4co Animal Life and Intelligence. 



mouse is adduced by a number of witnesses as illustrative 

 of cruelty ; but others see in this conduct, not cruelty, but 

 practice and training in an important branch of the 

 business of cat-life. That is to say, the act, though objec- 

 tively cruel from the human standpoint, is not on this view 

 performed from a motive of cruelty. Some time ago I 

 ventured to stroke the nose of a little lion-cub which had 

 tottered, kitten-like, to the bars of its cage. " I wish," I 

 said shortly afterwards to a distinguished animal painter, 

 "you could have caught the look of conscious dignity 

 (I speak anthropomorphically) with which the lioness 

 turned and seemed to say, ' How dare you meddle with 

 my child ! ' " "I have seen such a look and attitude," 

 said Mr. Nettleship ; " but I attributed it, not to pride, but 

 to fear." Mr. Eomanes quotes,* as typically illustrative of 

 an ''idea of caste," the case of Mr. St. John's retriever, 

 which struck up an acquaintance with a rat-catcher and 

 his cur, but at once cut his humble friends, and denied all 

 acquaintanceship with them, on sight of his master. I, on 

 the other hand, should regard this case as parallel with 

 that which I have noted a hundred times. My dogs would 

 go out with the nurse and children when I was busy or 

 absent ; but if I appeared within sight, they raced to me. 

 The stronger affection prevailed. A dog is described f as 

 " showing a deliberate design of deceiving," because he 

 hobbled about the room as if lame and suffering from pain 

 in his foot. I would suggest that there was no pretence, 

 no "deliberate design of deceit," in this case, but a direct 

 association of ideas between a hobbling gait and more 

 sympathy and attention than usual. I am not denying 

 objective deceitfulness to the dog any more than I deny 

 objective cruelty to the cat. My only question is whether 

 the motive is deceit. We must not forget that the deceitful 

 intent is a piece, not of the observed fact, but of the 

 observer's inference. Mr. Eomanes, for example, tells J of 

 a black retriever who was asleep, or apparently asleep, in 

 the kitchen of a certain dignitary of the Church. The 



* " Animal Intelligence," p. 442. t Ibid. p. 444. J Ibid. p. 451. 



