Behaviour of Dogs towards Pictures. 219 
representation of any object. This has been subsequently 
found to be merely a pretence, the savage being reluctant to 
express surprise, or any other feeling, in the presence of the 
white man. Animals certainly recognise, and are sometimes © 
deceived by, pictorial representations, though they do not 
always show that their attention has been attracted by them. 
I well remember some years ago being much struck by the 
behaviour of a cat in this respect. I was witnessing the play 
of “Dan’l Druce,” at the Haymarket Theatre. On the left 
of the stage was the front of a cottage, with a real door, and 
at its side an extremely well painted casemented window, half 
open, and surrounded by honeysuckle. One of the performers 
had just finished a soliloquy, and passed off the stage, through 
the cottage door, when a cat rushed on to the stage from the 
right, and, finding its exit barred to the left, suddenly stopped, 
looked anxiously round, ran up to the window, and attempted 
to jump upon the sill. She fell to the boards, amidst the 
laughter and hootings of the audience, looked up again at the 
window, made one more spring at it, and, being again foiled, 
dashed off the stage in the direction whence she had come. 
The cat undoubtedly thought the half-open painted window 
to be what it represented, and the artificial light may have 
contributed to the deception. This unconscious testimony to 
the skill of the scene-painter sinks into insignificance, how- 
ever, beside the following, which some inveterate joker sent 
to a London daily paper: “Would you allow me to notice a 
triumph achieved a few days ago by one of our pavement 
decorators, well known to London pedestrians? He had just 
completed a roast beef well under done, when I saw a starving 
dog lick it, find it to his taste, and try to make off with it. 
In vain the artist defended his picture with his crutch; the 
dog licked it clean away. How hungry that dog must have 
been, or what a rival of Zeuxis and Parrhasius we have in 
our midst!” 
Of more serious interest are two well attested cases given 
by two correspondents of Nature. C. F. Orehore writes: 
