164 CKIME AND CRIMINALITY. 



depredations, gives a wary glance round to see if it be free 

 from observation (Watson). 



Dogs, cats, monkeys and other animals, when caught in 

 the act of theft, show their sense of detection or conviction 

 in evil doing by their abashed, or fear-stricken, sometimes 

 apologetic, look in man's presence: by their shrinking away 

 from before him, their skulking or hiding from him, their 

 avoidance of him in every possible way. Houzeau mentions 

 a siamang that, on detection in theft, stole out of the room. 

 An Indian crow after stealing an egg, eating it and dropping 

 the empty shell, * slunk away abashed, as if detected ' 

 (' Chambers's Journal '). 



The expression of shame is not always confined to the 

 moment of detection ; so that it is not the mere annoyance 

 of being found out in flagrante delicto that gives rise to the 

 phenomena just mentioned. For dogs at least show their 

 sense of shame sometimes long after the event, and when it 

 is only referred to orally and casually by man in their 

 presence. 



Nor is guilt, in any form or degree, universally felt. 

 There are many animals, just as there are many men, that 

 are perfectly callous, indifferent, apathetic, non-sensitive. 

 They commit the most cruel crimes without compunction, 

 without any idea of their enormity, or of their being crimes 

 at all. In such cases, as is pointed out in another chapter, 

 there is probably a want of the moral sense or conscience, a 

 moral, if not also intellectual, defect, which renders the 

 animal or man irresponsible. 



Young dogs resemble children in their enjoyment of 

 doing what is, and what they know to be, forbidden, 

 apparently just because it is forbidden. Hence they mani- 

 fest evident delight self-conceit even in their escapades, 

 their achievements in wrong-doing (Cobbe, Walsh). And, 

 just in the same way, they persist in doing what is forbidden 

 and in that sense what is wrong in other words, they repeat 

 their offence in sheer wantonness, from a spirit of mischief 

 or perversity. 



In order to elude detection, c Yarrow ' took a circuitous 

 route home with his booty by night, and other dogs exer- 



