236 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



he taught in a single morning a Retriever six months old to 

 fetch and carry ^yell, and in a second morning to return on 

 the path to search for an object left purposely behind and not 

 seen by the dog. Yet I know from experience how difficult 

 it is to teach the habit at least to terriers, 



" Let us consider one other case, though so often quoted, 

 that of the Pointer. I have myself gone out with a young 

 dog for the first time, and his innate tendency was shown in 

 a ludicrous manner, for he pointed fixedly not only at the 

 scent of game, but at sheep and large white stones; and 

 when he found a lark's nest, we were actually compelled to 

 carry him along; he backed the other dogs. . . . The 

 silence of Pointers, also, is the more remarkable, as all who 

 have studied these dogs agree in classing them as a sub-breed 

 of Hound, which gives tongue so freely. But the tendency 

 in the young Pointer to back other dogs, or to point without 

 perceiving any scent of game when they see other dogs 

 point, is perhaps the most singular part of his inborn pro- 

 pensities.* 



" Now if we were to see one kind of wolf, in a state of 

 nature, running round a herd of deer, and skilfully driving 

 them whither he liked, and another species of wolf, instead 

 of chasing its prey, standing silent and motionless on the 

 scent for more than half an hour with the other wolves of the 

 pack all assuming the same statue-like attitude and cautiously 

 approaching, we should surely call these actions instinctive. 

 The cliief characteristics of instinct seem to be fulfilled in the 

 pointer. A young dog cannot be supposed to know why he 

 points, any more than a butterfly why it lays its eggs on a 



cabbage It seems to me to make no essential 



difference that pointing is of no use to the dog, only to man ; 

 for the habit has been acquired through artificial selection 

 and training for the good of man, whereas ordinary instincts 

 are acquired through natural selection and training exclu- 

 sively for the animal's own good. The young pointer often 

 points without any instruction, imitation, or experience; 

 though, no doubt, as we have also seen sooietimes to be the 



* " With respect to the inherited tendency to back, see St. John's 

 Wild Sport of the Highlands, 1846, p. 116 ; Colonel Hutchinson on Bog 

 Breaking, 1850, p. 144 ; and Blaine, Ency. of Rural Sports, p. 791. — Besides 

 the tendency to point, pointers inherit a peculiar mann-r of quartering their 

 ;iround." 



