132 ‘The Carnivora. 
mind. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remark that in selecting 
a stone care should be taken to avoid any of so small a 
size as might accidentally be swallowed; while the practice 
of encouraging a dog to carry bricks or very large stones, 
to the possible injury of his teeth, is almost too obviously 
stupid to need condemnation. 
I have one more instance of the power of discrimination 
to give. One very dark sultry night in the summer of 1881, 
a party of ladies and gentlemen were sitting out on the lawn 
of a country house in Kent, where I was a guest, discussing 
the subject of animal intelligence. My Australian fellow 
sportsman, Mr. EH. H. Pringle, who had then just returned from 
India to enjoy a few months’ rest after his arduous labours: 
in organising relief for the famine-stricken natives of the 
Madras Presidency, asked, “Do you think Carlo II. has as 
fine a nose as his grandfather, whom we used to shoot over 
in Queensland? I shall never forget his finding that wounded 
ibis in the ti-tree swamp when you joined me after I had. 
been beating about for it for a quarter of an hour, and at. 
such a distance from the place where it fell.” “He has not. 
yet had any great experience of game,” I replied, “but I 
have no doubt of it. However, let us try him.” 
I then sent one of the boys into the house to shut up the. 
dog and bring me a cricket ball, which, after retaining it 
a few moments in my hand, I threw as far as possible into. 
a thick clump of rhododendron bushes. The dog was now 
let out of the house and given the command to search. He 
could not possibly know what object he was required to- 
find, neither had he any idea of the direction in which to 
seek. In the stillness of the night we could hear that 
short explosive sound of the air escaping from the lungs 
after a long inhalation, betokening the eagerness of his 
quest as he rapidly quartered the ground all around us, and 
presently moved further away. Everyone except my Austra- 
lian friend was confident that he would not find it on £0 
dark a night, and I was offered bets of three to one that 
