1 64 NATUEE STUDIES 



species of animals vary greatly in the acuteness of 

 their senses. To man, sight is the most important 

 sense, and the same is true of many other animals and 

 most birds. The cat is a representative of another 

 smaller class of animals, whose most perfect organ of 

 sense is the ear; while the dog lives in a field of 

 sensitives, the most important of which are con- 

 tributed by the sense of smell." This point, as dogs 

 afford many of the most striking illustrations of 

 reasoning, or of what looks like reasoning, in animals, 

 must be carefully remembered. Few are aware, we 

 believe, how imperfect a sense is sight with all dogs, 

 as compared with our own sense of sight. We believe 

 that there could not be cited a single instance tending 

 to show that a dog has been able to see as well as a 

 very short-sighted man would, while in the great 

 majority of cases, it can be shown by a few easily- 

 tried experiments that dogs scarcely see at all in the 

 true sense of the word. Our sense of smell is probably 

 not more completely inferior to the same sense with 

 dogs, than is their sense of sight to ours. To return, 

 however, to Herr Finck. After pointing out that the- 

 rat belongs to the class of animals who are guided by 

 the sense of smell, he says, "It is evident, therefore^ 

 that the water-rat in question was led to the window- 

 sill by his nose, which in his case was a more 

 trustworthy guide than his eyes would have been. I 

 do not wish to deny, by any means, that animals have 

 reasoning powers. On the contrary, I am convinced 

 that human and brute intellect differ only in degree,. 



