It was conspicuous from the beginning--both in counting and spelling--that Lola was able to learn and memorize in a surprisingly short time. Lola's charts of figures and letters were written in my none-too-clear handwriting--and yet she could remember combinations of figures amounting to ten in number from one day to the other. She could also recognize persons from their portraits, and pictures of objects familiar to her, a faculty of observation I have tested in numerous little ways. This gift was also possessed by Krall's horses and by Rolf. People seem to have the idea that dogs do not observe much, but there is no valid reason for this. Children in their _naivete_ will show their picture-book to a dog as to a friend: "Look here!" they will cry--it is only the _exception_ when it occurs to a "grown-up" to do the same. I can only say that I have convinced myself and proved to the astonishment of many that a dog _can_ recognize both the letters of the alphabet and the subject of a picture shown to it. Not that these abilities exceed those of man, at first sight, but when the matter is probed into deeply they _do_ out-strip ours in one particular, and that is in celerity. For instance, if I write three or four rows of figures, one beneath the other, doing so quickly, without making any calculation myself, and then hold the paper before Lola's eyes, so that I can look into them, I see her glance skim the figures for a second or two, she will then hang her head, in evident calculation--after which she looks out straight in front of her and raps her reply. Rarely does her glance go over the paper a second time. In early days I used to think that, before holding out my hand to receive her answer, I ought to hold her head firmly and oblige her to keep her eyes on the sheet, for it seemed to me she must needs look at it for five minutes--_at least_. But Lola always tries hard to avoid looking--so I let her have her own way, and am trying to account for the cause of this quick glance by a closer study. It was the same thing when I wrote down a question--her eye flew over the sentence in three or four seconds, and the answer was given without a second glance. People to whom I have not said anything about this have stood behind me during these tests, and have generally been more impressed by the fact of her _reading_ them than by the _swiftness_ with which it was done. But it is the latter that amazed me most of all, for reading she and we have in common--and is indeed so far simpler a matter that there is no reason for a dog not acquiring it--but it is the _comprehension_ of what it is doing, and the _speed_ with which it translates what it has seen into intelligent replies that seem to me the most surprising part of all. Another instance in connexion with what I term the "cursory glance" may throw light upon this curious ability. I had heard of the way in which Rolf was able to count the flowers in a bunch, and so--on