16 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. 



although carried far, being never willing to forsake 

 the house for the love of any man, and most contrary 

 to the nature of a dog, who will travel abroad with his 

 master ; but although their masters forsake their houses, 

 yet will not these beasts (cats) bear them company, 

 and being carried forth in close baskets or sacks they 

 will return again*." We have thus known a cat travel 

 from London to Chatham in Kent, a distance of thirty 

 miles t ; and most persons can relate similar incidents. 

 Gesner, however, is not correct in confining this 

 propensity to the cat, for dogs frequently do the same. 

 D'Obsonville, in his curious work, mentions a remark- 

 able instance in a mastiff. This dog, which he had 

 brought up in India from two months old, accompanied 

 him and a friend from Pondicherry to Benglour, a 

 distance of more than three hundred leagues. " Our 

 journey," he goes on to say, " occupied nearly three 

 weeks ; and we had to traverse numerous plains and 

 mountains, and to ford rivers and go along several 

 by-paths. The animal, which had certainly never been 

 in that country before, lost us at Benglour, and imme 

 diately returned to Pondicherry. He went directly to 

 the house of M. Beylier, then commandant of artillery, 

 my friend, and with whom I had generally lived. 

 Now the difficulty is not so much to know how the 

 dog subsisted on the road (for he was very strong and 

 able to procure himself food), but how he could so 

 well have found his way after an interval of more than 

 a month J. 5 ' 



A still more extraordinary instance of returning is 

 recorded on the authority of Lieutenant Alderson of 

 the Royal Engineers, who was personally acquainted 

 with the facts. In March, 1816, an ass, the property 

 of Captain Dundas, R.N., then at Malta, was shipped 



* History of four-footed Beasts, by Topsel, p. 82. 



f J. R. 

 J D'Obsonville's Phil, Essays, Lend. 1784. 



