206 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



quite as fully due to their superior eyesight as to their 

 strong sense of locality. I have also seen mules following 

 the trail of a pack -train a few hours in advance, almost 

 wholly by scenting; but the two runaways before mention- 

 ed had no other conceivable help in laying their course 

 than some distant mountain -tops north and east of (and 

 hence behind) them, and to profit by these would have re- 

 quired a sort of mental triangulation. 



But the most common instances of homing ability are 

 presented by our domestic pets, which often come back to 

 us when we have parted with them, in a way quite unac- 

 countable at first thought. An extremely instructive series 

 of authentic examples of this were published in successive 

 numbers of that excellent newspaper, the London Field. 

 The discussion was begun by a somewhat aggressive article 

 by Mr. Tegetmeier, in which he expressed the opinion that 

 most of such stories current were " nonsense," and cordial- 

 ly assigned to the regions of the fabulous those narratives 

 which seemed to attribute this power to a special faculty 

 possessed by the animal, instancing himself two cases where 

 a dog and a cat found their way home, as he very justly 

 supposes, by using their memories. The distance was not 

 great ; they obtained a knowledge of the routes, and took 

 their departure. " Very interesting," replied a correspond 



