464 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



across for the birds. He first attempted to bring them both, 

 but one always struggled out of his mouth : he then laid down 

 -one intending to bring the other ; but whenever he attempted 

 to cross to me, the bird left fluttered into the water ; he im- 

 mediately returned again, laid down the first on the shore and 

 recovered the other. The first now fluttered away, but he 

 instantly secured it, and, standing over them both, seemed to 

 ■cogitate for a moment ; then, although on any other occasion 

 he never ruffles a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over 

 the other, and then returned for the dead bird. 



The following, communicated to me by Mr. Blood, is a 

 closely analogous, and therefore confirmatory case. He 

 was out shooting with a companion, and three wild ducks 

 were simultaneously dropped into a lake — one falling dead 

 and the other two winged. Mr. Blood sent in his spaniel 

 to retrieve, 



and of course when the wounded birds saw her coming they 

 swam out, so that she first reached the dead duck. She swam 

 up to it, paused for a moment, and passing it went after the 

 nearest wounded bird. Having caught this, she again hesitated, 

 and apparently after consideration she gave it a chop and let it 

 go, quieted for the present. She then caught and brought to 

 land the other wounded duck, and going back she again reached 

 the dead bird ; but looking at the other and seeing that it was 

 again moving, she went out and brought it in, and last of all 

 brought the dead bird. The dog was a first-rate retriever and 

 never injured game, so that it was an entirely new thing for her 

 to kill a bird. 



Again, Mr. Arthur Nicols, in ' Nature,' vol. xix., page 

 496, says : — 



Can we conceive any human being reasoning more correctly 

 than a dog did in the following instance ? Towards the evening 

 ■of a long day's snipe- shooting on Dartmoor, the party was 

 walking down the bank of the Dart, when my retriever flushed 

 a widgeon which fell to my gun in the river, and of course 

 instantly dived. I said no word to the dog. He did not 

 plunge into th€ river then, but galloped down stream some fifty 

 or sixty yards, and then entered and dashed from side to side — 

 it was about twenty or thirty feet wide — working up stream, 

 and making a great commotion in the water until he came to 

 the place wh>ere we stood. Then he landed and shook himself, 

 :;and carefully hunted the near bank a considerable distance 



