52 SAVAGE SURVIVALS 



peaceful life among men. The hunting instinct 

 in dogs is an instinct which has gone out of use 

 (except in dogs used for hunting) but which has 

 not yet gone out of existence. 



The collie is the dog used in herding and hand- 

 ling sheep. The collie has been so changed since 

 its association with man that it ordinarily defends 

 and loves the sheep in its charge. But once in a 

 while this gentle being is liable to go on a spree 

 of ^ ^ sheep killing. ' ' It does not eat its victims nor 

 drink their blood. It simply cuts the big blood 

 vessels of the neck, and leaves its victim to bleed 

 to death. The collie does not kill because it is hun- 

 gry. It kills for exercise. It kills because the 

 wheels of its nature have gone round in a cer- 

 tain way so long that it can't stop them. The 

 impulse to kill, so strong in the wolf, has become 

 w^eak in the collie from long disuse. But occasion- 

 ally this old instinct mounts to the high places 

 in the nature of this canine, and for the time being 

 it is a wolf again. 



If you will watch a dog when it starts to lie 

 down, you will see it go thru a performance 

 which has survived from the time when, as a wild 

 creature, it used to make its bed among the 

 grasses. The dog does not lie right dowTi without 

 any preliminaries. It turns round one or more 

 times in the place where it is going to lie before 

 actually lying down. Darwin says he has seen a 

 dog turn round twenty times before finally set- 

 tling doA\Ti in a reclining position. Darwin thinks 



