78 
around, she also closes up the usual entrance to the nursery 
firmly, even patting the soil down to exclude the colder outer 
air. In due time, as the young increase in size, &c., she makes 
‘‘air-holes,” commencing with very minute ones, which are 
gradually enlarged as the inmates gain strength and size. 
These are known facts, to which I add one not heretofore 
noticed, which seems important ; it has reference to the form- 
ation of the subterranean nursery, in regard to its shape and the 
evident ‘fend in view.” These minor tunnels, or nursery 
* stops,”’ are invariably formed by starting a downward curve, 
at an angle of about 45°, which is continued beyond any line of 
sight the eye can be guided by on the outer side. They subse- 
quently curve abruptly upward, with almost double this initial 
acuteness, ending in a shelved enlargement, with the roof 
boundary nearly uniformly three inches from the surface of the 
ground above and without. 
What I feel constrained to uphold in regard to these first facts 
is, that herein exists a most subtle sanitary arrangement ; that 
by these means a subdued genial air is admitted, the only fresh 
air the nursery receives, and whereon the nurselings thrive, 
strengthen, and grow. ‘The facts would seem to support the 
theory that the mother-parent continues what must be its hard 
work—doubly hard and severe in these finishing overhead exca- 
vations—until the very keen power of scent they possess assures 
them that the outer air is slightly admitted through innume- 
rable interstices in the soil above. ia 
My second proposition, or indeed belief, based upon distinct 
observation, is, that the parent doe rabbit does not visit its young, 
even nocturnally, at certain times oftener than once in each 
7z hours! Certainly sometimes not more frequently than 
once during the 48 hours comprising two days and two nights. 
The latter fact I have ascertained by carefully marking and 
observing the neatly closed entrance to the stops, and also by 
marks beneath an iron garden-gate, in freshly Jaid gravel, which 
the rabbits had to scratch aside before they could enter. Fur- 
thermore, I have every reason to believe that the parent rabbit 
ceases to transmit the customary natural scent at the time she 
approaches or acts about the “stop ;” if, indeed, as is the case 
with some kinds of game birds, during the period of incubation, 
she does not lose it altogether. Certain is it no appreciable 
amount of scent remains about the stop in the early morning 
after the parent rabbit has visited its nursery during the past 
night. 
fOn the question whether animals have the power of ceasing 
to emit a scent at certain times, see ,the article on Pheasants in 
this week’s number.—ED. ] 
Mr. J. D. Bell, of the World office, New York, writes 
as follows on the consciousness of time in horses :— 
_ My own experience will not allow me to speak positively as to 
smell, but horses that I have met and carefully observed, were not 
peculiarly gifted in this respect. It was a common saying on “the 
plains” and in the mining regions of California, that mules, by 
the way very sagacious animals, which would well repay observa- 
tion, ‘scent the redskin a mile away.” I have made some in- 
quiry on this point, but have been unable to find that the 
olfactories of the mule are really thus acute. I can bear 
testimony to the extraordinary powers of sight in horses. 
And I am inclined to think that they take more notes 
by the way through their eyes than through the nose, As 
none of your correspondents have called attention to it, 
I desire to recall the fact that horses have ears as well as 
eyes and noses. Their hearing is very acute, and I am inclined 
to think that the explanation of the detection of red-skins by 
mules, will be found in the educated ear rather than 
in the educated nose. It used to be said in the cavalry 
service of the United States during the war that ‘‘ horses 
were the best pickets.” I have seen them again and 
again in the dead of night prick up their ears when the men on 
their backs heard nothing. I have never seen them sniff or 
smell first. Listening was invariably the first movement. Then 
came sight. Horses have scanned the woods and chapparall 
with a care that no mancould surpass. If the moving thing first 
heard and then seen was an unfamiliar object—more especially 
if it was moving along the ground—then I have seen horses 
sniff, smell, and snort. In horses the snort is expressive of 
aversion rather than fear, or perhaps of a sentiment compounded 
of both. 
