INSTINCT AND REASON IN DOGS, ETC. 235 



captured with the remains of some of the yomig 

 fowl in his stomach. 



Now in this fact reason and instinct clash ; and 

 there is, that I can see, no definite spot at which 

 the one ends and the other begins. Instinct and 

 appetite induce a voracious monster, the pike, to 

 swim on and eat any little thing he sees alive 

 upon the water; but motive of a superior grade, 

 allied to reason, induces him to approach and 

 lie in wait by a coop, in which reason, not instinct, 

 has taught him the prey he of late has had, and 

 is in quest of, lives. 



The hound and dogs of all kinds, like the carrier 

 pigeon, possess the knowledge of how to make, in 

 the straightest and shortest way for the house 

 or kennel from which they have been taken. 

 The pigeon has no marks in the air to guide his 

 flight ; and the hound or dog, in going the shortest 

 way to his former home, needs no path nor road 

 to guide him. If the most direct way lies over 

 moors, fields, and across rivers, he looks not for 

 a beaten track nor bridge^ but proceeds to where 

 he desires to go with the most unerring and 

 instinctive precision. Wild ducks are possessed 

 with the same gift. I have given some away, 



