88 THE DESCENT OF MAK. 



Tlie following cases relate to dogs. Mr. Colquhoiin* 

 winged two wild-ducks, which fell on the farther side of a 

 stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but 

 could not succeed; she then, though never before known to 

 ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over 

 the other, and returned for the dead bird. Col. 

 Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once, 

 one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away 

 and was caught by the retriever, who on her return came 

 across the dead bird; ^^she stopped, evidently greatly puz- 

 zled, and after one or two trials, finding she could not take 

 it up without permitting the escape of the winged bird, she 

 considered a moment, then deliberately murdered it by giv- 

 ing it a severe crunch, and afterward brought away both 

 together. This was the only known instance of her ever 

 having wilfully injured any game.''' Here we have reason, 

 though not quite perfect, for the retriever might have 

 brought the wounded bird first and then returned for the 

 dead one, as in the case of the two wild-ducks. I give the 

 above cases as resting on the evidence of two independent 

 witnesses, and because in both instances the retrievers, after 

 deliberation, broke through a habit which is inherited by 

 them (that of not killing the game retrieved), and because 

 they show how strong their reasoning faculty must have 

 been to overcome a fixed habit. 



I will conclude by quoting a remark by the illustrious 

 Humboldt, t '^ The muleteers in South America say, ^I 

 will not give you the mule whose step is easiest, but la mas 

 racional the one that reasons best ;' " and, as he adds, 

 ^^ this popular expression, dictated by long experience, com- 

 bats the system of animated machines better perhaps than 

 all the arguments of speculative philosophy. Neverthe- 

 less some writers even yet deny that the higher animals pos- 

 sess a trace of reason; and they endeavor to explain away, 

 by what appears to be mere verbiage, J; all such facts as those 

 above given. 



*"The Moor and the Loch," p. 45. Col. Hutcliinson on "Dog 

 Breaking," 1850, p. 46. 



f " Personal Narrative," Eng. translat., vol. iii, p. 106. 



X I am glad to find that so acute a reasoner as Mr. Leslie Stephen 

 (" Darwinism and Divinity, Essays on Free-thinking," 1873, p. 80). 

 in speaking of the supposed impassable barrier between the minds of 

 man and the lower animals, says: "The distinctions, indeed, which 



