I had at one time two sporting dogs, the one an excellent pointer with a very smooth skin, and of remarkable beauty and intelligence; the other was a spaniel with long and thick hair, but which had not been taught to point, but only coursed in the woods like a harrier. My château is situated on a level spot of ground, opposite to copse wood filled with hares and rabbits. When sitting at my window, I have observed these two dogs, which were at large in the yard, approach and make signs to each other, and first glancing at me, as if to see if I offered any obstacle to their wishes, step away very gently, then quicken their pace when they were at a little distance from my sight, and finally dart off at full speed when they thought I could neither see them nor order them back. Surprised at this mysterious manœuvre, I followed them, and witnessed a singular sight. The pointer, who seemed to be the leader of the enterprise, had sent the spaniel out to beat the bushes, and give tongue at the opposite extremity of the bushwood. As to himself, he made with slow steps the circuit of the wood by following it along the border, and I observed him stop before a passage much frequented by rabbits, and there point. I continued at a distance to observe how the intrigue was going to end. At length I heard the spaniel, which had started a hare, drive it with much tongue towards the place where its companion was lying in ambush, and the moment that the hare came out of the passage to gain the fields, the latter darted upon it and brought it to me with an air of triumph. I have seen these two dogs repeat this same manœuvre more than a hundred times; and this conformity has convinced me that it was not accidental, but the result of a concerted agreement and combined plan of operations understood beforehand.
Again, among Mr. Darwin's MSS., I find a letter from Mr. H. Reeks (1871), which says that the wolves of Newfoundland adopt exactly the same stratagem for the capture of deer in winter as that which is adopted by the hunters. That is to say, some of the pack secrete themselves in one or more of the leeward deer-paths in the forest or 'belting,' while one or two wolves make a circuit round the herd of deer to windward. The herd invariably retreats by one of its accustomed runs, and 'it rarely happens . . . . that the wolves do not manage by this stratagem to secure a doe or young stag.' And Leroy, in his book on Animal Intelligence, narrates closely similar facts of the wolves of Europe as having fallen within his own observation.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DOG.
The intelligence of the dog is of special, and indeed of unique interest from an evolutionary point of view, in that from time out of record this animal has been domesticated on account of the high level of its natural intelligence; and by persistent contact with man, coupled with training and breeding, its natural intelligence has been greatly changed. In the result we see, not only a general modification in the way of dependent companionship and docility, so unlike the fierce and self-reliant disposition of all wild species of the genus; but also a number of special modifications, peculiar to certain breeds, which all have obvious reference to the requirements of man. The whole psychological character of the dog may therefore be said to have been moulded by human agency with reference to human requirements, so that now it is not more true that man has in a sense created the structure of the bull-dog and greyhound, than that he has implanted the instincts of the watch-dog and pointer. The definite proof which we thus have afforded of the transforming and creating influence exerted upon the mental character and instincts of species by long and persistent training, coupled with artificial selection, furnishes the strongest possible corroboration of the theory which assigns psychological development in general to the joint operation of individual experience coupled with natural selection. For thousands of years man has here been virtually, though unconsciously, performing what evolutionists may regard as a gigantic experiment upon the potency of individual experience accumulated by heredity; and now there stands before us this most wonderful monument of his labours—the culmination of his experiment in the transformed psychology of the dog.
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.