36 Chapters on Animals. 



with very Httle help. The last word, feu, and the X to 

 make a plural of it, were given quickly, others not so 

 quickly. The use of the X was clever, but not so surpris- 

 ing as it seemed to us at the moment, for with a dog so 

 well trained as Blanche it would be easy, I should imagine, 

 to associate the word " plural " with the image of the letter 

 X. Very probably Blanche had been taught, in her private 

 lessons, to fetch that letter whenever " phiriel" (plural) 

 was asked for. As for the translation, without going so 

 far in credulity as to fancy that the dog really translated, 

 I may suggest that from long practice there would cer- 

 tainly arise in her mind an association of ideas between 

 cheval and horse, cJiicii and dog, since the words must have 

 been asked for hundreds or thousands of times in that 

 close connection, so that she would at least be better pre- 

 pared to spell dog, after having just spelt cJiien. 



An incident occurred in the course of the evening which 

 showed some understanding of language. A little girl 

 wanted Blanche to come to her, but the dog kept away, 

 on which Madame du Rouil said, " Blanche, allez saluer 

 la petite demoiselle." She immediately went up to the 

 little girl and made a formal obeisance. A lady present, 

 the daughter of a landowner in the Sologne, told us that 

 on her father's estate the shepherd's dogs were taught to 

 go in four directions at the word of command — adroite, 

 d gauche, en avant, and en arrikre. 



The conclusion we arrived at was, that the performance 

 resulted from an extremely clever combination of previous 

 training with scarcely perceptible prompting, that the dogs 

 were really wonderfully educated and knew a great deal, 

 though not so much as they appeared to know. The game 



() droitc . . arriere. Right, left, forward, backward. 

 Alls'., . . . demoiselle. Go and greet the httle lady. 



