The Spirit of a dog.

We reproduce, according to the newspaper Petite Presse of April 23, 1869, the following anecdote concerning the intelligence of animals. It is one more document to add to the voluminous dossier that Mr. Allan Kardec bequeathed to us on this interesting study. Of it he had made the object of a special treatise, which he proposed to publish personally in the near future. We shall endeavor to complement his opinions in due time, as soon as the works of every kind that it falls to us to carry out permit us. Until then, we shall be grateful to the correspondents who may wish to communicate to us their personal reflections on the matter, or the communications and facts capable of enlightening us as completely as possible on this creation so interesting among all the works of the Creator. “The last word has not yet been said on the intelligence of dogs, writes to the newspaper Italia an officer of the Italian army. A curious episode of armed robbery, the accuracy of which we can guarantee, has furnished us with a new proof of it.

“In one of the latest military operations destined to purge the Neapolitan provinces of pillage, the squadron of Captain *** was proceeding silently by night toward a small wood, which very sure and precise information indicated as the habitual refuge of a band of brigands.

“Almost at the break of day, our horsemen, who had taken care to muffle the noise of their weapons and the hooves of their horses, were a short distance from the designated spot when, suddenly, a small dog, evidently belonging to the band of rogues and which kept itself motionless at the entrance of the wood, with an uneasy gaze, ears pricked up, and proudly posted on its paws, began to bark with all its might. “The alarm was given; and when the squadron entered the thicket, recent and incontestable traces testified to the precipitate and disordered flight of a troop of bandits on horseback.

“The captain bites his mustache and, in a fit of ill humor easy to understand, grumbling between his teeth, said: ‘Cursed dog!’, took his revolver and aimed at the unfortunate sentinel of the bandits, which was following the squadron, barking more and more.

“The shot is fired, the dog rolls in the dust, rises only to fall again, uttering plaintive cries, belly up, paws in the air, rigid, motionless.

“The squadron resumes its march without much hope of seeing the assailants again; but, at the end of a good quarter of an hour, what was the surprise of the captain to see the ghost of the dog, or, rather, the dog itself, which he believed dead and well and truly dead, in short trots, alongside the squadron, concealing itself behind the trees and the high foliage, spying on the march and the direction of the troop, fulfilling to the end its mission of advanced sentinel! “Greatly astonished, the captain calls to it; the dog, despite the not very gracious reception it had received shortly before, approaches, joyful. They feel it, they examine it; not a single scratch, not a lock of its fur burned or even singed.

“There remained no doubt: the dog had performed a comedy, with talent and success worthy of the greatest interest.

“Its intelligence, its cunning manner won it the favor of the soldiers, who caressed it and shared their provisions with it.

“Let us hasten to say that it showed itself sensible and grateful for these kind ways: it no longer left the squadron and became the friend and companion of the soldiers.

“Moreover, going back on its sympathies and bandit inclinations, and converted entirely to the ideas of order and of respect for the law, it is now the finest hunter of brigands and, consequently, their most fearsome and fierce enemy.”

(Petite Presse of April 23, 1869.)

[A. DESLIENS.]