76 A CHAPTER OX INSTISCT. 



sense altogether different from any which man possesses^ and which he 

 therefore can form no idea of. The migratory impulse may be an instance 

 of this, and from some capacity of knowledge hidden from us, the pig, 

 as before observed, carries straw in its mouth before a high wind, as if 

 conscious that it needed to shelter itself better, and the cat washes her 

 face when damp weather is approaching; and both of these not only many 

 hours at least before the actual change takes place, but many even before 

 any indication of it appears to our own less keen foresight. 



Very possibly, indeed, many of the creatures themselves may be unaware 

 of any meaning or motive in their own actions, but in other instances the 

 contrary is the case, as proved by a preparation for a change of place. 

 Even we ourselves perform some actions mechanically, and without the 

 exercise of the will; as, for example, in swallowing, we exercise choice in 

 taking food, but none in swallowing it, after once it has come in contact 

 with that part of the throat called the Isthmus faucium. Thus, the oyster 

 opens its shell at the flow of the tide, and shuts it against any object that 

 comes in contact with it; and thus the boa-constrictor must go through 

 a certain routine in swallowing its food. 



In coming to the higher class of living beings, it must be remembered 

 that the organizations which alone are possessed by the inferior creatures 

 arc not left behind — they are only added on to by new tissues, being sup- 

 plied seriatim in addition to those possessed by the lowest order in creation. 

 There is a progressive scale in the order of Nature, although it be true at 

 the same time that there are some animals which stand out, as it were, 

 from the line, exhibiting an approach to other creatures even of a different 

 order. Thus the feet of the Kangaroo exhibit a visible approach to those 

 of a bird; and again another animal, the Ornithorynchus has an actual bill, 

 resembling that of a duck; a species of reptile, too, so to call it, the 

 Lepidosiren annedeus, partakes at the same time so much of the nature of 

 a fish as to leave it uncertain to which class it belongs, only that its going 

 into a torpid state, enveloping itself in the mud, shews that it has an afiinity 

 to the former class. 



But to proceed to illustrations of the varied instincts of some few of 

 the different animals placed higher in the scale of creation than those I 

 have already spoken of. Some actions vary with the age of the animal; 

 others are chronic, and distinctive of the species. 



Many of these are so striking, that some have gone so far as to assign 

 positively to animals an imdying soul, on the strength of the text before 

 referred to; but whether this be so or not, a point we may not too cu- 

 riously inquire into with effect, it does seem that some animals of the 

 higher ranks of creation, are, beyond all question, able to exercise what we 

 have no name for, if we do not call it a reasoning faculty. Locke, the 



