It is hoped that this little work may assist in the search along the dark path upon which many a poet and--in later times--many an investigator has set his feet. It would not be worthy of us, whom science and technical ability has raised to so high an intellectual position as explorers of Nature in every field--should we neglect anything however trivial, deeming it as beneath our notice.
s with their hoofs; but Rolf used the same paw for both decimals and units, so that we had from time to time to inquire after every number rapped out--'Is it a decimal or a unit?' Whereupon he would rap 'yes,' or 'no'--as the case might be. The numbers were then written down and the answers thus obtained.
Rolf's feats of arithmetic, like those performed by the horses, included finding the square root in the most difficult problems; yet it was in the matter of spelling answers that he excelled. Indeed, he seemed to command a particularly rich vocabulary, and applied the same with the greatest accuracy and continuity, even in long answers. These replies, when collected in their proper sequence should provide us with a wealth of insight into an animal's life of feeling. Such a collection is already extant, but has not yet been made public.
Many of the dog's answers, as well as innumerable debates about him have been published in the "Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Tierpsychologie" ("Comm