i8 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of bright and beautiful colors, and therefore of the splendors 

 of the flower garden or of the sunset tints in the sky, might be 

 owing to the frugivorous habits of our very early progenitors, to 

 whom the sight of red or golden ripe fruit was naturally one of 

 acute pleasure. Supporting this startling inference (which is 

 perhaps not so far-fetched as appears at first sight) is the very 

 curious fact that occasionally, when we feel an acute thrill of 

 pleasure from looking at a beautiful picture, or sunset, or indeed 

 any harmonious combination of color which gives exquisite en- 

 joyment through the eye, the salivary glands appear to be auto- 

 matically stimulated, and " our mouths water " while we look." It 

 is as if the old track of an out-of-date reflex between the part of 

 the eye which takes account of color and the mouth — proceeding 

 via what may be called the " pleasure centers " — were still open 

 in spite of many centuries of disuse. 



Another apposite illustration is the delight we derive from all 

 manner of contests of wits and muscles, so that all our games, 

 from whist to football, partake of the nature of strife for the 

 mastery. A game is of course a systematic and recognized method 

 of obtaining pleasure, and if we take a survey of all the most 

 popular forms of enjoyment of this kind, we shall find that none 

 of them are free from the element of that struggle for supremacy 

 which has been a chief factor in the evolution of the human race, 

 especially throughout the ages of barbarism. 



Now if arboreal man took delight in discovering and devour- 

 ing luscious and gorgeous fruits, and savage man in finding and 

 hunting down wild animals, and barbarous man in fighting his 

 rivals or the foes of his tribe — and all these ancient habits leave 

 an impress upon our modern ways of seeking and showing pleas- 

 ure — we can see that the dog's manner of manifesting pleasurable 

 emotions may be traceable to certain necessary accompaniments 

 of remote wild habits of self-maintenance. 



As with man, so with the dog : civilization has made existence 

 much more complex. The sources of pleasure of the savage man 

 are few compared with those of the cultured and civilized, yet we 

 find that the means of expression which we possess are but elabo- 

 rations of those existing long before civilization began. "We 

 must, therefore, look at the dog's past history and find out what 

 were his most acute pleasures, and what the gestures accompany- 

 ing them, when he was a pure and simple wild beast, if we wish 

 to elucidate his manner of expressing pleasure now. 



There can be no question that the chief delight of wild dogs, 

 as with modern hounds and sporting dogs, is in the chase and its 

 accompanying excitement and consequences. One of the most 

 thrilling moments to the human hunter (and doubtless to the ca- 

 nine), and one big with that most poignant of all delights, antici- 



