E. M. CAMPBELL—ON INSTINCT. 
141 
some one might be approaching, and a few minutes afterwards the 
keepers passed. I have never told this story without some one 
exclaiming, “Oh! wise dog to tell his master!” but it is the 
master and not the dog who deserves credit for intelligence. The 
incident seems to me capable of explanation as follows. Most dogs 
like the pursuit of game, and some of them are confirmed poachers. 
In all probability the one in question had often, while sporting by 
himself, come across a keeper, who had inflicted slight shot-wounds 
upon him, or at any rate frightened him. He would thus know what 
to expect when he heard any one approaching, and if alone would 
run away as a cat does when caught robbing a table. In the case 
just mentioned, the dog, instead of making good his escape, returned 
to his master, which is exactly what he would have done on any 
ordinary occasion. The above hypothesis is to a certain extent 
confirmed by the observation of others and myself in this respect, 
viz. that some dog-poachers when out for a walk with their masters 
will enter a wood, and invariably return to heel very shortly after 
the report of even a distant gun. Further enquiry leads me to 
think that some poachers owe their immunity from capture to close 
observation of the behaviour of their dogs. 
Some years since I entered my room with a friend, and 
saw a weevil walking across the mantelpiece, when I called out 
“Halt!” The insect stopped, and my friend thought it was a 
trained pet, but it would have done the same thing had I said “Go 
on!”, for the habit of this group is to remain still on the occurrence 
of a sudden noise. Field-naturalists frequently offer explanations 
for phenomena which puzzle philosophers, and can equally well 
enter into the spirit of Montaigne, who when playing with a cat 
suddenly thought that the cat might he playing with him; in other 
words, she might be quite aware that her business and sport were 
to catch mice, and might he also conscious of her condescension in 
playing with a man, whose actions had no relation to her primary 
objects in life, and whom she therefore regarded as inferior to her¬ 
self in every way except in physical force. The cat might he 
excused for thus estimating the intelligence of man by a cat- 
standard, inasmuch as man is apt to consider the habits of animals 
in their relation to him , and not to themselves. But although the 
sphere for the exercise of the energies of man is more extended 
than that of other animals, he is no exception to the physiological 
bond which unites the whole animal kingdom, nor to the psychical 
bond which extends wherever there is consciousness. When we 
are well we walk erect—muscular energy is active. The dog cocks 
his tail from the same cause ; while the opposite condition involves 
the drooping tail, as well as the bent human gait. Landseer could 
not draw with half-closed eyes and unraised ears the small dog in 
“ Dignity and Impudence,” and the actor who plays with firmly- 
set muscles the discomfited Shylock as he says, “I am not well,” 
commits a physiological error. The dog that runs away tucks his 
tail tightly between his legs to keep it as far from the pursuer as 
possible, and a somewhat similar prudence has become habitual 
