DOG — GENEEAL INTELLIGENCE. 
465 
down, crossed to the opposite side, and diligently explored that 
bank. Two or three minutes elapsed, and the party was for 
moving on, when I called their attention to a sudden change in 
the dog’s demeanour. His 4 flag ’ was now up and going from 
side to side in that energetic manner which, as every sportsman 
knows, betokens a hot scent. I then knew that the bird was as 
safe as if it was already in my bag. Away through the heather 
went the waving tail, until twenty or thirty yards from the 
bank opposite to that on which we were strnding there was a 
momentary scuffle; the bird just rose from the ground above 
the heather, the dog sprang into the air, caught it, came away 
at full gallop, dashed across the stream, and delivered it into my 
hands. Need I interpret all this for the experienced sportsman ] 
The dog had learned from long experience in Australia and the 
narrow cahadas in the La Plata that a wounded duck goes down 
stream ; if winged, his maimed wing sticks out and renders it 
impossible for him to go up, so he will invariably land and try 
to hide away from the bank. But if the dog enters at the place 
where the bird fell, the latter will go on with the stream for an 
indefinite distance, rising now and then for breath, and give infi- 
nite trouble. My dog had found out all this long since, and had 
proved the correctness of his knowledge times out of number, 
and by his actions had taught me the whole art and mystery of 
retrieving duck. His object, I say without a doubt, because I 
had numberless opportunities of observing it, was to fling the 
bird and force it to land by cutting it off lower down the stream. 
Then assuming, as his experience justified him, that the bird 
had landed, he hunted each bank in succession for the tra 1, 
which he knew must betray the fugitive. 
As showing in a higher, and therefore rarer degree, 
the ratiocinative faculty in dogs, I may quote a brief ex- 
tract from my British Association lecture : — 
My friend Dr. Bae, the well-known traveller and natu- 
ralist, knew a dog in Orkney which used to accompany his 
master to church on alternate Sundays. To do so he had to 
swim a channel about a mile wide ; and before taking to the 
water he used to run about a mile to the north when the tide 
was flowing, and a nearly equal distance to the south when the 
tide was ebbing, 4 almost invariably calculating his distance so 
well that he landed at the nearest point to the church.’ In his 
letter to me Dr. Bae continues : 6 How the dog managed to 
calculate the strength of the spring and neap tides at their 
