V 



Chap. XIII.] LOWER ANIMALS. 217 



" Mr. Macldntosh, of Dargo, informs me that about two years 

 ago, when gathering wild cattle on the Avon Eiver, he got away 

 from his men down that river for many miles before he ascertained 

 that he was astray. Finding then that his horse jjersisted in going 

 in a certain direction, he gave him his head, and the horse went in 

 a straight line to the place where the camp was fixed, a distance of 

 some ten miles, through a scrubby country, and without a track.'* 



As another typical instance of this kind of power in a 

 Dog, exercised, moreover, after a long interval, the follow- 

 ing occurrence may be cited :* — 



" A hound was sent by Charles Cobbe, Esq., from Newbridge, 

 county Dublin, to Moynalty, county Meath, and thence, long a'ter- 

 "wards, conveyed to Dublin. The hound broke loose in Dublin, and 

 the same morning made his way back to his old kennel at New- 

 bridge, thus completing the third side of a triangle by a road he 

 had never travelled in his life." 



Powers akin to this displayed by the Horse and the 

 Dog seem possessed in considerable perfection by many 

 other kinds of animals, among which, in ascending 

 order, may be mentioned Insects, Crabs, Migratory Fishes 

 and Birds, some Keptiles as well as such Quadrupeds as 

 the Cat, the Sheep, the Ass, and probably many others.! 



A very remarkable and well-attested example of such 

 an endowment in this latter animal has been cited by 

 Kirby and Spencet — 



"In March, 1816, an ass, the property of Captain Dundas, E.IST., 

 then at Malta, was shipped on board the Ister frigate. Captain 

 Forest, bound from Gibraltar for that island. The vessel having 

 struck on some sands off the Point de Gal, at some distance from 

 the shore, the ass was thrown overboard to give it a chance of 

 swimming to land — a poor one, for the sea was running so high 



* " Quarterly Eeview," October, 1872. 



\ For recorded instances, see " Nature," vol. vii. 



X " Introd. to Entomology," seventh ed. 18G0, p. 5D2. 



