e of by circus
trainers to its fullest extent. But such signs, I have discovered, are
without exception, of a far coarser sort than those we have here
described, and they can be instantly detected by the practised observer.
Nor was it known to professional trainers that it was possible for the
master to direct a horse to any point of the compass simply by means of
the quiet posture of the body. For this reason it was believed that no
signs could possibly be involved in the color-selecting-tests (cf.
Supplement III, page 255). In this we have the support of some of our
experts, as is witnessed by the following extract from a letter of his
Excellency Count G. Lehndorff, one of our best hippological authorities,
who at one time carefully examined the Osten horse. (The letter was
addressed to Mr. Schillings, and I have permission of both gentlemen to
use it). In it he says: "If the author's statements, in which you also
have concurred, are correct, and if, as a matter of fact, the horse
really does react to such minute movements as are absolutely
imperceptible to the human observer, then we have indeed something quite
new, for hitherto no one would have believed that horses can perceive
movements which man cannot. But I am even more surprised by the
explanation of the color-selecting feats.--This too, is something
absolutely new. One would not have deemed it possible that a horse could
do anything of the kind simply by using the posture of a man's body as a
cue to which it could react with such precision."

And yet, even though both facts were new concerning the horse and had
not hitherto been proven experimentally regarding any other species,
nevertheless something of this sort has been known concerning the dog
for some time. His ability to single out an object upon which his master
had intently fixed his gaze, was made the basis of a special form of
training, called "eye-training,"[56] nearly one hundred years ago. The
dog was taught to focus constantly upon his master's eyes and then upon
command to select the object which he, the master, had been fixating.
Such a dog has been described by the naturalists A. and K. Mueller.[57]
But the master of the dog, unlike Mr. von Osten, would not permit anyone
else to work with the animal, and the two brothers, recognizing the
trick, were justified in adding that "the whole affair aimed at
deceiving the public, and the dog's reputation was but a means of making
money". The success