25 G FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



poraiy occu23atioii of feeding the pheasants ceased, 

 and the rendering up his treasure to me could inter- 

 fere with no other thing. 



I may add that Neptune has an immense 

 appetite, and that he is always hungry; yet 

 knowing, as of reason, that the rabbits were 

 mine, and that I deemed it his duty to bring 

 them to me, though he had but recently learned 

 the duty at the time to which I refer, still, honest 

 to the very letter, '^ reason^^ prompted him to 

 keep the rabbit he had found for me, and his 

 deed was an act of ''• reason.'^'' What he did 

 was done for a future purpose, with a forethought 

 that had in 'perspective a just conclusion, and that 

 makes the rationality, the j)ossession of ^'reason,^^ 

 not mere '' instinct, ^^ by the dog. '^Instinct" 

 would have made him eat it. 



I will now quote an instance of reason in a 

 retriever dog, though not of so pleasurable a 

 kind. It was a cold, frosty day in the New 

 Forest, at a time when the frost had been hard 

 enough to freeze the brooks when they were in 

 flood, and then, as the waters sank, to maintain 

 a fragile wall of ice at the sides — no doubt a 

 very unpleasant state of things for a dog when 



