AN "EDUCATED" HORSE 171 



number which should be carried, King moved up to the rack, and ap- 

 parently went directly to the right number, and pushed it off. 



So he went through with the entire addition, making no mistakes, 

 except that for most of the numbers he pushed off both the right one 

 and the one next to it. The trainer in each case would take two or 

 three steps toward him and say, "He knows perfectly well what is 

 right, but he is mischievous to-day. Sometimes he does that, but very 

 rarely." Then the trainer would call out to the horse, " King, if you do 

 not behave yourself, I will whip you for it. Now you go and do as I 

 command you." The effect of these remarks on the observers was evi- 

 dent ; they were siding with the horse in all his " pranks," though he 

 appeared to be in earnest, according to equine standards. The writer 

 could detect no evidence of " mischief " in the horse's expression or ac- 

 tion. But the observers showed sympathy with King, and delight in 

 his evident intelligence. The writer, who did not participate in the 

 demonstrations of admiration when King pushed off the numbers, was 

 said by certain of the observers to be rather cold and blase in regard to 

 "educated" horses. One newspaper reporter who was in the audience 

 told the writer later that he thought King would have done much better 

 than he actually did do, if he (the writer) had not been eyeing him so 

 coldly and unsympathetically. "I couldn't have done so well myself 

 under such conditions," said the reporter. 



The writer next wrote on the board the figures 



7 5 9 2 

 5 13 8 



and said to the horse, "King, subtract." The trainer then called to 

 him to perform the process, using, so far as one could follow him, sub- 

 stantially such language as he did during the addition process. The 

 horse in this experiment always pushed off the right number, but he 

 also pushed off one or two other numbers in each instance. He would 

 stop in the vicinity of the right number, while his trainer was talking 

 to him, but apparently he could not discriminate between the correct 

 one and those on either side of it. The trainer kept telling the audi- 

 ence that King knew perfectly well what was right, but he was " out of 

 sorts to-day." So far as one could tell, the horse was utterly indiffer- 

 ent to his repeated verbal chastisements, even though, according to the 

 trainer, he comprehended everything said to him and about him. 



Next, the writer put on the board a problem in division, and one in 

 multiplication, and the horse solved each problem in the way in which 

 he did the first two ; but in most of his attempts he pushed off more than 

 one number, which the trainer uniformly ascribed to the cold weather, 

 or to some similar cause, and not to lack of intelligence. His most re- 

 markable arithmetical work, judging from the expressions of the audi- 



