Natural Telepathy 



The question why our dogs, if they have the 

 faculty of receiving a master's message at a dis- 

 tance, do not use it more obviously, is one that I 

 cannot answer. Perhaps the reason is obvious 

 enough to some of the dogs, which have a sidelong 

 way of coming home from their roving, as if aware 

 they had long been wanted. Or, possibly, the 

 difficulty lies not in the dog, but in his master. 

 Every communication has two ends, one sending, 

 the other receiving; and of a thousand owners 

 there are hardly two who know how properly to 

 handle a dog either by speech or by silence. Still 

 again, one assumption implied in the question is 

 that dogs or any other animals of the same kind 

 are all alike; and that common assumption is 

 very wide of the fact. Animals differ as widely 

 in their instinctive faculties as men in their judg- 

 ments; which partly explains why one setter 

 readily follows his master's word or hand, or en- 

 ters into 'his mood, while another remains hope- 

 lessly dumb or unresponsive. The telepathic fac- 

 ulty appears more frequently, as we shall see, 

 among birds or animals that habitually live in 

 flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its 

 most striking or impressive manifestation between 

 a mother animal and her young, as if some pre- 

 natal influence or control were still at work. 



For example, I have occasionally had the good 



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