e back again. At last we succeeded in
driving the strange dog away, but he soon returned. Then my husband said
without any alteration of tone or gesture that I was aware of, "Drive
that dog away, Fechter." He immediately rushed at him, and we saw no
more of our troubler. I have long thought that dogs do understand, not
"the precise sounds themselves, but the intention put into them by the
speaker."

AN OBSERVER OF ANIMALS.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

[_Aug. 18, 1883._]

Perhaps I should have said the "Intelligence of Animals," but my
meaning, in relation to the interesting correspondence in your columns,
is no doubt clear. The whole question seems to me to lie in the
proverbial nutshell, and to be solvable by the proverbial common sense.
Dogs' hearing is undoubtedly very keen and accurate, and even subtle;
and dogs have also the power of putting this and that together in a
marvellously shrewd and almost rational fashion. They cannot understand
sentences, but they get hold of words, _i.e._, sounds, and keep them
pigeon-holed in their memory. I might as well argue moral principle
from the fact that my dog Karl, like scores of other dogs, will hold a
piece of biscuit on his nose so long as I say "trust," and will when I
say "paid for" gaily toss his head and catch the biscuit in his honest
mouth, as argue that because he finds eleven tennis-balls among the
shrubs in five minutes, when I say, "We can't find them at all, Karl; do
go and find them, good dog, will you? Find the balls, old
fellow"--therefore he understands my sentence. He simply grasps the
words "find" and "balls," sees the game at a standstill, and reasons out
our needs and his responsibilities, quickened by the expectation of
pattings on the head, pettings, and pieces of biscuit. It is remarkable
that if I try to delude him by uttering "base coin" in the shape of
words just like the real words, as, for example, if I say "Jacob"
instead of "paid for," he makes no mistake, but refuses the morsel,
however delicate, till it _is_ "paid for."

Prominent nouns, participles, verbs, &c., make up the _lingua franca_
that so beautifully links together men and dogs, and now and then men
and horses, their intelligence being quickened by their dumbness, as is
that of deaf and dumb men and women, whose other faculties become so
keenly intensified, and who put this and that together so much more
quickly than do we who have all our faculties. There are