Animal Anecdotes 
thrown over, ‘ Germinal ”’ 
taught to pick it up and place it in a 
vertical position. He opens a desk with 
his mouth, takes out a handkerchief and 
offers it to his master, and then, rearing 
on his hind legs, he shuts the lid of 
the desk by a well-directed kick. He 
sits at table with his master, begs like a 
dog, blows out a candle, opens a door 
with his foot and shuts it again, and 
can even trace letters on the black- 
board. Dr. Roubet’s method is one 
of suggestion, im which he avoids 
all violent means and strives, on the 
contrary, to raise the intellectual level 
of the animal. He depends for his 
results on the animal's intelligence, on 
its initiative, and on its memory, and 
he maintains that, apart from the 
faculty of speech, the brain of a horse 
is about equal in capacity to that of 
a dull, backward child. 
D/O 
Ixy Central Borneo, when dogs wish to 
cross a river they have 
Wits and : : : 
Pace versus considerable difficulty in 
Jaws and doing so owing to the 
Teeth. : 
fact that crocodiles find 
them very toothsome morsels. They 
therefore collect on the bank and make 
a terrific noise by barking and yelping 
as loudly as they can. The crocodiles 
has been epee 
a 
are attracted to the spot by the noise, 
and the dogs, as soon as they see that 
their bait is successful, set off up the 
bank at top speed and cross higher up. A 
Borneo traveller states that he has watched this 
manceuvre times without number. 
Yo 
M. Caminue Spiess, in the “ Revue Scientifique,” 
Sagacity Proves that snails not only have 
in intelligence, but also recognise 
Snails. social duties. It appears that a 
Swiss snail-breeder of L’Isle, in the canton of 
Vaud, kept 50,000 snails in an enclosure sur- 
rounded by a wall some 8 feet high, and 
surmounted by a chevaux-de-frise of small spikes 
so arranged as to check the escape of the snails 
by pricking their foot and forcing a retreat. But 
the snails escaped in spite of such precautions, 
and careful observation revealed that the manner 
of their escape was to join their forces and make 
a bridge of shells, whereby, one at a time, their 
fellows could get over the forbidding spikes with 
“They collect on the banks and make a terrific noise by barking 
and yelping as loudly as they can.” 
impunity. How this was contrived: whether 
there was a self-sacrificmg snail that stayed 
behind; or whether the top of the wall was a 
favourite basking-place and some of the snails 
were quick to take advantage of the situation 
and climb out over the backs of their fellows— 
these are matters which the spectators could not, 
of course, decide. 
D/O 
A poG was lying on a chair in the kitchen when 
something without attracted his 
attention, so he got up to see 
what it was. The window, how- 
ever, was covered with steam, so that he was 
unable to see through it; he therefore licked 
the glass and made a suitable peep-hole. This 
he did so deliberately, and so evidently with 
purpose, that there can be little doubt that 
mental action preceded the physical. 
Do Dogs 
Reason ? 
