THE FLOCKS AND HERDS 145 



and was with difficulty recaptured. The creature disliked 

 this task in the manner of a lazy school-boy, and at the end 

 of an hour of exercises seemed utterly overcome by his labor. 

 He ran into the box where he was ordinarily confined, and 

 when dragged forth, neither rewards nor punishments would 

 quicken him to further work. 



The above-described exhibition made it plain to me that 

 the pig can be taught to understand a certain amount of 

 human speech and to associate memories with phrases sub- 

 stantially as we do ourselves. It is perfectly clear that the 

 performance which I witnessed was not a mere routine action, 

 for I had a number of questions asked over again so as to 

 make it sure that the creature acted with reference to each 

 separate inquiry. The behavior of the animal during the 

 performance seemed clearly to indicate mental effort and not 

 mere automatic memory. His attitude when trying to deter- 

 mine which of two cards to take distinctly showed that he was 

 intently viewing the figures and endeavoring to come to a 

 decision. I am aware it has been suggested that learned pigs 

 discriminate between the cards by peculiarities of odor which 

 have been given to these bits of paper. I sought carefully 

 to find if such was the case, and though I have a very keen 

 sense of smell I found nothing which led me to suspect that 

 this device was used. Even if such were the case, the ration- 

 ality of the animal's action would be none the less clear. 

 The showman assured me that he never used any such 

 means in training pigs. He seemed, indeed, to treat the 

 suggestion with contempt. 



Although experiments in the training of pigs show that 

 they have rather remarkable intellectual capacities, the most 

 human feature in their mental organization is found in the 



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