"White. — On Inherited Instincts in Animals. 277 



my heavy cuts with the whip, backward through the gate of 

 the stockyards, where I ultimately placed them on either side 

 of the fence, and closed in ; but Jersey jumped the tall fence 

 and made ofJ to his mob. There was thus no knowing what 

 the final result of the fight would have been. 



I knew a mare who would eat cooked meat, and on coming 

 to a new place would always walk round and look for the pig's 

 swill-tub, drinking the sour contents with great relish. One 

 of our party once made a sea-pie for Sunday's dinner and 

 placed it at the door of the house to cool, when this mare, 

 happening to see it, ate it up. She probably had been hand- 

 reared, but was four years old when I first made her acquaint- 

 ance. She was afterwards sold to Mr. Freeman B. Jackson. 



The horse bot-fly (CEstrus, sp.) has been brought to this 

 country, and is becoming a great plague. Striking the horse 

 chiefly about the forearm and under the chin, while on the 

 wing it darts forward, and, by aid of its ovipositor, leaves an 

 egg attached to the hair of the horse each time it stings (as 

 the vulgar term describes this action). In Otago it is re- 

 ported that horses at times die through the numerous bot- 

 grubs piercing the walls of the stomach. 



The Ox. 



In using the term " ox " as the heading to this paragraph 

 I but follow the original usage, although we of the present 

 time would more readily accept the word " cattle." Formerly 

 the bull and cow were spoken of as " large cattle," and the 

 sheep and goat as " small cattle " ; for " cattle " and " chattel" 

 were originally the one word, as denoting the property or 

 wealth of the individual. Where cattle have the range of a 

 large area of land, and the human inhabitants thereof are 

 few, they readily relapse into a feral condition. Instances 

 of domestic cattle becoming thoroughly feral have repeatedly 

 occurred in many parts of New Zealand. 



In the early " fifties " I remember hearing of a strong 

 party of stockmen attempting to capture a considerable herd 

 which were located to the north of the Ashley Eiver, in Can- 

 terbury. One lot of these wild cattle was surprised on a 

 moonlight night and forced from their usual haunts ; but on 

 arriving on the sea-beach they all took to the water as if 

 crossing a river, and, swimming out to sea, were never heard 

 of again. 



In 1859 my brother John, myself, and a hired man drove 

 nearly three hundred head of cattle from the neighbourhood 

 of Christchurch through Otago to the south side of Lake 

 Wakatipu — a considerable undertaking in those days, for we 

 had to swim the Waitaki, Molyneux, and other rivers, and 

 roads there were none. In the early morning, when breaking 



