176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



very irregular description, and each dog is apparently ready to 

 bite any of the others. It will easily be seen that this confusion 

 is owing to a disarrangement of natural politics, caused by the 

 disturbing and arbitrary influence of human institutions. If two 

 of the combatants happen to be comrades, they will hold together 

 and treat all the rest as enemies. In the wild state the sounds of 

 strife would mean either a faction fight, or a combat with some 

 powerful enemy of the pack, and probably in the former case 

 every dog within hearing would be a member of one or other of 

 the contending parties. By adopting dogs into our families and 

 separating them from their fellows we upset canine political econ- 

 omy in many ways ; but still the old loyal instinct to rush to the 

 support of supposed friends in distress is so strong that a ladies' 

 pug has been known to spring from a carriage to take part in a 

 scrimmage between two large collies. 



Among wild dogs the prosjDerity of the community might be 

 fatally impaired by a lapse of this instinctive loyalty. All who 

 have had to do Avith hounds know that every pack contains cer- 

 tain individuals whose special talents are invaluable to the rest. 

 Generally one or two of a pack of beagles do most of the finding 

 when driving rabbits in the furze, and in the case of a lost trail 

 another individual will be, as a rule, the successful one in making 

 skillful casts forward to pick up the line of scent. Another, again, 

 will possess quicker vision and greater swiftness in running than 

 the others, and the instant the game comes into view will cease 

 the more tedious method of following, and dash forward at full 

 speed to seize it. 



Among wild dogs pursuing large and powerful game, the need 

 and scope for such specialists would be even greater and more 

 important. If one of these were lost through not being well 

 backed up in time of peril, the whole pack would be the sufferers 

 in a very material degree ; for it would often fail to start, or lose 

 during pursuit, some animal which might otherwise have been 

 captured. 



The study of this communal canine morality is very interest- 

 ing when considered along with Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories of 

 ethics. It is here dwelt upon, however, merely to explain, on sci- 

 entific principles, many traits of our domestic dogs which (as is 

 too commonly the case with those who receive benefits) we are 

 liable to profit by and take for granted. 



The great naturalist Cuvier observed that all animals that 

 readily enter into domestication consider man as a member of 

 their own society and thus fulfill their instinct of association. The 

 probable view of the fox-terrier or the dachshund which lies upon 

 our hearth-rug, therefore, is that he is one of a pack the other 

 members of which are the human inhabitants of the house. 



