er he does them by
chance, or of set purpose, admits of doubt.

The cunning of a fox is as much a part of his inherited nature as is
his fleetness of foot. All the more notable fur-bearing animals, as
the fox, the beaver, the otter, have doubtless been persecuted by man
and his savage ancestors for tens of thousands of years, and their
suspicion of traps and lures, and their skill in eluding them, are the
accumulated inheritance of ages.

In denying what we mean by thought or free intelligence to animals, an
exception should undoubtedly be made in favor of the dog. I have else
where said that the dog is almost a human product; he has been the
companion of man so long, and has been so loved by him, that he has
come to partake, in a measure at least, of his master's nature. If the
dog does not at times think, reflect, he does something so like it
that I can find no other name for it. Take so simple an incident as
this, which is of common occurrence: A collie dog is going along the
street in advance of its master's team. It comes to a point where the
road forks; the dog takes, say, the road to the left and trots along
it a few rods, and then, half turning, suddenly pauses and looks back
at the team. Has he not been struck by the thought, "I do not know
which way my master is going: I will wait and see"? If the dog in such
cases does not reflect, what does he do? Can we find any other word
for his act? To ask a question by word or deed involves some sort of a
mental process, however rudimentary. Is there any other animal that
would act as the collie did under like circumstances?

A Western physician writes me that he has on three different occasions
seen his pointer dog behave as follows: He had pointed a flock of
quail, that would not sit to be flushed, but kept running. Then the
dog, without a word or sign from his master, made a long detour to the
right or to the left around the retreating birds, headed them off, and
then slowly advanced, facing the gunner, till he came to a point
again, with the quail in a position to be flushed. After crediting the
instinct and the training of the dog to the full, such an act, I
think, shows a degree of independent judgment. The dog had not been
trained to do that particular thing, and took the initiative of his
own accord.

Many authentic stories are told of cats which seem to show that they
too have profited in the way of added intelligence by their long
intercourse with man. A