The Portland daily press., 1893-08-22
ANIMALS AS ARiTHMETIclANs.
Dogs and Horses That Excel Polynesians
at Addition.

A Russian physician has been making
some curious experiments to find out
how far animals can count. He declares
that the crow can count up to ten, and
is thereby superior in arithmetic to GER
tain Polynesian tribes of men who cannot
get beyond five or six.
The Doctor had dog which was ac-
customed to bury bones it found, each
one in separate place in the garden.
One day, wishing to test the animals
power of counting, the master gave it
no less than twenty-six bones, which
were all buried,s one after another, in
special hiding places. The next day the
dog was given no more bones, and SO he
was forced to dig up the old ones.
Without hesitating he uncovered ten,
and then came to stop. After whining
and running about as il in state of
great perplexity, new idea seemed to
enter the canine's brain, and again the
dog began to dig up the hidden bones,
and this time he added nine to the total
number before his memory failed him
again. Then there was second period
of whining, after which the seven re-
naming bones were found with some
difficulty. The Doctor concluded from
this that 26 was too large number for
the dog to take in all at once, and that
he had been obliged to remember the
bones, as it were, in three shorter series
The cat, it would seem, is even less of
an arithmetician than the dog, not being
able to count as far as ten. Before Civ
ing the cat its regular piece OF meat the
Doctor would put it under the animal $
nose and then withdraw it five times IN
succession, and it was only the sixth time
that he would give the cat the morsel:
This number was repeated every day until
the cat grew perfectly accustomed to wait
ing five times, but would spring forward
of It's own accord at the sixth presenta-
ton. Having thus demonstrated that
pussy was able to remem Der up TO SIX
the Doctor tried seven, but without sue
cess. AS soon as he attempted to per-
form the experiment with higher num-
bers the cat became confused and would
lump forward for the meat at the wrong
time. The number six, therefore, would
seem to be the limit of the cats counting.
Not less interesting were similar ex-
periments with horses. In the village OF
Pekoe the Doctor found peasant horse
which was used for blowing, and which
had acquired the habit of counting the
burrows, and stopping to rest regularly
at the twentieth. So confident was the
plowman of the accuracy OF the horse s
calculation that always at the end OF
the day be used to estimate the amount of
work done, not by counting the burrows
himself, but by simply rememb ering the
number of times the horse had stoppe d
to rest. In another village the Doctor
found another horse, which was able to
count the mile posts along the way, and
which had been trained by it's master ito
stop for feed whenever they had covered
25 versts. One day they tried the horse
over a road where three false mile posts
had been put up in between the real
ones, and sure enough the horse, de-
ceived by this trick, stopped for his oats
at the end of the 20 versts instead of
going the usual 25
The same horse was accustomed to be-
ing fed every day at the stroke of noon.
The Doctor observed that whenever the
clock struck any hour the horse would
stop and prick up his ears as if counting.
If he heard 10 he would trot off content
eddy to be fed but if he thel's were fewer
strokes than twelve he woult. go on work.
ing resignedly. The experiment was
made by striking twelve strokes at the
wrong time, whereupon the horse started
at the wrong time, in spite of the fact
that he had been fed only an hour before
This shows that little kno Wedge
may be bad thing for horses as we'll as
men. Washington Star.