270 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



surpassed all other creatures in human-like feelings ; 

 our periodicals would teem with anecdotes of its 

 marvellous intelligence ; innumerable books would 

 be written on the subject, and the psychological 

 biologists would put it next to man in their systems, 

 one step below him on the throne of life, and far 

 above the general herd of animals. 



It is a fact, that might well stagger belief in the 

 dog's superior intellect, that mammalians so low 

 down as rats and mice when properly treated and 

 trained make attached and intelligent pets ; and 

 that a mouse, or a sparrow, or a snake, or even a 

 creature so small and far down in the organic scale 

 as a flea, may be taught, without very great diffi- 

 culty, to perform tricks which, if performed by a 

 dog, would be pronounced very clever indeed. 

 Most people who witness the pretty performances 

 of small mammals, birds and insects — which are 

 usually up to the level of the dog's performances 

 seen at the music-halls — probably think, if they 

 think anything at all about the matter, that the 

 exhibitor in such cases is the possessor of a mysteri- 

 ous kind of talent by means of which he is able to 

 make these small creatures come for a few moments 

 out of the instinctive groove they move in to do 

 the things he wishes, much as little toy ducks and 

 swans, which are hollow inside, are made to swim 

 round in a basin of water after a stick of loadstone ; 

 only in the case of the exhibitor of animals the 

 loadstone is hidden from the spectators. His 

 trick, or mysterious talent, consists in the know- 



