22 



INSTINCT. 



Colonel Sykes communicated to Mr. Kirby 

 a singular anecdote of some of the black ants 

 in India, which had been prevented, for some 

 time, from getting to some sweatmeats, by 

 having the legs of the table on which they 

 stood immersed in basins filled with water, and 

 besides painted with turpentine. After a time, 

 however, the ants again reached the sweatmeats ; 

 and it was found that they did so by letting 

 themselves drop from the wall, above the table, 

 on the cloth which covered it* 



" In Senegal, where the heat is great, the 

 ostrich neglects her eggs during the day, but 

 sits on them at night. At the Cape of Good 

 Hope, however, where the degree of heat is 

 less, the ostrich, like other birds, sits upon her 

 eggs both day and night." 



" Rabbits dig holes in the ground for warmth 

 and protection ; but after continuing long in a 

 domestic state, that resource being unnecessary, 

 they seldom burrow." 



"A dog in a monastery, perceiving that the 

 monks received their meals by rapping at a 

 buttery-door, contrived to do so likewise, and 

 when the allowance was pushed through, and 

 the door shut, ran off with it. This was re- 

 peated till the theft was detected." 



" A dog belonging to Mr. Taylor, a clergy- 

 man, who lived at Colton, near Wolseley 

 Bridge, was accused of killing many sheep. 

 Complaints were made to his master, who as- 

 serted that the thing was impossible, because 

 he was muzzled every night. The neighbours 

 persisting in the charge, the dog one night was 

 watched, and he was seen to draw his neck out 

 of the muzzle, then to go into a field, and eat 

 as much of a sheep as satisfied his appetite. 

 He next went into the river to wash his mouth, 

 and returned afterwards to his kennel, put his 

 head into the muzzle again, and lay very qui- 

 etly down to sleep." 



" I observed," says the Rev. J. Hall in his 

 Travels in Scotland, " two magpies hopping 

 round a gooseberry bush, in a small garden 

 near a poor-looking house, in a peculiar manner, 

 and flying in and out of the bush. I stepped 

 aside to see what they were doing, and found 

 from the poor man and his wife, that as there 

 are no trees all around, these magpies several 

 succeeding years had built their nest, and 

 brought up their young, in this bush ; and that 

 foxes, cats, hawks, &c. might not interrupt 

 them, they had barricadoed not only their nest, 

 but had encircled the bush with briers and 

 thorns in a formidable manner ; nay, so com- 

 pletely, that it would have cost even a fox, 

 cunning as he is, some days' labour to get into 

 that nest. 



" The materials in the inside of the nest 

 were soft, warm, and comfortable ; but all on 

 the outside, so rough, so strong, and firmly en- 

 twined with the bush, that without a hedge- 

 knife, hatch-bill, or something of the kind, 

 even a man could not, without much pain and 

 trouble, get at their young; as from the outside 

 to the inside of the nest extended as long as my 

 arm. 



* Bridgewater Treatise, vol. ii. p. 342. 



" These magpies had been faithful to one 

 another for several summers, and drove off 

 their young, as well as every one else who at- 

 tempted to take possession of their nest. This 

 they carefully repaired and fortified in the 

 spring with strong rough prickly sticks, that 

 they sometimes brought to it by uniting their 

 force, one at each end, pulling it along, when 

 they were not able to lift it from the ground."* 



Such examples leave no reasonable ground 

 for doubt, that on certain subjects at least 

 some animals are capable of short and simple 

 processes of reasoning or of imagination, which 

 appear to imply the perception of general 

 truths, and the formation of certain general 

 ideas, and that the difference, formerly stated 

 between the operations of their minds and 

 ours, in that respect, is one of degree only, not 

 absolutely of kind. But this admission, it 

 must be remembered, does by no means di- 

 minish the force of the considerations formerly 

 adduced to establish the essential distinction 

 between the instinctive determinations prompt- 

 ing the usual actions of animals, and some of 

 those of men, and those volitions, whether in 

 animals or men, which are consequent on the 

 exercise of reason, and on such anticipation of 

 their consequences as a process of reasoning 

 only can afford. 



It is worth while to mention that in some 

 instances animals have been thought to be pos- 

 sessed of a faculty resembling reason, on ac- 

 count of actions, very wonderful indeed, but 

 which the possession of reason would not have 

 enabled them to perform. Thus there are 

 many instances of animals finding their way to 

 their usual place of residence, after being re- 

 moved from it in such a way as to prevent the 

 mere act of recollection guiding them back. 

 Mr. Duncan^ mentions having seen a pigeon, 

 which had been brought from London, let 

 loose on Magdalen Bridge, in Oxford. " It 

 flew first towards the north, but after several 

 gyrations in the air, it flew directly east, and 

 reached London within the appointed time, 

 which was, I believe, three hours." And Mr. 

 Spence gives an anecdote, well authenticated, 

 of an ass from Gibraltar, thrown overboard from 

 a vessel at a distance of 200 miles, which 

 swam ashore, and in a few days afterwards pre- 

 sented himself for admission when the gate of 

 the fortress was opened in the morning. Two 

 instances, equally extraordinary, have been 

 stated on unexceptionable authority to the pre- 

 sent writer ; one of a pointer which had been 

 sent from Durham to the neighbourhood of 

 Edinburgh by sea, and made his way back in a 

 few days by land, to his master's house in the 

 former county ; the other of a kitten, which 

 had been brought in a carriage a distance of 

 above forty miles, to Edinburgh, and made its 

 way back in a few days to its place of nativity 

 in Stirlingshire, in doing which it must have 

 crossed several bridges. Similar facts have 

 been ascertained in several instances as to 

 sheep ; and the cases of the swallow and of the 



Duncan's Lectures on Instinct, 

 Ibid. 



