ORDER GALLINiE. 281 



Pigeons are known to dream ; they utter cries and employ 

 gestures in their sleep, which clearly prove it : and at such 

 times their slumber is so profound that they may be taken 

 without any difficulty. 



It is not very easy to believe that the combined operations 

 performed by these birds, and almost always varied, according 

 to present necessity, — to accomplish any desire, — to recognize 

 the places in which they are, — to choose the direction in which 

 they shall take their flight, — to slacken or modify their 

 motions, as occasion may require, &c., — are the mere result of 

 instinct. Instinct can hardly teach them to feign designs, and 

 to distinguish the nature of the danger, that they may oppose 

 to it the most certain preventative. Instinct is not suscep- 

 tible of improvement. The young pigeon, under its protec- 

 tion alone, falls much more frequently into snares than his 

 old companions. The latter, instructed by memory, recog- 

 nize the objects and circumstances under which they have 

 formerly encountered danger or uneasiness. It is not likely 

 that their ideas on such subjects are very precise ; but they 

 certainly can observe the relation between the sight of certain 

 objects, and a well founded fear for their liberty or existence. 



If it be true that the old pigeons, better than the young, 

 can avoid snares, and the pursuit of man and animals — if they 

 divine, as it were, the projects of their enemies, and frustrate 

 them by opposing stratagem against stratagem, — their intel- 

 ligence must have undergone improvement with time, and is 

 therefore susceptible of it. 



The curiosity which these birds so obviously evince is a 

 proof that their intellect is not stationary. From this curiosity 

 a variety of light fugacious movements originate in these 

 birds, very observable when they are attentively watched, 

 and some degree of cultivation bestowed upon them. The more 

 they are attended to, the more do they seem capable of ideas 

 and sentiments, — the more their understanding and afFec- 



