Fear of Thunder. 21t 
the thing was devoid of movement, speech, and scent. He 
had only seen his master’s ghost. Some ten minutes after- 
wards, I returned, went up stairs, and called him by name. 
He came slowly from beneath the bed, trembling, licked my 
hand, laid his head on my knee, and uttered 2 moan. It had 
evidently been a great shock to him, from which he did not 
fully recover for some days. 
When this dog was about seven months old, and thoroughly 
accustomed to the sound of the gun, I was crossing some 
fields with him, when a sudden and heavy clap of thunder 
(a sound he had never heard before) broke overhead. He 
stood for a moment transfixed, then rushed wildly off home- 
wards, paying no attention whatever to my call, which he 
was in the habit of obeying implicitly. For a quarter of 
a mile I could see him racing for his life, with his tail 
down, in the utmost terror, never turning his head once 
in answer to my repeated commands to return. From 
that day to this—ten years ago—thunder has been one of 
his unsolved mysteries. Courageous as he is in all things 
else, a lowering sky makes him anxious, and a clap of 
thunder sends him to my side in alarm. Could he under- 
stand what makes the noise—if it had its origin in any of 
the machinations of man—it would have no terrors for him. 
When a train crosses an iron tubular bridge, and we happen 
to be passing beneath, the sound, similar as it is to thunder, 
has no effect on him, because he understands the source of it. 
Dr. Romanes had a setter which was similarly terrified by 
thunder, and on hearing distant artillery practice when out 
shooting, would bolt home; or, if at a great distance from 
home, would endeavour to bury himself, mistaking the sound 
for thunder. No doubt the keeper was right in expressing 
his belief that were the dog taken to learn the cause of the 
noise, his alarm would disappear. No dog will, I am con- 
vineed, ever be “gun shy” if he is made to understand the 
cause of the noise, by first firing a very small charge from 
a gun in his presence, and gradually increasing it up to the 
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