Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/199

 Rh By this artifice, which had never been taught them by man, the pack when hunting for themselves would doubtless often secure a meal, preceded by the delight of killing, without the wearisome process of tiring out a hare.

Now it appears to me that this habit of the leader of the pack—a habit which, from its similarity to what has been observed in the case of such widely separated Canidæ as the dingo, wolf, and hyena dog, is one that is traceable to very remote wild ancestors—is the basis of that peculiar talent in the pointer or setter which adds to the piquancy of a day's shooting and to the weight of the bag.

Let us endeavor to look at the part played by a pointer in the light of cynomorphic theory.

"Ponto" goes out with his pack (often a very scratch one), his comrades walking on two legs instead of four like ordinary dogs, and carrying their tails, or organs of a somewhat similar aspect, over their shoulders. The pack separate and advance in line, he being appointed to explore in the van and to search the turnips or rape for a tell-tale whiff of the scent of game. The covey is detected, but, being a co-operative and loyal dog, he does not rush in and try to catch for himself. He therefore stands and waits for his partners to perform their share of the stratagem. All that he has to do is to show them in an unmistakable manner that there is quarry worth having in front of his nose. The pack advance, he generally taking careful note of their approach, the covey rises, the "tails" of the bipedal dogs explode, and Ponto is rewarded by holding in his mouth a palpitating mass of feathers, with perhaps the stimulating flavor of blood, and by a public intimation that the community or pack approve of his conduct and esteem him, what he dearly loves to be thought, "a good dog."

When we come to consider the very long period during which dogs have been domesticated and under the influence of deliberate selection, it is surprising to find how much in their behavior they resemble their wild brethren. The rule seems to hold good here as elsewhere, that the outward form is much more plastic to the influence of environment than the character and mental habits which are dependent upon the nervous system. Thus, although the deer-hound and pug are so different in external appearance that it is difficult to believe that they are related, yet if we watch them we find that their mental and moral qualities are of a similar cast. The fine gray wolf in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, and the performing wolves recently exhibited in London, when in a good humor, had precisely the same methods of expressing pleasure as the domestic dogs, and would wag their tails and gambol about in a manner which made one doubt for the