530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY: 



ually accompanied by his raising liis head, and throwing it back. 

 I have often, when within the house, on hearing the watch-dog 

 bark in this way. opened the window to assure myself on the sub- 

 ject, and distinguished, as I could not do with the windows closed, 

 the voice of another watch-dog barking in the same way in the 

 distance — the barkings of the two dogs alternating, one answering 

 the other. There is in such cases an evident communication of im- 

 pressions. One of the dogs, having had his attention aroused by 

 some unusual noise, has transmitted his impression to the other, 

 as sentinels posted at intervals call out their warnings one to 

 another. I have often repeated this observation during the long 

 evenings of winter. 



Another example, little known in thickly populated countries, 

 is drawn from a curious scene which I witnessed during a winter 

 passed in Perigord Noir. We had remarked that for several nights 

 the three watch-dogs, a young and an old male and a bitch, howled 

 often toward midnight, but in a peculiar way. One night in par- 

 ticular, during their tedious concert, just as we had got to sleep, 

 they mingled with their cries bowlings like those they would 

 have uttered if they had been beaten, with a shading hard to 

 define, but which we perceived plainly ; and we remarked that, 

 leaving their kennel in the avenue that led up to the lodge, they 

 had come to close quarters with one another at the gate, with alter- 

 nating bowlings and plaintive cries. Inquiring in the morning for 

 the cause of these singular cries, the peasants told me that a wolf 

 had passed, and predicted that it would return. They said, too, 

 that a neighbor's hunting-bitch had disappeared, and its bones 

 had been found in the fields near a wood. We were awakened 

 again about midnight by the cries of the dogs, and the scene was 

 renewed. Informed as we now were of the nature of what was 

 going on, we ran to one of the windows, whence we could see, in 

 the clear light of the moon, all that passed. The three dogs were 

 cowering against the gate, the oldest one howling by the side of 

 the others, while the younger one and the bitch were exposed at 

 intervals to the attacks of another animal, browner than they, 

 and of about their size, without defending themselves, but moan- 

 ing as if they were undergoing a vigorous correction. 



Frightened, doubtless, by the opening of the blinds of the 

 first story above him, the strange animal had gone away and 

 was sitting in the middle of the road. We could only see that he 

 had straight ears. While we were going down to get a gun the 

 visitor came back to his charge on the dogs, which had begun 

 howling after he left them, and resumed the cries significant of 

 chastisement when they were attacked again. For some reason, 

 perhaps because he heard the click of the gun, the foe drew back 

 and sat down in a garden-walk, concealed by a bunch of shrub- 



