CHAPTER XXXIV. 



DECEPTION. 



IT has been supposed and alleged that one of the patent 

 differences between man and other animals is the trans- 

 parency of motive, and the simplicity of conduct in the 

 latter ; their freedom from hypocrisy, or guile ; their incapa- 

 bility of disguising their real feelings, or intentions, and 

 their want of desire to conceal or misrepresent them ; their 

 blunt, obvious honesty. Thus Miss Cobbe speaks of the dog 

 having a character ' pure and simple,' with no convention- 

 ality. And no doubt such a description may apply to some 

 dogs; but it certainly does not apply to many, nor is it 

 characteristic of the dog as a species. One of the many errors 

 of novelists and poets, indeed, is regarding the dog as ' in- 

 capable of deceit ' with ' no share of man's falsehood.' 



So far is this from being true that the dog, and certain 

 other animals, are capable of wonderful refinements of hypo* 

 crisy and deceit, those which are associated with outward 

 politeness, and with all the proprieties of behaviour. A white- 

 faced monkey of Belt's, that did not relish certain insect-foods, 

 ' was too polite not to take them when they were offered to 

 him, and would sometimes smell them. But he invariably 

 rolled them up in his hand, and dropped them quietly again 

 after a few moments/ a procedure that has its parallel in 

 the behaviour of even well-bred children with food they dis- 

 like. 



If they do not tell, dogs at least elaborately, deliberately, 

 and successfully act, lies. 



There is a refined hypocrisy in the secret night-coursing 

 or poaching of dogs for their own ends, when they slip 



