Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
It was Cæsar, cautiously skulking along the trail. He would frequently
stop and sniff the air. Fortunately for the Indian watchers, the wind
was blowing toward them, and so the dog did not catch their scent. On
he came, in a quiet yet swift gait, until he reached the spot where
Papanekis stood when he pulled in the net. He gave one searching glance
in every direction, and then he set to work. Seizing the rope in his
teeth, Cæsar strongly pulled upon it, while he rapidly backed up some
distance on the trail. Then, walking on the rope to the water's edge as
it lay on the ground, to keep the pressure of the current from dragging
it in, he again took a fresh grip upon it and repeated the process.
This he did until the sixty feet of rope were hauled in, and the end
of the net was reached to which it was attached. The net he now hauled
in little by little, keeping his feet firmly on it to securely hold
it down. As he drew it up, several varieties of inferior fish, such
as suckers or mullets, pike or jackfish, were at first observed. To
them Cæsar paid no attention. He was after the delicious whitefish,
which dogs as well as human beings prefer to those of other kinds.
When he had perhaps hauled twenty feet of the net, his cleverness was
rewarded by the sight of a fine whitefish. Still holding the net with
its struggling captives securely down with his feet, he began to devour
this whitefish, which was so much more dainty than the coarser fish
generally thrown to him. Papanekis and his comrade had seen enough. The
mysterious culprit was detected in the act, and so with a "Whoop!" they
rushed down upon him. Caught in the very act, Cæsar had to submit to a
thrashing that ever after deterred him from again trying that cunning
trick.
Who can read this story, which I give exactly as it occurred, without
having to admit that here Cæsar "combined means for the attainment of
particular ends"? On the previous visits which he made to the net the
rapid current of the stream, working against the greater part of it
in the water, soon carried it back again into its place ere Papanekis
arrived later in the morning. The result was that Cæsar's cleverness
was undetected for some time, even by these most observant Indians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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