THE PSYCHIC I)l']VELOPMKNT OF YOUNG ANLMALS. 51 



selves into " thin air." Nevertheless a consideration of ancestral experiences throws light 

 on most oases and perhaps on this one also. 



Taste and Smell. — These senses are so closely connected anatomically, and especially 

 functionally, that investigations on the one or the other and particularly on taste, at a very 

 early stage, are attended with great difficulties ; accordingly I have been very cautious in 

 drawing conclusions and have thought it better to place the first beginnings of their exer- 

 cise too late rather than too early. Certain it is that both taste and smell are very feeble at 

 first and gradually developed. Prior to the opening of the eyes both exist, but in feeble 

 degree. The diary gives all the facts I have to communicate on the subject. 



The way in which smell calls into activity, first of all, muscles of the face in a sleeping 

 puppy has been very frequently brought to my notice, and shows how closely afferent and 

 efferent nervous paths are generally related, even when the main centres concerned are at 

 rather distant parts of the brain. The nervous impulses that pass to the l)rain when strong 

 enough soon spread to other parts, hence the puppy is not long in moving its limbs and it 

 may be, gets up, runs about, cries, etc., — all these complicated movements having been 

 brought about, and as I have often witnessed in a sort of machine-like way — the animal 

 having no clear and definite features before it at the first moment, though no doubt the law 

 of associative nervous and psychic connections complicates this more and more as the animal 

 widens its experiences with age. As illustrating this subject an observation of mine on a 

 mature dog is worth a brief recital. The suliject was an Irish setter bitch of an unusually 

 affectionate nature. I had not seen her for some months. She was lying apparently asleep 

 on her bench in a large dog show. Upon walking up to her stall and standing there a few 

 seconds, I noticed, the eyes being closed, movements of the nostrils of gradually increasing 

 force, then evident sniffing, next a raising of the head, opening of the eyes, with first of all 

 a dazed sort of expression, then one of great surprise and inquiry, followed shortly by her 

 throwing herself upon me ^\■itll a bark, almost a shriek of jo\\ She passed tlirough all the 

 stages the puppy manifests, lint with those added ones coming from enlarged experience 

 and a richer psychic life. 



The part smell plays in the ordinary- and extraordinary life of the dog is a most inter- 

 esting and by no means exhausted subject, which, though tempting to pursue, is somewhat 

 aside from the scope of the present paper. 



As illustrating the development taste undergoes in a few days, special attention is called 

 to the accounts given on the 28tli, 31st and 34th days. 



Experiments on taste might have been made at an earlier date, but this omission was 

 supplied in the case of another litter of puppies to which reference will be found in extracts 

 from a diary introduced later. 



Some references to smell as it influences habits, even in very young puppies, have been 

 referred to in the diary. 



In the dog much more than in the man are smell and taste associated and this becomes 

 evident in the early as well as the later psychic life of this animal as shown b^^ the diary, 

 though this is like many other features much more evident to the one who daily associates 

 with animals than it can be from the best description it is possible to write. 



Visio7i. — Owing to the gradual opening of the eyes it is difficult to see the pupil and to 

 make observations on the reaction of the iris to light. Apart from this the record of the 

 development of vision will it is hoped be found pretty complete. 



