The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1880-11-11

ceed to tear it with his teeth, or to wor-
ry it, or to leave it disdainfully alone
ss thing not worthy his exalted no.
tice. But the essential acts in his cog
milton of it are the seeing and the
smelling, just as with us they are see
ing and the handling. Note, too, that
while sight in both cases supplies us with
what we may call distant information
about the object, it is smell in the dog,
or handling in ourselves, which gives
lis the ultimate and final knowledge of
what the thing is in itself-of its inner
and lntiEaate nature. If Macbeth sees
an airy dagger, We ask him whether
he can grasp it also; dog, under SINH
lar circumstances, would go up and
take sniff att. Sometimes Anachar-
sis is taken in for moment by his
eyes, like all the rest of us; but when
he has made an olfactory examination
of the doubtful object, his mind is set
at rest imm edlately. A feather moving
in the breeze often imposes upon him
for moment, until sniff reveals the
fact that it is a dead feather only, and
not living butterfly.
Dogs not only smell odors in an oc-
casional way, but they likewise seem
to extrect a recognizable odor from al
most everything, as Professor Groom
Robertson also suggests. Anacharsis
knows me, when l am dressed in
clothes he never saw before, by his
nose alone. Let me get myself up in
theatrical costume, and cover nv face
with mask, yet he will recognize me
at once by some, to us, undiscoverable
perfume. Moreover, he will recognize
the same odor as clinging to my
clothes after they have been taken off.
If shy pebble on the beach, he can
pick out that identical pebble by scent
amongst a thousand others. Even the
very ground on which I have trodden
retains for him some faint memento Of
my presence for hours afterward.
The bloodhound can track a human
scent week cid, which argues a delicacy
of nose almost incredible to human
nostrils. Similarly, too, if you watch
Anacharsis at this moment, you will
see that he runs up and down the path,
shifting away at every stick, stone, and
plant, as though he got separate and
distinguishable scent out of every one
of them. And so he must, no doubt;
for if even the earth keeps perfume
of the person who has walked over it
hours before, surely every object about
us must have some faint smell or 9TH
er, either Of itself or of objects which
have touched it. When we remember
that single grain of musk will scent
hundreds of handkerchiefs So as to be
recognizable even by our defective Or
gans of smell, there is nothing extrav-
agant in the idea that passing creatures
may leave traces, discoverable by keen
er senses, on all the pebbles or straws
which lie across the road. Thus the
smells which make up half of the dogs
picture of the universe are probably
just as continuous and distinct as the
sights which make up the whole pic
ture in our own case, and which doubt
less coaleses with the other half in the
canine mind.
We human beings remember smells
but i'll. The facts mentioned above,
however, show that the dog not only
recognizes, but also remembers, smells
far better than we do. His high dis
elimination of odors is joined to an
equally high power of memory in the
same direction. Ancharsis rem embers
from day to day the smell of my
clothes; he recognizes old friends, after
long absence, by their odor; he recol-
lects and knows the distinctive per-
fumes of every bird or animal. Nay,
more, it is probable that these smell
memories are consolidated into regu-
lar succession in his mind, Just as
sight memories are consolidated in
ours. If you and have once been to
a place, we find our way back again by
remembering the visible aspect of the
road, the various streets and turnings,
the trees and houses, the hills and val
leys. But if Anacharsis has once been
to place, and goes there again, you
will see him taking notes as he runs
along, not with his eyes, but with his
nose. You will see him give hearty
Whit of recognition at every corner, or
take dubitative long breath at an un-
certain cross-road. It has long been
known that dogs conveyed by train to a
strange place, or else carried in a COW
cred casket, have often found their way
home again at once. and without DIFF
ficulty. Now Mr.. A. r. Wallace sug-
gests that they probably do SO by observ-
ing and rem membering the smells they
have met with on the way; and Pro-
fessor Robertson further points out
that such memory is the sense of
smellin dog is most likely an unbroken
whole. "1he dogs world" he says,
"may be, in the main, a world Of sights
and smells continuous in space In
other words, while you and I think of a
given field as a mass of visible objects,
Anacharsis very probably thinks of it
as mass of smells. Most likely it
seems no more remarkable to n dog
that he can remember whole string
of odors in their regular order than it
seems remarkable to us that we can
remember our way from one point to
another by means of q whole string of
visible objects, observed and recollect-
ed as signs Of the road.
Again, when the dog thinks Of any
thing, its smell must be main
part of his thinking about
it. He must remember q man always
to a great extent as q smellable thing.
Indeed, the dog even dreams about
smells, as we may zee by his shifting
and growing in his sleep. If you watch
him narrowly, you can notice that at
one time he seems to dream of hunt
ing, puts his nose down against the
hearth rug, and draws in his breath
with a kind of quiet satisfaction, as if
engaged in silently tracking down his
game; while at other times he seems to
dream about an enemy, when he may
be observed to take sharp snorts of q
convulsive kind, and to yelp angrily as
he raises his head little from the
ground, in the half assumed attitude of
battle.
These examples lead us on to the
fact that smells must also be largely
connected IN the canine mind with all
kinds of appropriate emotions. s me
of them must rouse associated feelings
Of devotion to a master, of affection, Of
anger, Of dislike, Of excitement, Or Of
fear. The least odor of rat or rabbit
will set terrier frantic with the hunt
ing fever; the spoor Of negro win
drive a hlnOd.hnilnd Wild With the IN