THOUGHT CAPACITY IN ANIMALS 7 



the exception of one or two letters, put it together 

 entirely by himself. It was constructed thus : I 

 would ask him, for instance, ' Rolf, how many taps 

 with your paw are you going to give me for a ?' and 

 he then gave me a number which I carefully noted 

 down. To my inexpressible pleasure I found that 

 Rolf never forgot the numbers he had given, though 

 I, to this day, must have my notes to hand whenever 

 Rolf wishes to tap out anything. It is also remarkable 

 that on a nearer investigation of his " alphabet " it 

 becomes evident that the letters Rolf requires least 

 are made up of the highest numbers, whereas those 

 to which he has constant recourse have their 

 equivalents among the lower numbers. The letters 

 q, v, x, Rolf never uses, as though he wished to prove 

 to me that they are entirely useless and superfluous. 

 Rolf can recognize any money that is shown him and 

 counts the flowers in a bunch according to their 

 colours and varieties. He can also differentiate the 

 high and the deep tones on any instrument, and he is 

 even capable of telling the number of tones struck in 

 a chord. His memory is marvellous ; he remembers 

 names and numbers over quite a period of time, once 

 he has heard them, and he is ready to do his tasks 

 with any persons who are sympathetic to him should 

 he know them well enough. It is, however, difficult 

 to get him to work as long as anyone who is not 

 sympathetic remains in the room. What he raps out 

 is, of course, phonetically spelt just according to how 

 it sounds to him, and we have not attempted to worry 

 him with orthography! His own original remarks 

 are delightful." 



The dog, Rolf, attained in the course of time to a 

 higher level than did the horses. This may probably 



