Communication between Dogs Ig! 
companion and ask him to join him in going to meet me. 
The only outward and visible sign of communication was a 
momentary contact of the nose of the informer with the nose 
of the dog to be informed. Whether this conveyed any 
specific information, such as “There’s a dog coming down 
the road,” or “My master is in sight,” or merely a general 
intimation that something interesting to both was to be seen, 
may be an open question; but there can be no doubt, I 
think, that specific information is often given by one dog 
to another, and that solely by sign language. 
Thus, Mr. E. C. Buck, writing to Nature, 14th August, 
1873, says: “A civilian of the N.W.P. told me of an occur- 
rence he witnessed in Oudh. He saw two wolves standing 
together, and, shortly after noticing them, was surprised to 
see one of them lie down in a ditch, and the other walk 
away over the open plain. He watched the latter, which 
deliberately went to the far side of a herd of antelopes 
standing in the plain, and drove them, as a sheep dog would 
a flock of sheep, to the very spot where his companion lay 
in ambush. As the antelopes crossed the ditch, the con- 
cealed wolf jumped up, seized a doe, and was joined by his 
colleague.” 
The same stratagem has been observed in the case of 
two sheep-killing dogs—a small one driving them to the 
‘ambush where his larger confederate lay ready to pounce 
on the victim. When two individuals thus perform different 
acts for the attainment of an object, there must be some 
means, of which we are ignorant, of communicating the 
common plan, and such actions imply high intelligence. As 
there are some savages who can carry on long conversations 
and concert plans solely by means of signs almost imper- 
ceptible to us, it is not impossible—not even improbable— 
that animals may possess a simple gesture language, which, 
from want of close observation, we do not detect. 
When two dogs meet, and more particularly when two 
of opposite sexes meet, a great deal of facial gesture goes 
