144 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 



generally on foot where land alone had to be traversed. 

 Authentic instances, incidents, or anecdotes of this kind are 

 simply innumerable. Here it is desirable to refer only to a 

 few, as illustrating their varying character in detail. 



1. A collie (dog) found its way home by itself from Cal- 

 cutta to Inverkeithing (Fifeshire, Scotland). It had come 

 from Calcutta in a ship bound for Dundee, and from Dundee 

 in a collier bound for Inverkeithing (Wood). 



2. Certain French bees having been sent abroad in order 

 to their acclimatisation in a French colony, found their way 

 home in French vessels (Pierquin). 



3. A dog was taken, by the most different modes of con- 

 veyance, including country roads and city streets (walking), 

 market boat, railway, and steamer, from Holywell (Wales) 

 to Manchester. It found its way back in a couple of days, 

 performing part of its journey in the dark (Wood). 



4. A fox twice found its way on foot from Westmoreland 

 to Kent (Jesse). 



5. A King Charles spaniel made its way from Lincoln- 

 shire to the Isle of Wight (Jesse) . 



In all such cases the presumable motive is attachment to 

 and memory of locality or person, home love, perhaps home 

 sickness. It has to be remarked that the animals usually 

 credited with the possession of the homing or way-finding 

 faculty are those that are domesticated, which show, on the 

 one hand, the strongest attachment to home and master, 

 and on the other the greatest general intelligence. But, 

 whatever it be, the motive must be strong, for the peril and 

 fatigue involved are usually great, and starvation, exposure, 

 exhaustion, and death frequently result from the effort. 



Accepting the facts as narrated, it would be easy to specu- 

 late to an unlimited and unprofitable extent as to how, for 

 instance, the Scotch collie came to select the proper vessels to 

 bear it to Scotland and to Inverkeithing. It is quite credible 

 that the dog should have recognised the language of its 

 master as spoken by Scotch sailors, for we know full well 

 that shepherds' dogs and other dogs are acquainted with 

 human words and phrases and their meanings; but it by 

 no means follows that what is credible actually occurred, 



