AR TIC U LA TION. 1 2 5 



and, therefore, while he was expecting the signal, I said 

 "Pinafore;" the dog gave a start, and very nearly threw 

 the food off his nose ; but immediately arrested the move- 

 ment, evidently perceiving his mistake. This experiment was 

 repeated many times with these two closely similar verbal 

 sounds, and always with the same result : the dog clearly 

 distinguished between them. I have more recently repeated 

 this experiment on another terrier, which had been taught the 

 same trick, and obtained exactly the same results. 



The well-known anecdote told of the poet Hogg may be 

 fitly alluded to in this connection. A Scotch collie was able 

 to understand many things that his master said to him, and, 

 as proof of his ability, his master, while in the shepherd's 

 cottage, said in as calm and natural tone as possible, " I'm 

 thinking the cow's in the potatoes." Immediately the dog, 

 which had been lying half asleep on the floor, jumped up, ran 

 into the potato-field, round the house, and up the roof to take 

 a survey ; but finding no cow in the potatoes, returned and 

 lay down again. Some little time afterwards his master said 

 as quietly as before, " I'm sure the cow's in the potatoes," 

 when the same scene was repeated. But on trying it a third 

 time, the dog only wagged his tail. Similarly, Sir Walter 

 Scott, among other anecdotes of his bull terrier, says : — "The 

 servant at Ashestiel, when laying the cloth for dinner, would 

 say to the dog as he lay on the mat by the fire, ' Camp, my 

 good fellow, the sheriff's coming home by the ford,' or ' by 

 the hill ; ' and the poor animal would immediately go forth to 

 welcome his master, advancing as far and as fast as he was 

 able in the direction indicated by the words addressed to him." 

 And numberless other anecdotes of the same kind might be 

 quoted.* 



But the most remarkable display of the facult}- in question 

 on the part of a brute which has happened to fall under my 

 own observation, is that which many other English naturalists 

 must have noticed in the case of the chimpanzee now in the 



• See, for instance, Watson's Reasoning Pirujer in Anim.i!^, pp. Ij7-I49i ^nd 

 Mcunicr's La Animaux PerJectibleSf ch. xii. 



