Have you room for one more dog story, which resembles one lately reported in a French journal? A few years since I was sitting inside the door of a shop to escape from the rain while waiting for a trap to take me to the railway station in the old Etruscan city of Ferentino. Presently an ill-bred dog of the pointer kind came and sat down in front of me, looking up in my face, and wagging his tail to attract my attention. "What does that dog want?" I asked of a bystander. "Signore," he answered, "he wants you to give him a soldo to go and buy you a cigar with." I gave the dog the coin, and he presently returned, bringing a cigar, which he held crossways in his mouth until I took it from him. Sent again and again, he brought me three or four more cigars from the tobacco-shop. At length the dog's demeanour changed, and he gave vent to his impatience by two or three low whines. "What does he want now?" I asked. "He wants you to give him two soldi to go to the baker's and buy bread for himself." I gave him a two-soldo piece, and in a few minutes the dog returned with a small loaf of bread, which he laid at my feet, at the same time gazing wistfully in my face. "He won't take it until you give him leave," said another bystander. I gave the requisite permission, and the dear animal seized the loaf and disappeared with it in his mouth, and did not again make his appearance before I left the city. "He always does like this," said the standers-by, "whenever he sees a stranger in Ferentino."
The following instance of dog instinct (or reasoning?) will, I think, interest some of your readers. About a fortnight ago, while crossing the Albula Pass, our driver stopped for a few moments at the little restaurant on the highest point of it. A rough kind of herdsman's dog, of no particular breed, I suppose, came out and sat down by the carriage and looked up at us. We happened to have a few Marie biscuits in the carriage, so I threw half of one out to him. I suppose he had no experience in Huntley and Palmer's make, for he looked at and smelled it carefully, and then declined to eat it, but again looked up at me. I then took the remaining half, bit off and ate a little bit of it, and then threw over the rest to him. This time he ate it at once, then turned and ate the first piece, which he had before refused, and at once came and asked for more, which I had great pleasure in giving him. I may add that I have several times tried a similar experiment with more pampered dogs at home, but have never succeeded with it. Whether this arises from the latter knowing, in most cases, from experience what they like and what they do not like, or, as I am rather inclined to think, from the superior intelligence of this Alpine dog, who really reasoned that what I could eat he could, I leave your readers to decide for themselves.