CH. XXXIII. A LEARNED DOG. 199 



spelling short words, and finding the first letter of 

 any town named by one of the company. This last 

 trick was very cleverly done, and puzzled us very 

 much, as we— z. e. the grown up part of his au- 

 dience — were most intently watching, not him, but 

 his mistress, in order to discover what signs she 

 made to guide him in his choice of the cards ; but 

 we could not perceive that she moved hand or foot, 

 or made any signal whatever. Indeed, the dog 

 seemed to pay little regard to her, but to receive 

 his orders direct from any one who gave them. 

 In fact, his teaching must have been perfect, and 

 bis intellect wonderful. 



Now, I dare say I shall be laughed at for intro- 

 ducing an anecdote of a learned dog, and told that 

 it was " all trick." No doubt it was " all trick ;"' 

 but it was a very clever one, and showed how 

 capable of education dogs are — far more so than we 

 imagine. For here was a dog performing tricks so 

 cleverly, that not one out of four or five persons 

 who were most attentively watching him could find 

 out how he was assisted by his mistress. The dog, 

 too, as the woman said, was by no means of the 

 kind easiest to teach. She told us that a poodle or 

 spaniel would be far quicker in learning than a 

 terrier : but I strongly suspect that neither of these 

 kinds would have courage sufiicient to stand the 



