Dram-drinking Dogs. III without losing a drop of the precious fluid. The march down from Brisbane to the Bay-some twelve miles-used to distress the pointer severely, and when we arrived at about 10 o'clock at one of the sandy coves, with its clear water, he would plunge in and sit for some time immersed up to his neck, taking a drink by absorption through his skin. I never saw him touch the water with his tongue; but Carlo would go in and drink freely as he swam about, and work all day in the heat afterwards, none the worse for a pint of the Pacific Ocean in his stomach. No other dog I ever knew or heard of would touch salt water even when in the utmost extremity, but he so frequently drank it that the practice may be said to have been habitual, yet it in no way affected his comfort or health. Notwithstanding their universal natural reupgnance to intoxicating liquors, dogs, like many other animals, may have their tastes artificially vitiated, and become confirmed dram-drinkers. This was conclusively proved by the experiments of French physiologists on the effect of alcoholic poisoning. They made habitual drunkards of various animals, including domestic fowls, one of which was said to be able to take a bottle of wine daily. Personally I have not had any aquaintance with dipsomaniacal dogs, but the following cases, given by correspondents of The Country, clearly establish their existence: "I have a small toy terrier, upwards of 20 years of age, which, although partially blind and deaf, is in excellent health and active in habit, takes whisky and water from a tumbler, wine glass, or teaspoon, with great relish. She is also fond of biscuit soaked in brandy and water. The spirit was first given to her some years ago, as a remedy for rheumatism, apparently with good effect, and she now looks regularly for her nightcap of grog before going to bed." The following is somewhat remarkable on account of the sudden cessation of an established habit: "I have in my possession a black and tan terrier about 6 or 7 years old. When a puppy we gave him with a teaspoon occasional doses of gin to stop his growth, and I must with shame confess that more than once he became drunk and incapable. After a while he seemed to take quite a liking to his grog, until one day, someone having been taking some rum and honey for a cold, put a few spoonfuls in a saucer, and placed it before Toby on the floor. He immediately began lapping it up, and, after wincing a little at the strength of the spirit, licked the saucer dry. The result was that Master Toby finished the evening lying on his back upon the hearthrug, with all four legs extended perpendicularly. The next morning melancholy was the spectacle presented by the debauchée of the previous night. With head drooping and tail hanging straight down he wandered about, evidently seeking repose for his aching and bemuddled brain. If we could have got him to take it, we should have offered him some soda water and brandy, or a Seidlitz powder; but, strange to say, from that hour to this nothing can induce him to drink out of a glass or spoon, and if he is shown a tumbler he immediately retreats under the sofa or table, having evidently (mentally at least) signed the pledge, and meaning to keep it." The whole mammalian class presents nothing more astonishing in function than the olfactory sense of the dog. In some of the invertebrata this sense may possibly be even more acute, for Dr. G. T. Romanes' splendid investigations into the nervous system of the Echinodermata have shown the olfactory sense of those simple organisations to be so highly developed as to almost entirely appropriate to itself the functions of the nervous system, and to be the only guide to their food. But we search among the higher animals in vain for evidences of perception and discrimination by means of this sense at all approaching the results attained in the dog. Some physiologists have questioned whether it does not differ in kind as well as in degree from the same sense in man and other animals. In degree it certainly differs to an extent of which we can form no subjective idea, and it may possibly be negative with regard to The Sense of Smell. 113 some odours. Dogs do not seem in any instance to take pleasure in scents which, like valerian, attract cats. I have presented a great number of different flowers, all more or less pleasing to us, to the noses of dogs, but never could detect any sign of pleasure or aversion in their behaviour. Neither have they ever rolled on them when laid on the floor, which is the canine mode of expressing delight in carrion. Has, then, the odour of the rose, violet, heliotrope, or lavender no effect at all on a dog's sense of smell, or does it merely give him no pleasure? He evinces no repugnance to wormwood, aniseed, and some other scents objectionable to us, but always turns from essential oils and perfumes, though they may be derived from vegetable substances which do not affect him when not combined with spirit. It is probably, then, the pungency of the alcoholic vehicle that repels him. Vegetable odours per se must either be inappreciable to him or unattractive; all mineral oils are repugnant. The animal world is unquestionably