INSTINCT AND REASON IN DOGS, ETC. 239 



gladdened his dog's life. To tliat lie still clings ; 

 and defies all the curs of the town to approach 

 nearer to the treasured precincts he has for years 

 guarded; although they may think he cannot bite. 

 Poor dear Badger may still thankfully growl that — 



" Not Heaven itself upon the past has power : 

 What has been, has been ; and I have had my hour." 



At the moment I am concluding this chapterj 

 May 1st, 1872, there sits in the moor at my decoy, 

 on her nest, in the same spot to an inch in which 

 she has had her nest, to my knowl(^dge, for the 

 last three years, a wild duck. I think she must 

 have sat there before the year in which I found 

 her, but that is simply a thought. We will now 

 approach the fact — a fact proving a rational power 

 in birds, far beyond the mere instinct assigned 

 them by Nature. 



My belief is that in the first year she made her' 

 nest in that ivet ditch, subject as it is to flooding, 

 and, after much rain, she must have had her nest 

 destroyed by the sudden rise of water. Nothing 

 hat that J that I am aware of, could have prompted 

 this wild duck for the future systematically, and 

 by a reasonable foretliought, to guard against a 

 similar misfortune. Nothing seems to incline her 



