FROM THE "SPECTATORS 129 



RECOGNITION BY ANIMALS OF 

 PICTURES. 



\Sept. 7, 1889.] 



THIRTY years ago I was staying at Langley, 

 near Chippenham, with a lady who was 

 working a large screen, on which she de- 

 picted in " raised " work (as it was then called) 

 a life-sized cat on a cushion. The host, a 

 sportsman now dead, was much struck with 

 the similarity to life of the cat, so he fetched 

 his dog (alas ! like too many of the species), 

 a cat-hater. The animal made a dead set at 

 the (wool) cat, and but for the master's 

 vigorous clutching him by the collar, the 

 cushion would have been torn into atoms. 

 I related this tale lately in Oxford, and my 

 hearer told me that a friend in the Beving- 

 ton Road had just painted a bird on a fire- 

 screen, and her cat flew at it. 



My own old dog, Scaramouch (a pet oi 



the Duke of Albany's in his undergraduate 



days), disliked being washed, and when I 



showed him a large Graphic picture of a 



9 



