ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 2, 1904

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

A MALDEN physician had an adventure some time ago which he does not care to repeat, although it gave him a much higher appreciation of the intelligence of his pet driving horse than he had previously entertained. He was returning home from visiting a patient late at night, in company with a clergyman, when the horse stopped short at one of the most dangerous grade-crossings within the city's limits. Absorbed in lively conversation with his clerical friend, and seeing no gate down, he mechanically touched the horse with the whip and urged it by his voice to go forward. But the spirited animal, for once, would not respond, and instead of obeying stepped briskly aside and turned his head as far as possible from the train which just then whizzed by at the rate of forty miles an hour. It was a close call for the occupants of the carriage, who sat breathless through the moments of that terrible suspense, but the horse maintained its attitude of a half-circle until the danger was past. It seems that the gatekeeper was asleep at his post, and had neglected his duty, but the delicate ears of the horse had detected the sound of the coming train, and had rightly interpreted it as the signal of a danger to be avoided. Both men were firmly convinced that they owed their lives, under Providence, to the intelligent use the animal made of its former experiences with grade-crossings, and nothing but a farm "down east," with a radium mine on it, would now tempt its owner to part with it.—Boston Transcript.