Experiments by Dr. Romanes. 213 
force which he had himself communicated, his astonishment 
developed into dread, and he ran to conceal himself under 
some articles of furniture, there to behold at a distance the 
‘uncanny’ spectacle of a dry bone coming to life. 
Taking him into a carpeted room, I blew a soap bubble, and, 
by means of a fitful draught, made it intermittently glide along 
the floor. He became at once intensely interested, but seemed 
unable to decide whether or not the filmy object. was alive. 
At first he was very cautious, and followed it only at a dis- 
tance, but as I encouraged him to examine the bubble mon 
closely, he approached it with ears erect and tail down 
evidently with much misgiving, and the moment it happene 
to move he again retreated. After a time, however, during 
which I always kept at least one bubble on the carpet, he 
began to gain more courage, and, the scientific spirit over- 
coming his sense of the mysterious, he eventually became 
bold enough slowly to approach one of the bubbles and 
nervously touch it with one of his paws; the bubble, of 
course, immediately vanished, and I certainly never saw 
astonishment more strongly depicted. On then blowing 
another bubble, I could not persuade him to approach it for 
a good while, but at last he came, and carefully extended his 
paw as before, with the same result; but, after this second 
trial, nothing would induce him again to approach a bubble, 
and, on pressing him, he ran out of the room, which no coax- 
ing would persuade him to re-enter.” 
A few days after reading Dr. Romanes’ interesting account, 
I tried the same experiment on my retriever, Carlo II. It is 
useful to adda teaspoonful of glycerine to the pint of water 
in making soapsuds for this purpose, as the bubbles last 
longer and bear more rough usage. He behaved at first in 
much the same way, and could make nothing of the trans- 
parent objects which floated along the floor at my lightest 
breath, and vanished at the touch of his nose when I ordered 
him to bring them to me. The “scientific spirit” (as Dr. 
Romanes happily terms it) in him was perhaps stronger than 
