A DOG STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1550, 10 June 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DOG STORY.

FINDING HIS WA.Y HOME TTNDSR STBINGH CIRCUMSTANCES. A cubiotts and interesting experiment has been tried to ascertain the faculty by which animals find' their way hack to familiar places after being removed to long distances. In order to prevent any knowledge that might be obtained by the direction or other conditions, ft dog was placed under the influence of chloroform, put in charge ot a conductor on a night freight train, and sent from Cincinnati to Somerset, Ky., a distance of 160 miles. The conductor reports that on the way the dog slept soundly, except an occasional groan like a " Christian in a whisky fit." In the -early^ twilight of the morning after the 'Ster 1 !?, while the train was taking on wood 'at *' side track eighteen miles from SomerBfet,'h!e escaped from the caboose, and started off in a "dazed sort of way," but whpn pursued "gathered himself up," ana disappeared across a meadow. Thirty-eight hours afterward he made his appearance in Cincinnati, having passed over the distance hi 142* -miles. Some time afterward the same dog was put under the influence of ether, and hia nose bandaged, to prevent the uae of his scent faculty. He was then placed in a wicker basket, and putting him upon an elevated train be was taken sonthwe&t' to 'Danville Junction, east to Crab Orchard; - 1 then northeast to a hunting rendezvous near Berea. Here he was kept ia aya v wood'-Bhed, and closely confined overnight. The next morning he was taken out on. the turn and turned loose. He immediately itarted for home—not by the way he had come but in a bee-line for Cincinnati. He had no appearance of being lost, but, wiln head erect, pushed forward aa if he knew the way perfectly. He cro<sßed two broad rivers and three steep mountain ranged and : had to pass by or through five townß, the centres of a bewildering net-workof roads and by-roadsJl He had never been , in, that part of the country before, nor, within sixty miles of Berea. The wind was not from the direc« tion of Cincinnati when he took his course, and yet four days atWward he came to his master on the streets ot Cincinnati, watersoaked and fuil of burs. Now, the question is, what induced the dpg to walk dua north? It could not have been memory, for there was nothing to remember, and it does not seem possible that fit could have been scent, for all the condition* were unfavourable.— The PoZarii. ,"""