and throwing it back. I have often, when within the house, on hearing
the watch dog bark in this way, opened the window to assure myself on
the subject, and distinguished, as I could not do with the windows
closed, the voice of another watch dog barking in the same way in the
distance--the barkings of the two dogs alternating, one answering the
other. There is in such cases an evident communication of impressions.
One of the dogs, having had his attention aroused by some unusual
noise, has transmitted his impression to the other, as sentinels
posted at intervals call out theft warnings one to another. I have
often repeated this observation during the long evenings of winter.

Another example, little known in thickly populated countries, is drawn
from a curious scene which I witnessed during a winter passed in
Perigord Noir. We had remarked that for several nights the three watch
dogs, a young and an old male and a bitch, howled often toward
midnight, but in a peculiar way. One night in particular, during their
tedious concert, just as we had got to sleep, they mingled with their
cries howlings like those they would have uttered if they had been
beaten, with a shading hard to define, but which we perceived plainly;
and we remarked that, leaving their kennel in the avenue that led up
to the lodge, they had come to close quarters with one another at the
gate, with alternating howlings and plaintive cries. Inquiring in the
morning for the cause of these singular cries, the peasants told me
that a wolf had passed, and predicted that it would return. They said,
too, that a neighbor's hunting bitch had disappeared, and its bones
had been found in the fields near a wood. We were awakened again about
midnight by the cries of the dogs, and the scene was renewed. Informed
as we now were of the nature of what was going on, we ran to one of
the windows, whence we could see, in the clear light of the moon, all
that passed. The three dogs were cowering against the gate, the oldest