CH. XXXIII. A LEARNED DOG. 199 



spelling short words, and finding the first letter of 

 any town named by one of the company. This last 

 trick was very cleverly done, and puzzled us very 

 much, as we — i.e. the grown-up part of his audience 

 — were most intently watching, not him, but his 

 mistress, in order to discover what signs she made 

 to guide him in his choice of the cards ; but we 

 could not perceive that she moved hand or foot, 

 or made any signal whatever. Indeed, the dog 

 seemed to pay little regard to her, but to receive 

 his orders direct from any one who gave them. 

 In fact, his teaching must have been perfect, and 

 his intellect wonderful. 



Now, I daresay I shall be laughed at for intro- 

 ducing an anecdote of a learned dog, and told that 

 it was " all trick." No doubt it was " all trick ;" 

 but it was a very clever one, and showed how 

 capable of education dogs are — far more so than 

 we imagine. For here was a dog performing 

 tricks so cleverly that not one out of four or five 

 persons who were most attentively watching him 

 could find out how he was assisted by his mistress. 

 The dog, too, as the woman said, was by no means 

 of the kind easiest to teach. She told us that a 

 poodle or spaniel would be far quicker in learning 

 than a terrier : but I strongly suspect that neither 

 of these kinds would have courage sufficient to 