the field for the exercise of his sense of smell, and here its power of discrimination is no less remarkable than its acuteness. I have no personal experience of the effects of any other scent-producing animals on the dog than the skunk, the mephitic odour of which is no doubt as intolerable to us as to him. Few dogs will kill a skunk after once experiencing a shower of that noisome secretion, but those that allow their momentary pugnacity to overcome their recollection of the infliction are a curse to their owners and everyone they approach. In view of the indifference or dislike exhibited by the dog to odours pleasing to us, his habit of rolling himself in carrion of every kind is not easily accounted for. All putrescent animal matters appear to have this fascination for him, from a dead dog, or cat, or bird, to a frog or a snail. Once only have I noticed the indulgence of the habit in the case of a vegetable substance. Mr. Hugh Dalziel, however, tells me that rolling in decaying cabbage, etc., is by no means an uncommon practice. In one of the dense Austra I lian scrubs I observed my retriever vigorously anointing himself after the manner of his kind, and on going to the spot found. that he was rolling on a clump of living fungi which emitted a particularly evil smell. The large proportion of nitrogen, however, in fungi may give them a scent similar to that of animal matter. Dogs will go long distances to a particular place, day after day, to thus indulge themselves. I have sometimes thought that the ammonia evolved during putrescence may be in some way pleasing to them, as there is reason to believe that it is in other circumstances; but when I have saturated blotting paper with a weak solution of ammonia, and placed it before them, they have turned from it with indications of dislike. I have not formed any definite theory of the origin of this habit, though there has always been floating in my mind a suspicion, unsupported it must be confessed by any direct evidence of its possible association with the reproductive instincts. In his work on "Mental Evolution in Animals," Dr. G. J. Romanes shows that he has considered it from the point of view of inheritance, and, since the laws of transmission of mental phenomenȧ are now-thanks to the works of that writer and of Sir John Lubbock, and others who have enlarged on and ably illustrated Darwin's doctrines-so much better understood than formerly, much new light has been thrown on obscure instincts. Mr. Hugh Dalziel writes to me on this subject: "At one time I thought, or rather wondered, whether the habit of rolling in carrion and other decayed animal matter had originated as a means employed to enable dogs to trace each other, just as micturition appears to serve that purpose. After reading Romanes' book I became confirmed in an opinion that had been growing with me, that, taste and smell being closely allied senses, rolling in carrion is an inherited habit, causing pleasurable sensations from association with the glorious feasts enjoyed on the battlefields, and on the putrid carcases of animals, for which dogs, when unrestrained, still often display a strong relish.” The Sense of Smell. 115 The principle of inheritance here invoked has been held sufficient to explain the ardent desire of every boy, and even of many girls, to climb trees-not merely for the purpose of taking birds' nests, or of gathering fruit, but for the very enjoyment experienced in the act of climbing. If man, whose structure is now but poorly adapted to this end, feels a subtle pleasure in getting into a tree and swinging on a branch, and if, as seems probable, this is an unconscious reminiscence the inherited remnant of a constant habit of a far distant ancestor who passed an aboreal existencethere is nothing extravagant in attributing the action of the dog similarly to the law of inheritance. But, if we admit this, can we account on the same ground for our own penchant for game in an almost putrid condition ? In the early days of man's tenancy of this earth, when the struggle for life must have been much more severe; when his sole dependence was on the chase; when agriculture was unknown, or at least unpractised, in times of scarcity, decomposing animal matter must have frequently afforded the only means of sustenance. Hence, then, possibly, and even probably,、 the grouse, hare, or venison, which now comes to our tables in a state of actual decomposition, represents a taste acquired ages ago by the conditions of primitive life, and is not to be distinguished in origin from a habit which brings upon our domestic dogs the severest reprobation and prompt chastisement. In my own experience there is no foundation for the opinion, entertained by many sportsmen, that a dog's powers of scent are temporarily or permanently affected by the indulgence of this habit, though the presumption would certainly be in favour of that view, judging from analogy with ourselves. No human being, we may suppose, whose sense of smell was entirely usurped by the odour of patchouli, would be likely to detect the indications of the refined natural perfumes of the violet or rose. But in the case of the dog we are considering a sense altogether beyond our |