260 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



in at least one case) at once try the other direction. 1 In these 

 cases, no doubt, previous experience has an undue influence, /.*., 

 we get incipient habit, but the habit explains only the wrong part 

 of the act, not the effort to correct it. 



Neither impulse guided by habit nor random searching seem 

 adequately to explain the way in which a dog looks for his master. 

 Thus, in one of my experiments, a dog is held at the back of the 

 house, and sees his master go in through the back door and re- 

 appear at the dining-room window, which looks in that direction. 

 After trying to follow his master through the back unsuccess- 

 fully, because the door is shut he makes off round two corners 

 to the front door, and so into the dining-room. He had neve*r 

 been in this room before, but has once been from the back into 

 the house by the front door. 2 The experiment is once repeated, 

 and the dog remembers this route five days later. On arriving at 

 the house on this occasion, he is taken through a side door into 

 the dining-room, and then out at the back. He first finds his 

 way in through the front as mentioned, and then for a further 

 trial both front and back door are shut. The dog goes to and 

 fro from one to the other, 8 and then suddenly goes right off round 

 the house and in by the side door a route which he had never 

 taken before. There may have been an element of chance in this 

 success, 4 but, on the whole, we seem to have a series of acts 

 dictated by the desire to find the master operating on the remem- 

 brance of the modes of entrance. The same interpretation seems 

 to apply to one more instance which may be given. 



A little fox-terrier had once found her way from the back of 

 the house through the front door into the dining-room to her 

 master. I then took her out again, the master remaining where 

 he was, to the same place outside, closing the front door behind 

 me. After trying the front door several times, she at last set off 

 round a further corner of the house, and found the side door, 

 through which she got into the house, and found her master. The 

 total time was 2 minutes 20 seconds. She had indeed traversed 

 the whole of this route before, but under quite different circum- 

 stances, for she had come round from the back to find her master 

 in the garden outside the side door, and from thence I had taken 

 her away from him through the side door to show her the 

 dining-room, upon which followed the two experiments that I 

 have mentioned. 



1 This part of the experiment was unfortunately spoilt in several 

 instances by masters calling their dogs prematurely. 



2 The room itself he may have found by scent, chance, or possibly 

 " direction sense." 



3 For some reason he did not go the whole way to the back door. 



4 But it was repeated immediately afterwards without any hesita- 

 tion. 



