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 down, crossed to the opposite side, and diligently explored that bank. Two or three minutes elapsed, and the party was for moving on, when I called their attention to a sudden change in the dog's demeanour. His 'flag' was now up and going from side to side in that energetic manner which, as every sportsman knows, betokens a hot scent. I then knew that the bird was as safe as if it was already in my bag. Away through the heather went the waving tail, until twenty or thirty yards from the bank opposite to that on which we were standing there was a momentary scuffle; the bird just rose from the ground above the heather, the dog sprang into the air, caught it, came away at full gallop, dashed across the stream, and delivered it into my hands. Need I interpret all this for the experienced sportsman? The dog had learned from long experience in Australia and the narrow cañadas in the La Plata that a wounded duck goes down stream; if winged, his maimed wing sticks out and renders it impossible for him to go up, so he will invariably land and try to hide away from the bank. But if the dog enters at the place where the bird fell, the latter will go on with the stream for an indefinite distance, rising now and then for breath, and give infinite trouble. My dog had found out all this long since, and had proved the correctness of his knowledge times out of number, and by his actions had taught me the whole art and mystery of retrieving duck. His object, I say without a doubt, because I had numberless opportunities of observing it, was to fling the bird and force it to land by cutting it off lower down the stream. Then assuming, as his experience justified him, that the bird had landed, he hunted each bank in succession for the trail, which he knew must betray the fugitive.
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 various rates of speed, and always to swim at the proper angle, is most surprising.'
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:—