Reason and Instinct. 5581 



hitherto been tried, are simply wonderful. We know, well enough, 

 what education does for our own species : what it does in the case of 

 the lower animals can hardly be said to be less in proportion. To 

 pass by the accounts of the " wonderful fleas," lately, if not still, one of 

 the standard "sights" of the metropolis, and entirely marvellous from 

 the perfect discipline and other results of training induced in what one 

 would unhesitatingly pronounce such unlikely subjects for successful 

 educational experiment; and to pass by, too, the "learned pig," not 

 because unworthy of our attention, or that his feats are irrelevant to 

 the matter at present in hand, — for the converse of this is entirely 

 true, — but because we propose to take our illustrations from another 

 source : we beg attention to the following account of some perform- 

 ances by a "learned dog:" — "The dog was a well-fed, comfortable- 

 looking kind of a bull-terrier, slightly rough about the muzzle. * * * 

 On entering the hall, he cast a kind of hasty look about him, much as 

 you would expect a rogue to do on entering a shop from which he 

 intended to purloin something : however, on the woman producing 

 certain dirty cards, with their corners all worn round by constant use, 

 and marked with numbers, letters, &c, the dog prepared himself for 

 action with a preparatory lick at his lips and a suspicious look at his 

 mistress. The tricks consisted of the usual routine of adding up 

 figures, spelling short words, and finding the first letter of any town 

 named by one of the company. The last trick was very cleverly 

 done, and puzzled us very much, as we — i. e. the grown-up part of his 

 audience — were most intently watching, not him but his mistress, in 

 order to discover what signs she made to guide him in his choice of 

 the cards ; but we could not perceive that she moved hand or foot, or 

 „made any signal whatever. Indeed, the dog seemed to pay little 

 regard to her, but to receive his orders direct from any one who gave 

 them. In fact, his teaching must have been perfect, and his intellect 

 wonderful. Now I daresay I shall be laughed at for introducing an 

 anecdote of a learned dog, and told that it was ' all trick.' No doubt* 

 it was ' all trick,' but it was a very clever one, and showed how capable 

 of education dogs are — far more so than we imagine. For here was a 

 dog performing tricks so cleverly that not one out of four or five 

 persons who were most attentively watching him could find out how 

 he was assisted by his mistress. The dog, too, as the woman said, 

 was by no means one of the kind easiest to teach." — 'Tour in 

 Sutherland,' ii. p. 198. 



* I scarcely assent to the indubitableness of its being " all trick." 



