DOG-PSYCHOLOGY 53 



inverted compliment to the tremendous power of germinal 

 variation to that of life and change, that is to say. With 

 acquired characters this is less frequent, since they are 

 external impressions, not inborn potentialities. It seems, 

 however, that acquired characters may be inherited if the 

 impression ultimately sinks so deeply into the animal as to 

 affect the germ-plasm a modified return to the old 

 Lamarckian position. This victimized little dog, that is to 

 say, may have been so tortured that its descendents might 

 inherit slight neurasthenic tendencies. 



THE SAGA OF A TERRIER 



This is the story of a terrier. Pat has lived all his ten 

 and a half years, except the first six weeks, in the middle 

 of a large public school. Boys have always surrounded him, 

 and seem to have imparted to him something of perpetual 

 youth, though it must be admitted that his beard and his 

 moustache and the backs of his ears are very grey. He is 

 the offspring of two highly bred parents, one a Yorkshire, 

 the other a Skye terrier, and from the age of one and a half 

 till now he has never failed to exhibit the pugnacious and 

 virile spirit of his double lineage Previously to that 

 tender age his disposition was of the mildest ; he threatened 

 to grow up a Hopley Porter among dogs, and when assailed 

 by a stranger would meekly turn his head away so as to 

 avoid injury, and make it difficult to retaliate. But for 

 some inscrutable reason this sweet reasonableness very 

 suddenly passed away. Something happened which made 

 reprisals a necessity, and from that moment Pat has been 

 a circum compita pugnax, the terror of the neighbourhood, 

 and the vanquisher of every canine foe not wholly dis- 

 parate in size. His two chief enemies have passed away. 

 The first, after losing all his teeth, found the recurrent 

 conflicts with Pat too much for his old age, especially as 

 on one occasion he met his younger assailant without a 



