THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ANIMALS 151 



connected anatomically, and especially functionally, 

 that investigations on the one or the other, and 

 pa,rticularly on taste, at a very early stage, are at- 

 tended with great difficulties ; accordingly I have been 

 very cautious in drawing conclusions, and have thought 

 it better to place the first beginnings of their exercise 

 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 gener- 

 ally related, even when the main centres concerned are 

 at rather distant parts of the brain. The nervous im- 

 pulses that pass to the brain 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 illus- 

 trating this subject, an observation of mine on a mature 

 dog is worth a brief recital. The subject was an Irish 

 setter bitch of an unusually affectionate nature. I had 

 not seen her for some months. She was lying ap- 

 parently 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^ 



