DOG-STORIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The border-line between human Reason and the Instinct of Animals is so faintly traced, that many of us can hardly see that it exists. The story which, with your favour, I hope to read in the Spectator goes far to show that any difference is but one of degree. I have just returned from a tour about the Loire in company with my wife and son, who had with him his favourite terrier, half-fox, half-bull. On August 6th, at 6.30 p.m., we reached Le Mans, and drove in the hotel omnibus to the Hotel de la Boole d'Or, on the spacious Place de la Republique. By the time we had been shown our rooms, &c., table d'hôte was ready, and thus it was S o'clock and growing dusk before any one of the four bad set foot in the streets. We strolled into what was a suburb of the large town, when we missed Mike,' who was frightened from us by the discharge of three or four rockets, for he is terribly "gun-shy." Several roads diverged from the spot, and we separated and sought him anxiously in all of these. Finding no trace of him, we agreed to return to the hotel, my companions taking the road by which we bad come, though we felt sure that Mike' would not again expose himself to the dreadful fireworks, whilst I followed another street which brought me to the place on the side quite away from our hotel. Here on the outskirts of a large crowd, brought together by a vigorous band in a café, I saw the dog scouring to and fro as if he were on the scent of a rabbit; my familiar whistle brought him to me in a second ; I secured him with my handkerchief, and we met the others just in front of the hotel. As we all entered, the mistress exclaimed : " Oh ! I am so glad you have found your dog ! While you have been out he has twice come to the house, and the second time he ran upstairs to your rooms " (which were on the second floor), "and each time he scampered oat again into the street."
Can anything short of Reason have guided such conduct? The dog loses his friends in a town entirely new and strange to him ; he finds his way back to the only place he knows, and, presumably, by another route,—that might be called instinct if you will. But he does not find them as he expected, and he leaves the house to look for them ; he does not find them in the town, and he again returns to the house, and this time goes up to the second floor of a large hotel ; disappointed there, he rushes into the streets once more, and is at last dis- covered hunting energetically amongst the crowd. What thought and calculation are apparently shown ; and how can these exist without reason in its fullest sense ?—I am, Sir, &e.,
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