No. 9. 



Travelling Power of Animals, 



287 



preceding year they had been confined, and 

 quietly submit to a new captivity. 



Birds in their periodical migrations, gene- 

 rally fly in large flocks. Tiiey are seen to 

 assemble on the last day of their residence 

 with us, and then fly away together, leaving 

 not one straggler behind. If a storm meets 

 them at sea before they have gone far, they 

 return to land and wait for calmer weather. 

 As might be expected, they sometimes fain 

 to light on vessels at sea, in order to rest 

 their wearied pinions. Of some birds, the 

 flocks which travel at once are prodigious ; 

 the passenger-pigeon of America, is the 

 most remarkable in this respect. Mr. Au- 

 dubon describes some of the columns which 

 he has observed flying with hardly an inter- 

 ruption for hours at a time, and calculates 

 that in one flock only, during three hours, 

 tliere must have passed eleven hundred mil- 

 lions of birds ! 



It is not necessary to enter here at large 

 upon the extraordinary powers of the carrier 

 pigeon. But we may allude to the fact of 

 tliis bird having returned from Paris to Con- 

 stantinople, nearly the whole breadth of Eu- 

 rope. Philosophy is bewildered in contem- 

 plating feats of this kind, which are by no 

 means uncommon in other animals, although 

 birds are obviously best suited for finding 

 their way across a great extent of interme- 

 diate country. Cats have the travelling 

 power in a very remarkable degree; and 

 there are numberless instances of their hav- 

 ing been carried to distant places in sacks 

 or closed baskets, and yet returning to their 

 former abode. One of the most interesting 

 of these anecdotes is related by Mr. Jesse, 

 in his delightful volume, " Gleanings of Na- 

 tural History." "A lady residing in Glas- 

 gow, had a handsome cat sent to her from 

 Edinburgh — distance forty-two miles — it was 

 conveyed to her in a close basket and a car- 

 riage. The animal was carefully watched 

 for two months ; but having produced a pair 

 of young ones at the end of that time, she 

 was left to her own discretion, which she 

 very soon employed in disappearing with 

 both her kittens. The lady at Glasgow, 

 wrote to her friend in Edinburgh, deploring 

 her loss; and the cat was supposed to have 

 formed some new attachment. About a 

 fortnight, however, after her disappearance 

 from Glasgow, her well known mew was 

 heard at the door of her Edinburgh mistress, 

 and there she was with both her kittens; 

 they in the best state, but she herself very 

 thin. It is clear that she could carry only 

 ene kitten at a time; so that, if she brought 

 one kitten part of the way, and then went 

 back for the other, and thus conveyed them 

 alte;:aately, she must have travelled one 



hundred and twenty miles at least. She 

 must have also journied only during the 

 night, and must have resorted to many other 

 precautions for the safety of her young." 



" A gentleman residing at Feversham, 

 bought two pigs at. Reading market, which 

 were conveyed to his house in a sack, and 

 turned into his yard, which lies on the banks 

 of the river Thames. The next morning 

 the pigs were missing ; a hue and cry was 

 immediately raised, and towards the after- 

 noon a person gave information that two 

 pigs had been seen swimming across the 

 river at nearly its broadest part. They 

 were afterwards seen trotting along the 

 Pangborne road ; and in one place, where 

 the road branches off", putting their noses 

 together, as if in deep consultation. The 

 result was, their safe return to the place 

 from which they had been conveyed to the 

 Reading market, a distance of nine miles, 

 and by cross-roads. TJie farmer from whom 

 they had been purchased, brought them back 

 to their owner, but they took the very first 

 opportunity to escape again — re-crossed the 

 water, thus removing the stigma upon their 

 race, that they are unable to swim without 

 cutting their own throats — and never stopped 

 until they found themselves at their first 

 home." 



The migrations of the land-crab of tropi- 

 cal countries is annual, and is for the pur- 

 pose of spawning. In the Bahama Island, 

 this animal leads an obscure life, feeding 

 upon vegetables in the recesses of the moun- 

 tains. About April or May, millions of them 

 proceed towards the sea, usually in three 

 battallia, the first being composed of males, 

 the second of females, and the third of 

 weakly members of the community of both 

 sexes. Under the guidance of a leader, 

 they take the route for the sea with sur- 

 prising directness, neither turning to the 

 right nor the left ; crossing over houses, if 

 they come in the way, and only turning 

 aside when they meet with a river. Some- 

 times the journey requires three months to 

 be performed ; and when they have spawned 

 and cast their shells, they return once more 

 to their caves and clefts, taking probably six 

 weeks to the journey. 



One of the most surprising anecdotes 

 which we have ever heard regarding the 

 travelling power of animals, we give in the 

 words of Mr. Jesse, who had it from an ofiB- 

 cer of rank in the army. 



" He informed me," says Mr. Jesse, " that 

 a ship which touched at the island of Ascen- 

 sion, on her way to England, took in several 

 large turtle, and amongst others, one which, 

 from some accident, had only three fins. It 

 was in consequence called, and known on 



