The story of Captain: The horse with the human brain
George Wharton James
Paperback
(Radiant Life Press, July 5, 1917)
Excerpt from The Story of Captain: The Horse With the Human BrainIn giving the answers he pawed with one of his front feet, but at the request of his master would give a portion of the answer with one foot, and the remainder with another, even alternating in his use of his hind feet.A number of simple commands were now given, and ques tions asked to which the horse responded with a shake of the head for No, or a nod for Yes. He would take a seat when requested, scratch his head with right or left hindfoot, Show either right or left foot when required, or stamp with right or left foot when required, or stamp with right or left hindfoot as asked. When told to pump water he would swing his head up and down continuously, and he would swing his head to right and left as commanded. When asked to laugh he opened his mouth and showed his teeth, and he wiggled his ears with equal readiness. When told to put out his tongue it came out immediately, and when commanded to make a hobby-horse of himself he planted his hindfeet firmly and then proceeded to stretch himself by planting his forefeet as far ahead as he could.He was then required to make a corkscrew of himself, and placing all four feet together, moved around in corkscrew motion. At the command: Reverse! He immediately went in the opposite direction.Then came an exhibition of Captain's recognition of colors. A rack containing ten or fifteen colored cloths was placed before the audience. The horse was asked to go and pick out, say, the third lady in the second row, look at the color of her hat (or shawl, dress, gloves or other article of apparel), and then take up the cloth from the rack which corresponded to the color of the article worn. In this he seldom made mistakes.Now a blindfold exhibition was given. As his master ex plained, this fully precluded the possibility of any collusion at least as far as Captain's seeing any signal was concerned. The blindfold was a leather mask, held in place by the ears and a supporting and fastening strap, the leather completely cover ing the eyes.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.