gamekeeper to that of any professor, however learned. The keepers,
again, at the Zoological Gardens, have exceptional opportunities for
studying the minds of animals--modified, indeed, by captivity, but still
minds of animals. Grooms, again, and dog-fanciers, are to the full as
able to form an intelligent opinion on the reason and language of animals
as any University Professor, and so are cats'-meat men. I have
repeatedly asked gamekeepers and keepers at the Zoological Gardens
whether animals could reason and converse with one another, and have
always found myself regarded somewhat contemptuously for having even
asked the question. I once said to a friend, in the hearing of a keeper
at the Zoological Gardens, that the penguin was very stupid. The man was
furious, and jumped upon me at once. "He's not stupid at all," said he;
"he's very intelligent."

Who has not seen a cat, when it wishes to go out, raise its fore paws on
to the handle of the door, or as near as it can get, and look round,
evidently asking some one to turn it for her? Is it reasonable to deny
that a reasoning process is going on in the cat's mind, whereby she
connects her wish with the steps necessary for its fulfilment, and also
with certain invariable symbols which she knows her master or mistress
will interpret? Once, in company with a friend, I watched a cat playing
with a house-fly in the window of a ground-floor room. We were in the
street, while the cat was inside. When we came up to the window she gave
us one searching look, and, having satisfied herself that we had nothing
for her, went on with her game. She knew all about the glass in the
window, and was sure we could do nothing to molest her, so she treated us
with absolute contempt, never even looking at us again.

The game was this. She was to catch the fly and roll it round and round
under her paw along the window-sill, but so gently as not to injure it
nor prevent it from being able to fly again when she had done rolling it.
It was very early spring, and flies were scarce, in fact there was not
another in the whole window. She knew that if she crippled this one, it
would not be able to amuse her further, and that she would not readily
get another instead, and she liked the feel of it under her paw. It was
soft and living, and the quivering of its wings tickled the ball of her
foot in a manner that she found particularly grateful; so she rolled it
gently along the whole len