, quieted for the present. She then caught and brought to land the other wounded duck, and going back she again reached the dead bird; but looking at the other and seeing that it was again moving, she went out and brought it in, and last of all brought the dead bird. The dog was a first-rate retriever and never injured game, so that it was an entirely new thing for her to kill a bird. Again, Mr. Arthur Nicols, in 'Nature,' vol. xix., page 496, says:— Can we conceive any human being reasoning more correctly than a dog did in the following instance? Towards the evening of a long day's snipe-shooting on Dartmoor, the party was walking down the bank of the Dart, when my retriever flushed a widgeon which fell to my gun in the river, and of course instantly dived. I said no word to the dog. He did not plunge into the river then, but galloped down stream some fifty or sixty yards, and then entered and dashed from side to side—it was about twenty or thirty feet wide—working up stream, and making a great commotion in the water until he came to the place where we stood. Then he landed and shook himself, and carefully hunted the near bank a considerable distance As showing in a higher, and therefore rarer degree, the ratiocinative faculty in dogs, I may quote a brief extract from my British Association lecture:— My friend Dr. Rae, the well-known traveller and naturalist, knew a dog in Orkney which used to accompany his master to church on alternate Sundays. To do so he had to swim a channel about a mile wide; and before taking to the water he used to run about a mile to the north when the tide was flowing, and a nearly equal distance to the south when the tide was ebbing, 'almost invariably calculating his distance so well that he landed at the nearest point to the church.' In his letter to me Dr. Rae continues: 'How the dog managed to calculate the strength of the spring and neap tides at their As a confirmatory case, I may also quote an extract from a letter sent me by Mr. Percival Fothergill. Writing of a retriever which he has, he says:— I have seen her spring overboard from our gangway 16 feet from the water-line. The tides ran more than 5 knots, and she invariably came down to a little wharf abreast the ship, and gazed intently for small pieces of stick or straw, and having thus ascertained the drift of the tide (did as you mention of another dog), ran up tide and swam off. The sentry on the forecastle always kept a look-out for the dog, and threw over a line with a bowling knot, and she was hauled on board. But one day she was observed to wait an unusual time on the wharf; no wood or straw gave her the required information. After waiting some time, she lay down on the planks, and dropped one paw into the water, and found by the feel which way the tide ran, got up, and ran up stream as usual. Mr. George Cook writes me that he recently had a pointer, which one morning, when the grass was covered with frost, dragged a mat out of his kennel, from which he had got loose, to the lawn beneath the house windows, where he was found lying upon the mat, which thus served to protect him from the frost. The distance over which he had dragged the mat for this purpose was about 100 yards. Mr. Cook adds: 'I have since frequently seen him bring this mat out of his kennel and lay it in the sunshine, shifting it if a shadow came upon the place where he had laid it.' The following is sent me by the Rev. F. J. Penky. He gives me the name of his friend the canon, but does not give me express permission to publish it. In quoting his account, therefore, I leave this name blank. He says:— The following is an instance of sagacity—indeed, amounting to reason—in a dog, a French poodle that belonged to Colonel Pearson (not the lately beleaguered colonel at Ekowe, but a Colonel Pearson living some years ago at Lichfield). The circumstance happened to a friend of mine, Canon ——, rector of ——. I have the story from his own lips, but I have no permission for his name to be used in any publication, should Many anecdotes might be adduced of the cleverness which some dogs show in finding their way by train; but I shall give only three, and I select these, not only because they all mutually corroborate one another, but likewise because they all display such high intelligence on the part of the dogs. Mr. Horsfall, in 'Nature,' vol. xx., p. 505, says:— Last year we spent our holidays at Llan Bedr, Merionethshire. Our host has a house in the above village, and another at Harlech, a town three miles distant. His favourite dog, Nero, is of Norwegian birth, and a highly intelligent animal. He is at liberty to pass his time at either of the houses owned by his master, and he occasionally walks from one to the other. More frequently, however, he goes to the railway station at Llan Bedr, gets into the train, and jumps out at Harlech. Being most probably unable to get out of the carriage, he was on one occasion taken to Salsernau, the station beyond Harlech, Miss M. C. Young writes to me:— You may perhaps think the following worthy of notice, as illustrating the comparative failure of instinct in an animal which has begun to reason. A friend of mine has a mongrel fox-terrier of remarkable intelligence, though undeveloped by any training. This dog has always shown a great fondness for accompanying any of the family on a railway journey, often having to be taken out of the train by force. One morning in the summer of 1877 the groom came, in great distress, to say that Spot had followed him to the station, and jumped into the train after a visitor's maid who was going to see her friends, and he (the groom) felt sure the dog would be stolen. The railway is a short single line, with three trains down and up each day, and my friend is well known to all the officials, so she sent to meet the next train, when the guard said the dog (apparently finding no friend in the train) had jumped out at a little roadside station about five miles distant. Most dogs would have found their way home easily, though the place itself was strange, but Spot did not appear till late in the evening, after ten hours' absence, and dead tired. On inquiry we found that the guard had seen nothing of her at 9 A.M., at 12 A.M., at 1 P.M., nor at 4 P.M.; but when he reached the little station on his return at 5.30, 'she was walking up and down the platform like a Christian,' jumped into his box, and jumped out again of her own accord at the right station for her home. She had evidently spent the interval in trying to find her way home on foot, and not succeeding, had resolved on returning the way she came. Lastly, for the following very remarkable case I am indebted to my friend Mrs. A. S. H. Richardson:— The Rev. Mr. Townsend, incumbent of Lucan, was formerly an engineer on the Dundalk line of railway. He had a very intelligent Scotch retriever dog, which used to have a habit of jumping into any carriage in which Mr. Townsend travelled; but this had been discontinued for a year when the following incident happened. Mr. Townsend and the dog were on the platform at Dundalk station; Mr. Townsend went to get a ticket for a lady, and during his absence the dog jumped into a carriage, and when the train started, was carried down to drawn map It would be easy to continue multiplying anecdotes of canine intelligence; but I think a sufficient number of instances have now been given for the only purpose that I have in view—namely, that of exhibiting in a connected manner the various psychological faculties which are presented by dogs, and the level of development to which they severally attain. I may again remark that I have selected these instances for publication from among many others that I could have given, only because they conform to one or other of the general principles to which I everywhere adhere in the quoting of facts. That is to say, these facts are either matters of ordinary observation, and so intrinsically credible; or they stand upon the authority of observers well known to me as competent; or they are of a kind which do not admit of mal-observation; or, lastly, they are well corroborated by similar accounts received from independent observers. I think, therefore, that this sketch of the psychology of the dog is as accurate as the nature of the materials admits of my drawing it. If it is fairly open to criticism on any one side, I believe it is from the side of |
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