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Dart, and ot course instantly dived. I said no word to the dog. 
He did not plunge in after the widgeon there, but galloped down 
stream about 50 or 60 yards, and then entered the water and dashed 
from side to side—it was about 20 or 30 feet wide—working up 
stream and making a great commotion in the water, until he came 
to the place where we stood. Then he landed and shook himself, 
and carefully hunted the near bank a considerable distance down, 
crossed to the opposite side, and diligently explored that bank. 
Two or three minutes had elapsed, and the party was for moving on, 
when I called their attention to a sudden change in the dog’s de 
meanour. His ‘flag’ was now up and going from side to side in that 
energetic manner which, as every sportsman knows, betokens a hot 
scent. I then knew that the bird was as safe as if it was already 
in my bag. Away through the heather went the waving tail, until 
20 or 30 yards from the bank opposite to that on which we were 
standing, there was a momentary scuffle, the bird just rose from 
the ground above the heather, the dog sprang into the air, caught it, 
came away at full gallop, dashed across the stream, and delivered 
it into my hand. The dog had learned from long experience in 
Australia and the narrow cañadas in the La Plata that a wounded duck 
goes down stream; if winged, his maimed wing sticks out and 
renders it impossible for him to go up, and will invariably land 
and try to hide away from the bank. But if the dog enters at the 
place where the bird fell, the latter will go on with the stream for 
an indefinite distance, rising now and then for breath, and give 
infinite trouble. My dog had found out all this long since, and had 
proved the correctness of his knowledge times out of number, and by 
his actions had taught me the whole art and mystery of retrieving 
duck. His object was to flurry the bird, and force it to land by 
cutting it off lower down the stream. Then assuming, as his expe 
rience justified him, that the bird had landed, he hunted each bank 
in succession for the trail which he knew must betray the fugitive.”— 
{Nature, vol. xix., ft. 496.) 
The new method of action once discovered quickly 
becomes a habit of the life, sometimes at once. The bees 
that were observed trying to make their way into the 
blossom of a passion-flower are a case in point. 
“ Mr. Wailes observed that all the bees, on their first visit to the 
blossoms of a passion-flower on the wall of his house, were for a con 
siderable time puzzled by the numerous overwrapping rays of the 
nectary ; and only after many trials, sometimes lasting two or three 
minutes, succeeded in finding the shortest way to the honey at the