200 NATURE STUDIES. 



like to go birds'-nesting, but might be troubled with 

 regret for the troubles of the parent birds, were it not 

 for this ingenious theory. We all remember the 

 remonstrance of Tom Brown, when East proposed to 

 take all four of the eggs in the nest robbed by Martin, 

 " No, no ! leave one, and then she won't care/' said 

 Tom. " We boys," says the author, " had an idea 

 that birds couldn't count, and were quite content as 

 long as you left one egg. I hope it is so." However 

 this may be with birds (and, on the whole, I incline to 

 think even penguins, "boobies" though sailors call 

 them, have some idea of the number of their eggs), 

 the following story seems to show that dogs can count 

 their young. " To my friend, Dr. Velasquez Level, a 

 respectable physician of this city," writes M. A. Ernst, 

 of Caracas ; " and for several years a resident of the 

 island of Margarita, I am indebted for the following 

 touching instance of the sagacity of a bitch. Her 

 owner, for some reason or other, had destroyed all the 

 female puppies in two successive litters. On her 

 having brought forth a third one, it was found that 

 there were but three male puppies. The bitch, how- 

 ever, was observed to leave her whelps occasionally, 

 and to return some time after. Being followed, she 

 was discovered suckling three female puppies, which 

 she had hidden under some brushwood, undoubtedly 

 with the intention of saving them from the master's 

 cruel hands." This, perhaps, is the most striking of 

 all the cases we have yet considered. It would seem 

 that when the female puppies of the first litter were 



