96 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



readily adapt themselves to new circumstances, and have 

 not much power of meeting unwonted emergencies. But 

 if it be true, as experienced hunters have assured us, that 

 some kinds post sentinels to watch while the rest of the 

 herd may feed or rest in peace and without anxiety ; and 

 if others, like the bisons, when they scent the approach of 

 wolves, throw themselves into the form of a circle, having 

 the weakest in the middle and the strongest on the 

 outside, thus presenting an impenetrable front of horns, 

 we cannot deny them some power of organized co-operation, 

 a sure sign of intelligence. The very curiosity which so 

 many of them display, luring them sometimes to their 

 destruction, is a mark of mental faculties by no means 

 dormant and inactive. 



Sometimes indeed they seem preternatural ly stupid. 

 Mr. P. G. Hamerton gives us an anecdote from Messrs. 

 Hue and Gabet which I will quote in conclusion. The 

 long-tailed cows of the Lama herdsmen, they say, are so 

 restive and difficult to milk, that, to keep them at all 

 quiet, the herdsman has to give them a calf to lick mean- 

 while. But for this device not a single drop of milk could 

 be obtained from them. One day a herdsman, who lived 

 in the same house with ourselves, came, with a dismal face, 

 to announce that the new-born calf of a favourite cow was 

 dying. It died in the course of the day. The Lama forth- 

 with skinned the poor beast and stuffed it with hay. This 

 proceeding surprised us at first, for the Lama had by no 

 means the air of a man likely to give himself the luxury 

 of a cabinet of natural history. When the operation was 

 completed we found that the hay-calf had neither feet nor 

 head ; whereupon it occurred to us that, after all, perhaps 

 it was a pillow that the Lama contemplated. We were in 

 error ; but the error was not dissipated till the next 

 morning, when our herdsman went to milk his cow. 



