ANECDOTES OF DOGS. (The Month.)

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 221, 9 October 1873, Page 2

ANECDOTES OF DOGS. (The Month.)

A vteitee in the Quarterly Review adduces many pretty, instances of affection, sagacity, and cunning in dogs. A dog deserted by his master will take some cast-off garment and lie on it for days ; the sight of the cleaning of guba .preparatory to the 12th of August fills him with rapturous anticipations of sport ; the taking up a hat or, stick makes, him leap for joy. As it is probable he has dreamt in which, are reproduced the impressions made on, his memory, so it is probable that when waking he may follow imaginary scenes, which the memorative faculty, or hope, or feari may depict on the imagination. He is said to distinguish' at a glance a. tramp or a swell-mob's man from a gentleman, eVqn in J>he most soiled attire. He will steal away unperceiyed on a poaching expedition, perhaps invite a serviceable, companion ' to assist him, and, when all is over, steal back into tlie,*kennel, and sometimes eyen wriggle baok into his collar. * A do& which once saw its master drop a gold coin on the" floor, is, related to have picked it up, and to hare sat the whole day with it in his mouth, refusing to eat anything till his master returned for fear he should drop the treasure. A, poodle • P u PPy» unable to resist temptation, stole a pigeon out of a pie, and to aroid detection, filled up the hole with a bit of damp inky sponge taken from a writing-table. 'A dogTbas. been known to simulate a quarrel with another dog outside 1 a door into which to gain admission, because a real quarrelthe day before had led to that result. The story of tha"*dog, which being discarded by its master, was seen deliberately to c stand gazing at the rushing waters of the Ix>ire, then pain- . fully lift himself on his crippled legs, and leap into the_. water, and when a stick was stretched, out to him, gave a loo£ of despair, turned his head away,' and floated, down without^ an effort to Bare himself, has a little of poetry in it, but we. are not prepared to deny anything except the consciousness, i.e., real deliberation or the intention of the act. With this exception, there is npthing heip, or in mujsh more wonderful stories of the cunning and affection of animals, than is at all inconsistent with the theorjr we lay dow^v The combinations qf direct perception, feeling, memorative and '{estimative power, and adaptation^ to the eyer changing circumstances of their life, are qjily Bejcond.,to the vacations of operations of intellectual life. The difference is that lq animals the perception is of the individual, apd part^gujar' good or evil, and that the operations that lead to th,e, jipn^erla] variety* of the acts which so much ,res,e J mble men, *re without reflex consciou.sn.ess, whereas the human mind, perceives the goou and evil in the abstract at least implicitly, and u capabfe |of conscious reflection in its acts. And if we wish to realize in soma sense the state of beaijts, we havA flnjy to remember that many of our most complicated acts., wjbich in^theiwielvei seem, to require a long train of thought, may b^ performed unconsciously by the mere, force .pf>.ha,bij;. What "la thu*, an occasional state in. us, is in a certain sense tjhe |normal state of beasts, who have not the power but for whom nature supplies that concatenation of sensitive operations' wiiicsh in us minister to our 'intellect"! Ibut would have been sufficient for our animal nature and ore all that is given, to, beasts. *