60 The Scottish Naturalist. 



special organs, may contain every nervous faculty. ... In 

 the ' British Medical Journal' for 1866 (May 19, p. 519) is pub- 

 lished a paper by me, ' Do true ///sentient animals exist? 

 (Unzer's question)." 



The most interesting of Dr. Brown's observations is that which 

 refers to Suicide. The case he gives is a typical one, exhibitive 

 of intention to destroy life, from a sense of weariness of life. Such 

 instances are not uncommon ; but it is desirable their recorded 

 number should be multiplied, because the possibility or fact 

 of Suicide by other animals than man is still denied or disputed 

 by very eminent authorities. For instance Miss Frances Power 

 Cobbe of London — whose knowledge of the lower animals, and 

 especially the Dog, is exhibited in her admirable articles on the 

 " Consciousness of Dogs," in the Quarterly Review for October 

 1872, and on "Dogs whom I have met," in the Cornhill Maga- 

 zine for December, 1872 — remarked to me, in a letter dated 

 December 1873 : — 



"With respect to the Suicides of Dogs, to which she sees Dr. 

 Lindsay refers as an accepted fact, Miss Cobbe has carried on 

 a little friendly controversy with Mr. Charles Darwin and some 

 other friends, and remains still ////satisfied that we possess de- 

 monstrative evidence of the fact, though many stories seem to 

 indicate something of the kind." 



In July, 1 87 1, the late Professor Day of St. Andrews asked 

 me by letter : " Have you seen the article on the Tasmanian 

 Devil* (noticed in yesterday's ' Spectator ' f), which seems to 

 exist in a state of Chronic Insanity?" The Professor's ingenious 

 suggestion of Insanity as accounting for the ferocity, or untam- 

 ability, of the Tasmanian Devil, is worthy of the attention of 

 Zoologists in connection with a similar condition in many 

 other animals. My own impression, however, is that, though 

 Insanity of the same type as that of man is common among 

 other animals, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to establish 

 it in such cases as that of the Tasmanian Dasyure. 



Some years ago, Dr. Murray Lindsay of Derby, gave me the 

 following particulars, illustrative of the Individuality and Idio- 

 syncrasies of a favourite Skye Terrier, now dead, bearing the 

 curious name of "Mum"; many of whose performances or 

 peculiarities I have myself witnessed : — 



* Dasyurus Ursinus — a marsupial — otherwise known as the Ursine 

 Dasyure or Ursine Opossum. fOf date July 9, 1871. 



