190 General Notes. [ February, 
merely to elicit the truth, and our result in the present case, 
though negative, is very interesting. I do not, however, regard 
it as by any means conclusive, and should be glad to see it re- 
peated. If the result proved to be the same, it would certainly 
imply very little power of combining even extremely simple ideas. 
I then endeavored to get some insight into the arithmetical condi- 
tion of the dog’s mind. On this subject I have been able to find 
but little in any of the standard works on the intelligence of ani- 
mals. Considering, however, the very limited powers of savage 
men in this respect—that no Australian language, for instance, 
contains numerals even up to four, no Australian being able to 
count his own fingers even on one hand—we cannot be surprised 
if other animals have made but little progress. Still, it is surpris- 
ing that so little attention should have been directed to this sub- 
ject. Leroy, who, though he expresses the opinion that “the na- 
ture of the soul of animals is unimportant,’ was an excellent 
observer, mentions a case in which a man was anxious to shoot a 
crow. “ To deceive this suspicious bird, the plan was hit upon of 
sending two men to the wash-house, one of whom passed on, 
while the other remained; but the crow counted and kept her dis- 
tance. The next day three went, and again she perceived that 
only two retired. In fine, it was found necessary to send five or 
six men to the watch-house to put her out in her calculation. 
The crow, thinking that this number of men had passed by, lost 
no time in returning.” From this he inferred that crows could 
count up to four. Lichtenberg mentioned a nightingale which 
was said to count up to three. Every day he gave it three meal- 
worms, one ata time; when it had finished one it returned for 
another, but after the third it knew that the feast was over. o 
not find that any of the recent works on the intelligence of ant- 
mals, either Buchner, or Peitz or Romanes in either of his books, 
give any additional evidence on this part of the subject. There are 
however various scattered notices. There isan amusing and sug- 
gestive remark in Mr. Galton’s interesting Narrative of an Explorer 
in Tropical South Africa. After describing the Damara’s weak- 
ness in calculations, he says: “ Once while I watched a Damara 
- floundering hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I 
observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other; 
she was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies, 
which had been removed two or three times from her, and 
her anxiety was excessive, as she tried ‘to find out if they were 
all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling 
and running her eyes over them backwards and forwards, but 
could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion O 
counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the 
two as they stood, dog and Damara, the comparison reflected no 
great honor on the man.” But even if Dinah had been clear on 
this subject, it might be said that she knew each puppy personal- 
