CONSCIENCE IN ANIMALS. 89 



me in the night-time. Indeed, the scrupulous care with which he 

 avoided making the least noise while I was asleep, or pretending to be 

 asleep, was quite touching, even the sight of a cat outside, which at 

 any other time rendered him frantic, only causing him to tremble 

 violently with suppressed emotion when he had reason to suppose that 

 I was not awake. If I overslept myself, however, he used to jump 

 upon the bed and push my shoulder gently with his paw. 



The following instance is likewise very instructive : I must premise 

 that the terrier in question far surpassed any animal or human being 

 I ever knew in the keen sensitiveness of his feelings, and that he was 

 never beaten in his life. 1 Well, one day he was shut up in a room by 

 himself, while everybody, in the house where he was, went out. See- 

 ing his friends from the window as they departed, the terrier appears 

 to have been overcome by a paroxysm of rage ; for when I returned 

 I found that he had torn all the bottoms of the window-curtains to 

 shreds. When I first opened the door he jumped about as dogs in 

 general do under similar circumstances, having apparently forgotten, 

 in his joy at seeing me, the damage he had done. But when, without 

 speaking, I picked up one of the torn shreds of the curtains, the terrier 

 gave a howl, and, rushing out of the room, ran up-stairs screaming 

 as loudly as he was able. The only interpretation I can assign to this 

 conduct is, that, his former fit of passion having subsided, the dog was 

 sorry at having done what he knew would annoy me; and, not being 

 able to endure in my presence the remorse of his smitten conscience, 

 he ran to the farthest corner of the house crying peccavi in the lan- 

 guage of his nature. 



I could give several other cases of conscientious action on the part 

 of this terrier, but, as the present article is already too long, I shall 

 confine myself to giving but one other case. This, however, is the 



1 A reproachful word or look from me, when it seemed to him that occasion required 

 it, was enough to make this dog miserable for a whole day. I do not know what would 

 have happened had I ventured to strike him ; but once when I was away from home a 

 friend used to take him out every day for a walk in the park. He always enjoyed 

 his walks very much, and was now wholly dependent upon this gentleman for obtaining 

 them. (He was once stolen in London through the complicity of my servants, and never 

 after that would he go out by himself, or with any one he knew to be a servant.) Never- 

 theless, one day while he was amusing himself with another dog in the park, my friend, 

 in order to persuade him to follow, struck him with a glove. The terrier looked up at 

 his face with an astonished and indignant gaze, deliberately turned round, and trotted 

 home. Next day he went out with my friend as before, but after he had gone a short 

 distance he looked up at his face significantly, and again trotted home with a dignified 

 air. After this my friend could never induce the terrier to go out with him again. It is 

 remarkable, also, that this animal's sensitiveness was not only of a selfish kind, but ex- 

 tended itself in sympathy for others. Whenever he saw a man striking a dog, whether 

 in the house or outside, near at hand or at a distance, he used to rush to the protection 

 of his fellow, snarling and snapping in a most threatening way. Again, when driving 

 with me in a dog-cart, he always used to seize the sleeve of my coat every time I touched 

 the horse with the whip. 



