36 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 
to explain them, except by the exercise of reasoning 
power or some mental process closely analogous. But 
it must appear superfluous to contend any longer for 
the possession of such a faculty in the higher groups of 
animals at least. One of our members, Mr Metcalf, 
himself the owner of a large number of dogs, referred to 
the fact that one of them had a great dislike of beggars, 
tramps, and such like persons. From what I have read 
of similar and even more marked conduct, from much 
that I have seen, and especially in a young dog I now 
possess, I am almost persuaded that in certain dogs 
such hostility is inborn, and, in certain cases, hereditary. 
Mr Metcalf thought that the detention, without injury, 
of would-be thieves, as in a case he reported, was 
peculiar to the mastiff. 
In February 1886, Mr John Miller read a paper on 
the dog, with special reference to the Scotch Collie, 
which brought out some interesting remarks from a 
member who had witnessed the training and perform- 
ances of these animals in Scotland. Everything went 
to show that the collie dog is a specialist of marked 
aptitudes, the result of ages of training and selected 
breeding, though his general intelligence is also high. 
At the following meeting Mr Ferron reported on the 
intelligence of a certain bitch he had observed. The 
animal imitated a cat in carrying kittens and in several 
other particulars; she was also remarkable in retentive- 
ness of memory, and in other respects. This case was 
all the more valuable a study, inasmuch as the animal 
had received no training whatever. 
The President instanced the case of a brindle bull- 
dog that had, on several occasions, found his way home, 
a distance of twenty-four miles, and in so brief a time 
as to indicate that he must have taken short cuts. 
Such cases suggest one of the most interesting and 
puzzling enquiries in the whole realm of Comparative 
