1 82 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



the air of superior wisdom and calm but mute 

 compassionateness with which Grip casts his 

 eye sidelong upon that wretched masterless 

 vagrant, and passes him by without even a 

 nod. He looks up to me complacently as he 

 trots along by my side, and seems to say 

 with his eye, ' Poor fellow ! he's lost his mas- 

 ter, you know careless dog that he is ! ' I 

 believe the lesson has had a good moral effect 

 upon Grip's own conduct, too ; for he has 

 now spent ten whole minutes well within my 

 sight, and has resisted the most tempting 

 solicitations to ratting and rabbiting held out 

 by half-a-dozen holes and burrows in the 

 hedge-wall as we go along. 



This total dependence of dogs upon a 

 master is a very interesting example of the 

 growth of inherited instincts. The original 

 dog, who was a wolf or something very like 

 it, could not have had any such artificial feel- 

 ing. He was an independent, self-reliant 

 animal, quite well able to look after himself 

 on the boundless plains of Central Europe or 



