VI SUPERSTITION IN ANIMALS 239 



power also. Fear of things incomprehensible is indeed the 

 cause of such conceptions among men, and among many 

 savage peoples is still at the present day clearly the cause of 

 their belief in a higher being. It is stated ^ that dogs do not 

 bark at naked men, which is probably to be attributed to fear 

 of the unknown, like their fear of thunder. Also tamers of 

 wild animals are said to go naked into the cages in order to 

 train the animals. H. Spencer considers that even fetichism 

 exists in dogs ; that, judging from certain circumstances, they 

 believe inanimate objects to be alive.^ 



G. J. Eomanes ^ has made some interesting experiments, 

 similar to mine, on dogs. I will quote the most important of 

 them here. Eomanes relates : — 



" My dog was in the habit, like many others of his kind, 

 of playing with bones, by tossing them in the air, so as to 

 throw them a little distance from him, and so making them 

 appear to be alive, whereby he procured himself the imaginary 

 pleasure of killing them. One day I offered him for this 

 purpose a bone to which I had fastened a long thin thread. 

 After he had tossed it a little while in the air, I took the oppor- 

 tunity, when it had fallen a little distance from him, to draw it 

 slowly away by means of the long invisible thread. The dog's 

 whole behaviour immediately changed. The bone which he had 

 before only treated as if he believed it alive, now became really 

 alive in his eyes, and his astonishment was boundless. He 

 approached the bone at first with great caution . . . ; but as 

 the gradual movement did not cease, and he became quite cer- 

 tain that the motion could not be set down to that which 

 he himself had communicated, his astonishment changed into 



^ Cf. e.g. Adolf v. Conriug, Marokko^ das Land und die Leute, Berlin, 1880. 

 Mansur, wlien lie steals at night into the tent to Fatme, who is sleeping beside 

 her husband, goes " completely naked, because he knows that no dog barks at a 

 naked man." 



^ Herbert Spencer, Pri7iciples of Sociology. 



^ G. J. Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals. 



