200 SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR 
and suffering, they turned and fled with all possible haste.” 
‘“¢ When such an ant, returning in fright, met another approach- 
ing, the two would always communicate, but each would 
pursue its own way, the second ant continuing its journey to 
the spot where the first had turned about, and then following 
that example.” There seems nothing to show that the 
“communication ” here was effective. 
From the many anecdotes of dogs calling others to their 
assistance, or bringing others to those who feed them or treat 
them kindly, we may indeed infer the existence of a social 
tendency and of the suggestive effects of behaviour, but we 
cannot derive conclusive evidence of anything like descriptive 
communication. And although domestic animals may learn 
or be taught to associate the words we utter with certain acts 
or things, or may even, in a sense, communicate their wishes 
to us by special modes of behaviour—as in the case of Lord 
Avebury’s poodle, Van,* who was taught to bring cards on which 
such words as “ Food” or “ Out ” were printed, and in that of 
a cat which touches the handle of the door when she wants 
it opened for her,—still, all these are founded on direct 
association, and are in a line with the act of Mr. Thorndike’s 
cat, which licked herself or scratched herself when imprisoned 
in a cage, such act having entered into the association-complex. 
Such intentional communication as is to be found in animals, 
if indeed we may properly so call it, seems to arise by an 
association of the performance of some act in a conscious 
situation involving further behaviour for its complete develop- 
ment. Thus the cat which touches the handle of the door 
when it wishes to leave the room has had experience in which 
the performance of this act has coalesced with a specific 
development of the conscious situation. The case is similar 
when your dog drops a ball or stick at your feet, wishing you 
to throw it for him to fetch. And on these lines may probably 
be interpreted such behaviour as Romanesf thus described :— 
“Terrier A being asleep in my house, and terrier B lying on a 
* «The Senses of Animals,” p. 277. 
t “Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 100. 
