460 ANIMAL INTELLiaENCE. 



I myself know a large dog in Germany which used to 

 kill snakes by dexterously tossing them in the air a great 

 number of times, too quickly to admit of the snake biting* 

 When the snake was thus quite confused, the dog would 

 tear it in pieces. This dog can never have been poisoned 

 by the bite of a snake ; but he seems to have had an 

 instinctive idea that the snake might be more harmful in 

 its bite than other animals; for while he was bold in 

 fighting with dogs, and did not then object to receiving his 

 fair share of laceration, he was extremely careful never to 

 begin to tear a snake till he had thoroughly bewildered it 

 by tossing it as described. 



The reasoning displayed by dogs may not always be of 

 a high order, but little incidents, from being of constant 

 occurrence among all dogs, are the more important as 

 showing the reasoning faculty to be general to these 

 animals. I shall therefore give a few cases to show the 

 kind of reasoning that is of constant occurrence. 



Mr. Stone writes to me from Norbury Park concerning 

 two of his dogs, one large and the other small. Both 

 being in a room at the same time, 



one of them, the larger, had a hone, and when he had left 

 it the smaller dog went to take it, the larger one growled, and 

 the other retired to a corner. Shortly afterwards the larger 

 dog went out, but the other did not appear to notice this, and at 

 any rate did not move. A few minutes later the large dog was 

 heard to bark out of doors ; the little dog then, without a 

 moment's hesitation, went straight to the bone and took it. It 

 thus appears quite evident that she reasoned — * That dog is 

 barking out of doors, therefore he is not in this room, therefore 

 it is safe for me to take the bone.' The action was so rapid as 

 to be clearly a consequence of the other dog's barking. 



Again, Mr. John Le Conte, writing from the Uni- 

 versity of California, tells me of a dog which used to 

 hunt rabbits in an extensive pasture-ground where there 

 was a hollow tree, which frequently served as a place of 

 refuge for the rabbits when they were pressed : — 



On one occasion a rabbit was ' started,' and all of the 

 dogs, with the exception of ' Bonus,' dashed off in full pursuit. 

 "We were astonished to observe that the sedate * Bonus,' fore- 



