HOMING INSTINCTS OF HILL-PONIES 



visited next day, as everyone regarded the terrier as 

 dead and gone. About four o'clock on the afternoon 

 of Wednesday — that is, the eighth day after his 

 incarceration — to the amazement but dehght of the 

 laird, Pepper, who was a mere bag of skin and 

 bones, appeared at Ardachie ! As he came along, he 

 stumbled and fell, and appeared to be in the last stage 

 of exhaustion. Needless to say, he was at once 

 attended to. It is pleasant to be able to add that he 

 is now on the highroad to recovery. 



I have known cases of homing instinct displayed by 

 hill-ponies before a snow-storm. In one instance one 

 of these ponies was known to swim part of a lake 

 in order to get round a fence which had been put up 

 to keep the herd in for the winter, and for years an old 

 pony I knew of used to lead the herd for some thirty 

 miles home before snow came on. When this took 

 place hard weather invariably followed soon afterwards. 

 Doubtless these ponies scented the coming change, 

 and, like deer, descended to the low ground before the 

 snow arrived. 



Falcons are capable of performing wonderful flights 

 in an incredibly short space of time. I have many a 

 time lost falcons which have given chase to some 

 quarry which was suddenly roused, and this they 

 would follow for many miles, and were often seen 

 miles away, yet they invariably returned to the spot 

 where they were unhooded and let off It is strange, 

 and much to be wondered at, how these birds, travelling 

 eighty miles an hour, as they do when after game, can, 

 so to speak, take the bearings necessary to enable them 

 to find their way back over a route which they have 

 never before travelled except at such terrific speed ; 



