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from behind forward, then pull the thread the remainder of the way with 

 her lips. She often tried to tie a knot, too; but in this she was never suc- 

 cessful. She always tried to make the knot in the thread up next to the 

 needle. After a number of successful attempts at this, she would go to 

 work on her dress, and sew, and sew, and sew, pulling the thread clear 

 at every stitch. Sometimes she would amuse herself in this way for half 

 an hour. 



I often wondered if these very intelligent animals really understood 

 the meaning of words, or whether they only comprehended a sentence or 

 phrase as a whole or got the idea from my gestures or the order of the 

 performance. One morning I saw^ an oppoi'tunity to test the matter. We 

 had a little hat which I would hand to Sallie and tell her put on her 

 "five dollar" hat. This she would generally do very neatly and skillfully, 

 but sometimes in the morning, when she had just gotten out of bed, or 

 at night, when she was tired and sleepy, she would respond very indiffer- 

 ently, either getting the hat on one side or missing her head altogether. 

 I always had her put on her hat immediately after shaking hands at the 

 beginning of the lecture. On the morning in question, the hat had fallen 

 to the stage floor near her feet. Shortly after the lecture commenced, as 

 I was finishing the talk, I said to her without changing my tone or 

 looking toward the hat, "Sallie put on your five dollar hat." Without the 

 slightest hesitation, she reached down, picked up the hat, and put it on 

 her head. 



Joe learned the order of the performance, and when I got through 

 describing his hand to the audience, he would proffer his foot. He 

 seemed, too, to understand the meaning of "posterior limb," for, although 

 I might change the order of the lecture, the instant I sad "posterior 

 limb," he w^ould put up his foot. 



One afternoon, in Detroit, some one had given Mike something to 

 eat in a common earthenware bowl. When I came up, he had almost emp- 

 tied the vessel. I knew he would throw it to the floor and break it, so 

 I stepped behind the guardrail and said, "Mike, hand me that bowl." 

 Immediately he set down the bowl and put out his hand. I saw at once 

 that I, not he, had blundered. The word "bowl" was new to him, he had 

 never heard it before; but as I had told him to hand me the bowl, he set 

 down the vessel and offered me his hand. So I changed the form of the 



