52 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



Many other facts of a similar kind might be ad- 

 duced, tending to show the correctness of this re- 

 mark. Thus, to take another instance from sheep, 

 it is a common practice with shepherds in the lamb- 

 ing season, when they have occasion to put a strange 

 lamb to a ewe that has lost its own offspring, to 

 clothe the supposititious young one in the skin of the 

 dead lamb of the mother to whose care it is to be 

 confided. Without this precaution, the ewe would 

 refuse to suckle it ; but the former does not seem 

 aware of the fraud thus put upon her, so long as the 

 notus odor (as White terms it) is present to direct 

 her judgment in distinguishing, as she conceives, 

 her own offspring from that of another. 



It is also very remarkable to what a distance ani- 

 mals will discriminate, by the smell alone, others of 

 their own species ; sometimes long before they are 

 in sight of one another, and when therefore the 

 recognition is manifestly due to the above faculty. 

 The unaided sight, on the contrary, seems in many 

 cases to make but little impression upon them. 

 This is attested by the circumstance of their not 

 recognizing in general the most faithful represent- 

 ations of their own species on paper or canvass. 

 I had a cat which passed by with the most sullen 

 indifference a worked portrait of a cat sitting upon 

 a stool, when purposely placed in her way, though 

 so well executed as to deceive one or two persons 

 on their entering the room for the first time where 

 the portrait was. Yet it is to be remarked, that 

 animals do not in all cases remain unmoved by pic- 

 tures of other animals not of their own species ; for 



