22 
Colonel Sykes communicated to Mr. Kirby 
a singular anecdote of some of the black ants 
in India, which had been prevented, for some 
time, from getting to some sweatmeats, by 
having the legs of the table on which they 
stood immersed in basins filled with water, and 
besides painted with turpentine. After a time, 
however, the ants again reached the sweatmeats ; 
and it was found that they did so by letting 
themselves drop from the wall, above the table, 
on the cloth which covered it.* 
“ In Senegal, where the heat is great, the 
ostrich neglects her eggs during the day, but 
sits on them at night. At the Cape of Good 
Hope, however, where the degree of heat is 
less, the ostrich, like other birds, sits upon her 
eggs both day and night.” 
“ Rabbits dig holes in the ground for warmth 
and protection; but after contmuing long in a 
domestic state, that resource being unnecessary, 
they seldom burrow.” 
“ A dog in a monastery, perceiving that the 
monks received their meals by rapping at a 
buttery-door, contrived to do so likewise, and 
when the allowance was pushed through, and 
the door shut, ran off with it. This was re- 
peated till the theft was detected.” 
“ A dog belonging to Mr. Taylor, a clergy- 
man, who lived at Colton, near Wolseley 
Bridge, was accused of killing many sheep. 
Complaints were made to his master, who as- 
pore. that the thing was impossible, because 
he was muzzled every night. The neighbours 
persisting in the charge, the dog one night was 
watched, and he was seen to draw his neck out 
of the muzzle, then to go into a field, and eat 
as much of a sheep as satisfied his appetite. 
He next went into the river to wash his mouth, 
and returned afterwards to his kennel, put his 
head into the muzzle again, and lay very qui- 
etly down to sleep.” 
“ T observed,” says the Rev. J. Hall in his 
Travels in Scotland, “two magpies hopping 
round a gooseberry bush, in a small garden 
near a poor-looking house, in a peculiar manner, 
and flying in and out of the bush. I stepped 
aside to see what they were doing, and found 
from the poor man and his wife, that as there 
are no trees all around, these magpies several 
succeeding years had built their nest, and 
brought up their young, in this bush; and that 
foxes, cats, hawks, &c. might not interrupt 
them, they had barricadoed not only their nest, 
but had encircled the bush with briers and 
thorns in a formidable manner; nay, so com- 
pletely, that it would have cost even a fox, 
cunning as he is, some days’ labour to get into 
that nest. 
“ The materials in the inside of the nest 
were soft, warm, and comfortable; but all on 
the outside, so rough, so strong, and firmly en- 
twined with the bush, that without a hedge- 
knife, hatch-bill, or something of the kind, 
even a man could not, without much pain and 
trouble, get at their young; as from the outside 
to the inside of the nest extended as long as my 
arm. 
* Bridgewater Treatise, vol. ii. p. 342. 
INSTINCT. 
“ These magpies had been faithful to ong 
another for several summers, and drove of 
their young, as well as every one else who at 
tempted to take possession of their nest. Thi 
they carefully repaired and fortified in~ 
spring with strong rough prickly sticks, th 
they sometimes brought to it by uniting the 
force, one at each end, pulling it along, whe 
they were not able to lift it from the ground.” 
uch examples leave no reasonable gro 
for doubt, that on certain subjects at lea 
some animals are capable of short and simp! 
processes of reasoning or of paar r 
ap to imply the tion of genera 
cathe. and the’ formation OF certain gene 
ideas, and that the difference, formerly st 
between the operations of their minds am 
ours, in that respect, is one of degree only, no 
absolutely of kind. But this admission, 
must be remembered, does by no means di 
minish the force of the considerations former 
adduced to establish the essential distinctior 
between the instinctive determinations promp 
ing the usual actions of animals, and some 
those of men, and those volitions, whether ii 
animals or men, which are consequent on th 
exercise of reason, and on such anticipation 0 
their consequences as a process of reasonin 
only can afford. 
It is worth while to mention that in se 
instances animals have been thought to be pos 
sessed of a faculty resembling reason, on ai 
count of actions, very wonderful indeed, t 
which the possession of reason would not have 
enabled them to perform. Thus there are 
many instances of animals finding their way t 
their usual place of residence, being re 
moved from it in such a way as to the 
mere act of recollection guiding n bac 
Mr. Duncan+ mentions having seen a pig 
which had been brought from London, k 
loose on Magdalen Bridge, in Oxford. “: 
flew first towards the north, but after se 
gyrations in the air, it flew directly east, 
reached London within the appointed time 
which was, I believe, three hours.” And Mr 
Spence gives an anecdote, well authenticated 
of an ass from Gibraltar, thrown overboard fror 
a vessel at a distance of 200 miles, ( 
swam ashore, and in a few days 
sented himself for admission when the ga 
the fortress was opened in the morning. Ty 
instances, equally extraordinary, have bet 
stated on unexceptionable authority to the pre 
sent writer; one of a pointer which had bee 
sent from Durham to the neighbourhood « 
Edinburgh by sea, and made his way back in 
few days by land, to his master’s house in th 
former county ;—the other of a kitten, whit 
had been brought in a carriage a distance | 
above forty miles, to Edinburgh, and made’ 
way back in a few days to its place of nativit 
in Stirlingshire, in doing which it must hav 
crossed several bridges. Similar facts h 
been ascertained in several instances as t 
sheep ; and the cases of the swallow and of t 
iv 
~ _ 
A ze 
- 44 
* Duncan’s Lectures on Instinct. al 
+ Ibid. 
