COMMISSION OF ERROR 503 



dogs to lose their way even round the corner of a street from 

 their master's house defective observation and reflection 

 being- here probably the cause while no one can have 

 brought up a pup to follow him about town or country 

 without having been subjected to the annoying experience 

 of having constantly to rectify its errors of youthful thought- 

 lessness, inattention or stupidity, including its loss both of 

 way and of master. 



There is nothing surprising in way-losing in young ani- 

 mals. Young hounds lost in sporting make direct for home 

 across fields, but they are stopped by rivers, on the banks of 

 which they sit down and howl their disappointment or their 

 desire for assistance or direction. They have not the sense 

 acquired by experience to use bridges or boats as older ones 

 do (Berkeley). But even the cleverest adult dogs sometimes 

 fail in way-finding in towns : they betray a stupidity in this 

 direction that is remarkable in contrast with their high 

 intelligence in other respects, their failure being perhaps at- 

 tributable to mental confusion from the noise of the streets, 

 to the sameness of the architectural character of these streets 

 affording no distinctive landmark, to diffidence, timidity, or 

 fear (Cobbe). 



During the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1871, the 

 street dogs lost their usual power of way-finding; they showed 

 hesitancy, uncertainty, or dubiety, and held mutual consulta- 

 tions under the exceptional and embarrassing circumstances 

 (Gautier). It is no anomaly that a dog will readily find its 

 way in the open country, and as readily lose it in a town 

 the reason perhaps being the number and diversity of dis- 

 tracting, alarming, or puzzling sights and sounds, the various 

 causes of mental bewilderment in cities. The dog, moreover, 

 frequently commits the error of not taking either the easiest 

 or shortest way, when it finds the way at all. 



We have already seen that even the bee, whose bee-line 

 is synonymous with a supposed exactitude, unerringness, 

 directness, loses its way, as does the courier pigeon in its 

 * races ' or matches. The swallow commits similar mistakes 

 (Watson) another animal whose migrations and other 

 operations are generally regarded as the result of faultless 



