There are few animals which prove this assertion more frequently than the stag.  As his home is generally somewhere near the abodes of men, and as his flesh is so highly prized by them, it is absolutely necessary that he should take every possible precaution to preserve his life from their guns and dogs.  Accordingly, he has devised a great many plans by which he endeavors—­often successfully—­to circumvent his hunters.  And to do this certainly requires reflection, and a good deal of it, too.  He even finds out that his scent assists the dogs in following him.  How he knows this I have not the slightest idea, but he does know it.

Therefore it is that, when he is hunted, he avoids running through thick bushes, where his scent would remain on the foliage; and, if possible, he dashes into the water, and runs along the beds of shallow streams, where the hounds often lose all trace of him.  When this is impossible, he bounds over the ground, making as wide gaps as he can between his tracks.  Sometimes, too, he runs into a herd of cattle, and so confuses the dogs; and he has been known to jump up on the back of an ox, and take a ride on the frightened creature, in order to get his own feet partly off of the ground for a time, and thus to break the line of his scent.  When very hard pressed, a stag has suddenly dropped on the ground, and when most of the dogs, unable to stop themselves, dash over him, he springs to his feet, and darts off in an opposite direction.

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He will also run back on his own track, and employ many other means of the kind to deceive the dogs, showing most conclusively that he understands the theory of scent, and the dogs’ power of perceiving it; and also that he has been able to devise the very best plans to elude his pursuers.

Not only do stags reflect in this general manner in regard to their most common and greatest danger, but they make particular reflections, suited to particular places and occasions.  The tricks and manoeuvres which would be very successful in one forest and in one season would not answer at all in another place and at another time, and so they reflect on the subject and lay their plans to suit the occasion.

There are many animals which possess great acuteness in eluding their hunters, but the tricks of the stag are sufficient to show us to what an extent some animals are capable of reflection.

WHEN WE MUST NOT BELIEVE OUR EYES.

There are a great number of marvellous things told us of phantom forms and ghostly apparitions—­of spectres that flit about lonely roads on moonlight nights, or haunt peaceful people in their own homes; of funeral processions, with long trains of mourners, watched from a distance, but which, on nearer approach, melt into a line of mist; of wild witch-dances in deserted houses, and balls of fire bounding out of doors and windows—­stories which cause the