Horses learn the notes of the bugle, and I have often 
seen a trained horse turn in a direction opposed to that 
NATURE 
[May 22, 1873 
indicated by the pressure of his less experienced rider’s 
leg. I have known horses which, after detecting the pre- 
sence of moving objects by hearing and then by sight, during 
which time they remained perfectly quiet, change feet, and even 
paw the ground if the rider did not by his movement show re- 
cognition of the presence of what might be an enemy. 
And what, it will be asked, has this to do with the question 
at issue? Simply this—horses think, horses reason, horses 
classify, horses remember, But I desire to offer a few remarks 
on Darwin’s letter about the blind mare that stopped at 
every public-house on the road. My own explanation of 
the fact, and there must be hundreds of similar instances— 
is that the mare, by long-continued custom, became conscious 
of the time which should elapse between the respective stop- 
ping places. Horses have a great memory for time. What 
is the interpretation of the existence and improvements of our 
racing and trotting horses but that these animals have the power 
of remembering time, and the power of transmitting this im- 
proved registering and transmitting cerebral apparatus to their 
progeny. I will close this letter by relating a couple of incidents. 
I was speaking of my belief in this equine memory for time to an 
enthusiastic horseman of my acquaintance, the other day, and 
at the same time showed him Mr. Darwin’s letter. He said that 
in his youth he had driven a horse, sound in every respect, on a 
‘‘hread” route. He always served his cu-tomers in a certain 
order. After a while his animal knew all the places, and 
stopped in front of the store or residence where bread was to 
be delivered, without a signal from his master. If the master 
remained in any place longer than usual, his horse started off, 
but instead of going to the next customer, returned to the stable. 
This, said he, occurred again and again, not at one place, but at 
many places. : ‘ 
I served, during the recent war, in a cavalry regiment in the 
United States’ service. The horses knew the time for ‘‘ the 
relief,” and if the relief did not come they became restive. On 
one occasion we changed the time of remaining on post from 
two tofour hours. For the first two hours the horses behaved 
admirably ; after that they were in constant motion, and had to 
be constantly restrained. Horses recognised the time for stable 
call—not merely ‘‘ hunger”’-call, but the proper time-call. 
A gentleman in the north of Ireland, who gives us his 
name and _ address, sends us the following story of a 
dog :— 
He was a terrier—a cross upon the skye—very intelligent, like 
all of his kind. He was given to me by Mr. C——, a gentle- 
man residing upon Lough Foyle near Moville. He was brought 
from that to Derry in asteamer up the Lough, and from Derry 
to Buncrana down Lough Swilly by train. He therefore 
travelled two sides of an acute-angled triangle, about thirty 
miles in all by conveyance. ‘The third side being about filteen 
miles, but a mountainous and unfrequented route. He appeared 
at first very happy and reconciled, but one fine morning he was 
seen taking the road parallel to the railway back to Derry, and 
after my searching for him for some days and making every 
inquiry, we found he had returned, tired and worn out, 
to his old master, Mr. C., near Moville. It was evidently hard 
work, and he was two or three days on the road. This I 
consider an interesting case.—Here the dog did not go by the 
third side of the triangle—which if he knew how to do he would 
have done instead of exhausting himself by the long route he 
took—following the direction along which he came by steamer 
and train. : 
My theory is that the dog does preserve a very distinct, or 
at least tolerably distinet, notion of the route he was brought 
from home by, and that it is forcibly impressed upon him ; but 
the great aid to his return is the direction of the sun or light. 
He knows that if he travels in a ce:tain direction—say E.— 
he is going towards the morning sun, anl W., towards the 
evening sun. : 
- A correspondent, Mr. R. A. Pryor, Hatfield, sends us 
the following extract from the Rev. A. l’Estrange’s edition 
of Miss Mitford’s “ Life and Letters ” :— 
Miss Mitford (Letter of October 16, 1829, vol. ii. p. 277), 
had been dining in company with the late Dr, Routh, president 
of Magdalen College, Oxford, who “had a spaniel of king 
Charles's breed, who, losing his mamma by accident when a pup, 
was brought up by a cat: well, he and his brother, for there 
were two pups, orphans of three days old, were nursed by this 
