in the stranger's egg,
and therefore bore it away and destroyed it. I believe, however, that
her attention was arrested at first by the unexpected number of eggs in
the nest, and that she was enabled to detect the stranger's egg only
after much inspection and comparison.

Many animals have been taught to count, but none of them show that they
fully appreciate the value of numerical rotation. Of course, in the vast
majority of trained animals, the seeming appreciation is only a trick
founded on the sense of smell, sight, touch, or taste.

An instance recently came under my personal observation in which a dog,
a high-bred collie, seemingly evinced an abstract idea of numbers. The
animal in question received an injury a year or so ago through which
she became permanently and totally blind. Recently she gave birth to a
litter of six puppies, all of which were uniform in size and markings.
Immediately after the birth of the puppies, the dog's owner had mother
and young removed from the dark cellar in which they then were, and
carried to a warm and well-ventilated room in his stables.

In the darkness of the cellar one of the puppies was overlooked and left
behind. As soon as the mother entered the box in which her young had
been placed, she proceeded to examine them, nosing them about and
licking them. Suddenly she appeared to become very much disturbed about
something; she jumped out of the box and then jumped back again, nosing
the puppies as before. Again she jumped from the box and then made her
way toward the cellar, followed by her astonished owner, who had begun
to have an inkling as to what disturbed her. She had counted her young
ones, and had discovered that one had been left behind. Sure enough, the
abandoned puppy was soon found and carried in triumph to the new home.

So astonished was the gentleman[87] at this blind creature's
intelligence that he resolved to experiment further; he removed another
puppy and walked away with it in his arms. It was not long before the
blind mother showed her distress so plainly, that I begged him to
return the puppy, which, having been returned to her, she caressed for a
moment or so, and then gave herself up to the chief function of
maternity, suckling her young.

[87] Karl Becker, Esq., St. Louis, Mo.

It is beyond reason to suppose that this dog discovered the absence of
her young one through her sense of smell. Granted that to the maternal
nose each puppy had an indiv