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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