216 CONSCIOUSNESS IN 



make perfect in this as in other respects ; while the 

 common want, or the existence of the mere germs of such 

 a faculty, among dwellers in cities, leading, as they do, 

 an artificial and wholly different kind of life, would seem to 

 suggest that with them it is a faculty which has lapsed 

 through mere disuse. 



But the peculiarity in regard to many animals is, that 

 they seem able to preserve, in some marvellous manner, 

 this initial knowledge of direction, under circumstances 

 in which such powers as Siberians or North American 

 Indians possess, would seem likely to be of little avail. A 

 very suggestive story in reference to this kind of potency 

 in the Horse, has been narrated by Mr. Darwin. He 

 says:* 



" I sent a riding-horse, by railway, from Kent, via Yarmouth, 

 to Freshwater Bay, in the Isle of Wight. On the first day that I 

 rode eastward, my horse, when I turned to go home, was very 

 unwilling to return towards his stable, and he several times turned 

 round. This led me to make repeated trials, and every time that 

 I slackened the reins, he turned sharply round and began to trot 

 to the eastward, by a little north, which was nearly in the direction 

 of his house in Kent. I had ridden this horse daily for several 

 years, and he had never before behaved in this manner. My im- 

 pression was tliat lie somehow 'knew the direction whence he had 

 been brought. I should state that the last stage from Yarmouth 

 [Isle of Wight] to Freshwater is almost due South, and along this 

 road he had been ridden by my groom ; but he never once showed 

 any wish to return in this direction. I had purchased this horse, 

 several years before, from a gentleman in my own neighbourhood, 

 who had possessed him for a considerable time." 



This story is valuable and instructive, but as a more 

 complete instance of a power there only indicated, one of 

 the many examples recorded by A. W. Howitt of Gipps- 

 land may be quoted. He says : t 



* " Nature," March 13, 1873, p. 360. 

 f " Nature," August 21, 1873, p. 323. 



