The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-26
TEACHING FACULTY IN ANIMALS.
The Dog Does Not Seem to Have 1t,
Cats and Rats May.
From the Buffalo Courier.

From the Bumalo courier.
In the course Of a sermon the other day
one of our clergy very happily pointed
his moral by contrasting the intelligence
of the brute with that of man. you
can teach a dog almost anything" said
he, in substance, but the dog capnot
impart the knowledge that he receives
from his master to another of his kind.
Man, on the other hand, not only imbibes
knowledge, but constantly gives OF the
best of his learning to others.
Without pausing to discuss the moral
truth thus illustrated, it is not uninter-
esting to make some inquiry as TO the
correctness of the clergyman's opinion
that brutes have not the faculty of i'm
parting to their kind the things which
man has taught them. AS to those pro-
cesses of thought which we call instinct,
which are involuntary, and which are
obeyed in every individual of the spe-
cies with no idea of Improvement in the
method, the distinction between them and
those processes which are owing to asso-
iation with man is clearly marked. Inc
affection of the female brute for her young
is instructive. The dog use OF the sense
of smell in tracking, the migrauons or
bards, the contributing OF bees ana the
slave-making of some species or ants,
and the yearly movement OF salmon ana
shad from the sea into rivers ana PACK
again-these are all instructive. ne ne
Young of any of these would, left to itself,
deveIop the same faculties in the same
way without asking itself why or where
fore, and in maturity would pc as luHy
endowed with the instructive functions IS
another individual which had had the CON
slant companionshtp of members OF its
kind. -.
tai develoDment so far beyond the opera
tion of instinct that the difference be-
tween their reasoning powers and those
of man is very difficult TO determine. a
weH-trained shepherd dog will not only
drive sheep to pasture, Dut VIII Wheh
commanded fetch them home. More than
this. a shepherd dog. having been told to
fetch home a certain sheep out Of the
flock (the shepherd calling il by nance,
has beeu known to obey the command
without an instants hesitation, singing
out the one sheep unerringly. He knew
the name Of every sheep in the flock,
and could fetch any one that was desired
Yet with all his intelligence, the dog
could not teach another to do the same
thing With every new dog the shepherd
must go through the same long, laborious
process of teaching him his business. I'm
doubtedly the training Of successive gen
erations through long periods Of time has
developed in the collie character which
makes his training Tor shsep herding
easier than would otherwise be the case.
1t is extremely improbable that pug or
a spaniel could ever be taught to herd
sheen or that collie ever be taught to
point or set game. But let the collie or
the pointer run without breaking and no
matter how much they mingled with
trained dogs Of their distinct species the
one would never learn to Tend sheep nor
the other to point game.
There was lately published a volume OF
Dog Stories From the London Specta-
tor" in which were gathered many anec-
dotes of the sagacity Of dogs, but while
they covered every imaginable exhibition