One of the brothers went south and the others came
north." {155a}
The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough;
in Shropshire they usually "come" as bulls. (See Miss Burne's
Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o'
Mause. M. d'Assier, a French Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert
"atavistically" to lower forms of animal life! {155b}
We now, in accordance with a promise already made, give an example of
the ghosts of beasts! Here an explanation by the theory that the
consciousness of the beast survives death and affects with a
hallucination the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass
current. But if such cases were as common and told on evidence as
respectable as that which vouches for appearances of the dead,
believers in these would either have to shift their ground, or to
grant that
Admitted to that equal sky,
Our faithful dog may bear us company.
We omit such things as the dripping death wraith of a drowned cat who
appeared to a lady, or the illused monkey who died in a Chinese house,
after which he haunted it by rapping, secreting objects, and, in
short, in the usual way.
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