376 GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS. 



and when they have a sensible, liberal-minded master, they 

 reap the fruit of their superiority by his commendation for 

 their acting, under exceptional circumstances, on their own 

 discretion and for the best. 



Berkeley tells us of one of his dogs, a certain Smoker, 

 going to fetch a shot pheasant which happened to fall among 

 a lot of unflushed birds. After advancing a certain distance, 

 it stopped short and returned, deeming it better not to put 

 up the living birds. Another dog Wolf being ordered 

 to drive rabbits out of the shrubbery, declined because it 

 proved to contain a covey of young pheasants. 



Under other circumstances the dog, while adopting man's 

 suggestions, supersedes them by its own if it finds or thinks 

 its own better (Nichols). Though, as a rule, in the many 

 cases in which other animals co-operate with man, his 

 animal accomplice shows an unquestioning acquiescence in 

 his arrangements, this is by no means always the case ; for 

 it sometimes not only most emphatically but most success- 

 fully protests against both them and him, and, in short, takes 

 its own way or refuses all co-operation. 



