8o THE BOOK: OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 



its home is, one thinks, most plausibly accounted for by 

 its mode of flying in circles ; but that there may be some 

 other manner in which it is directed is not improbable from 

 what takes place among quadrupeds. 



Instances, for example, are not uncommon of cats 

 having returned of their own accord to the place from 

 which they have been carried, though at the distance of 

 many miles, and even across rivers, where they could not 

 possibly have had any knowledge either of the road or of 

 the direction that would lead them to it. "The nature of 

 the beast" is to love the place of her breeding ; neither will 

 she tarry in any strange place, although carried far, being 

 never willing to forsake the house for the love of any 

 man, and most contrary to the nature of a dog, who will 

 travel abroad with his master ; but, although their masters 

 forsake their houses, yet will not these beasts (cats) bear 

 them company, and, being carried forth in close baskets 

 or sacks, they will return again. A cat has been known 

 to travel from London to Chatham, in Kent, a distance of 

 thirty miles, and most persons can relate similar incidents. 

 But then dogs do the same. 



A mastiff, which a gentleman had brought up in India 

 from two months old, accompanied him and a friend from 

 Pondicherry to Bangalore, a distance of more than three 

 hundred leagues. "Our journey," he goes on to relate, 

 "occupied nearly three weeks, and we had to traverse 

 numerous plains and mountains, and to ford rivers and go 

 along several by-paths. The animal, which had certainly 

 never been in that country before, lost us at the extreme 

 end of our journey, and immediately returned to Pondi- 

 cherry. He went directly to the house of a friend with 

 whom I had formerly lived. Now, the difficulty is not so 

 much to know how the dog subsisted on the road (for he 

 was very strong and well able to procure for himself food), 

 but how he could so well have found his way after an 

 interval of more than a month." 

 A still more extraordinary instance of returning is 



