EDUCABILITY OF ANIMALS. 
477 
menting upon all the circumstances, the learned Judge left it to the Jury to 
say whether, on the one hand, it was a libel ; and, secondly, whether, pre- 
suming they believed the facts, they considered the circumstances proved, 
under the particular situation of the parties, a sufficient justification for the 
publication in question. 
The jury retired, it then wanting about five minutes to eight o’clock ; and 
in a quarter of an hour returned a verdict for the plaintiff — Damages i?200. 
THE EDUCABILITY OF ANIMALS. 
This is a subject on which, as far as we are aware, no attention 
has been bestowed in the way of scientific investigation ; yet 
such illustrations of it have been given, as would seem to point 
it out as a rich field for the philosophical naturalist. Regarding 
the endowments of animals as we generally do, it would be 
scarcely possible for us to believe some of the anecdotes which 
have been related on this point, if they were not, in general, 
authenticated in such a way as to preclude scepticism. 
In the latter part of the last century, one Bisset, a native of 
Perth, by trade a shoemaker, having applied himself with great 
perseverance to the teaching of animals, succeeded in making a 
set of cats play in harmony on the dulcimer, uniting their voices 
to the tones of the instrument; and this singular orchestra was 
exhibited, to the perfect satisfaction of the public, for a succes- 
sion of nights, in the Haymarket theatre. He it was who trained 
that “ learned pig,” of which our fathers used to speak so highly, 
the animal having been exhibited in every part of the empire. 
At a somewhat earlier period, a Saxon peasant boy trained a dog 
to the pronunciation of words. The boy had observed in the 
dog’s voice an indistinct resemblance to certain sounds of the 
human voice, and was thus prompted to endeavour to teach him 
to speak. The animal was three years old at the beginning of 
his instructions, a circumstance which must have been unfavour- 
able to the object; yet, by dint of great labour and perseverance, 
in three years the boy had taught it to articulate thirty words. 
It used to astonish its visitors by calling for tea, coffee, chocolate, 
&c. ; but it is proper to remark, that it required the words to be 
pronounced by its master beforehand, and it never appeared to 
become quite reconciled to the exhibitions which it was forced to 
make. The learned Leibnitz reported on this wonderful animal 
to the French Academy, attesting that he had seen the dog and 
heard it speak ; so that there does not appear the slightest 
ground for doubting the fact, such as it was. All doubt on the 
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