USE OF NATUEAL INSTRUMENTS. 423 



poodle keeping a gold coin in its mouth for its master, and 

 Tytler gives instances of a dog carrying money as well as 

 food in its mouth when engaged in going messages for its 

 master. It is in their mouths, too, that so many roll-pur- 

 chasing dogs convey their coppers to the baker's. In one 

 instance, related to me by Dr. John Brown, a big dog offered 

 its open mouth as an asylum for a frightened bird, a live 

 canary, in danger of its life from a cat or other natural 

 enemy. In such cases the mouth and cavity of the cheeks 

 form a natural pouch. But there are certain other pouches 

 connected with cheeks, mouth, chin, throat, neck, thighs, 

 abdomen, or other parts of the body that are used in similar 

 ways for the storage of food or the stowage of young such 

 as those of the so-called ' pouch rat/ pelican, and kangaroo. 

 And here, as in so many other cases, there is a close analogy 

 with the habits of certain savages (Houzeau). The dog 

 sometimes has been known to recover a boat gone adrift, 

 towing it by a chain held or grasped in or by its mouth 

 (Tytler). 



Norwegian ponies, as I have myself observed when tra- 

 velling by carriole in Norway, push open the gates that bar 

 the roads, a procedure that saves the skydskarls the boys 

 who sit behind the trouble of getting down constantly to 

 open these gates, to do which, however, is part of the duty 

 of the said post-boys. These ponies use their chests as a 

 pushing agent, and they produce the necessary impetus by 

 making a sort of leap and so dashing fearlessly against the 

 gates. 



The head is used sometimes as man employs it as when 

 the domesticated chimpanzee carries water-pitchers on its 

 head (Houzeau). More frequently it is used for butting, 

 though this butting is not only, always, or necessarily em- 

 ployed in the fight ; for the elephant, for instance, butts his 

 forehead suddenly and with great force against the trunk of 

 the heglik tree (Balanites Egyptiaca), merely to cause its 

 coveted fruit to fall (Baker). 



Horns are applied to various purposes besides their fre- 

 quent use as dangerous weapons in fighting as among 

 stags or as means of inflicting injury on an adversary in 



