i86 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



hearing was not at all involved. If Hans had been deaf 

 he would, none the less, hav^promptly obeyed the com- 

 mands. Blind and near-sighted horses try to overcome 

 their deficiency by means of the sense of hearing, and 

 hence show a pronounced play of ears. In the case of 

 j the Osten horse, however, attention has been diverted from 

 auditory stimuli in the process of habituation to visual 

 signs, and as a result ear-movements are almost com- 

 pletely wanting. One is not of course permitted to deny 

 a priori that perhaps some associations might have 

 been formed between objects and the vocal signs belong- 

 ing to them, e. g., between the colored cloths and the 

 names of the colors if both had been presented together 

 oftener than was the case. 



But there is a dearth of reliable observation as to how 

 far auditory associations of this sort may be established 

 in horses. Usually the following is cited. Horses learn 

 to start ofif, to stop, and to turn about in response to calls. 

 They are able to distinguish properly between the ex- 

 pressions " right " and " left ", or equivalent terms. 

 Upon command they will start to walk, to trot or to run. 

 And they also know the name by which they are usually 

 called. All authors agree that cavalry horses understand 

 the common military commands ; one writer even avers 

 that they excel the recruits in this respect.®^ Some be- 

 lieve that in riding schools the horses pay closer heed to 

 the calls of the riding-master than to the control of un- 

 practised riders, even when the two are at variance with 

 one another.'"* My experience with the Osten horse and 

 a number of other pertinent observations aroused in 

 me the suspicion that much that is called or spoken in 

 the process of managing a horse may possibly be just so 

 much labor lost. In consequence I made a series of 



