380 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



with water, and then squirted it upon the men, but find- 

 ing they would not desist, she set in good earnest to the 

 task of sucking up water and discharging it into the boat. 

 At first the men laughed at the expedient, but she perse- 

 vered till they began to bale to keep from sinking ; upon 

 this manoeuvre she redoubled her efforts, and would cer- 

 tainly have been able to swamp the boat, had the passage 

 across been prolonged a few minutes more. 



This poor elephant was maliciously shot by a malevolent 

 back-settler who waylaid her behind a hedge. The Major 

 examined the skeleton, and was surprised to find that the 

 ball had gone quite through the abdomen, and broke a rib 

 on each side. He also found that three of the vertebrae of 

 the back had formed an anchylosis, in consequence, as he was 

 informed, of the animal having fallen through a bridge 

 which gave way under her. 



We have already expressed an opinion that true instinct 

 is to be found most commonly in such animals as exhibit 

 the smallest indications of reason, and vice versa, this seems 

 to be true to the extent of rendering it very difficult to se- 

 parate the acts of reason from those of instinct, in the most 

 rational brute: thus it is no easy matter to distinguish 

 mental instinct from the reasoning faculty in the Elephant. 

 In the Dog, the domestic Cat, and the carnivorous order 

 generally, the impulse to whose food seems purely of an in- 

 stinctive character, the indications of this impulse are 

 plainer, though these animals may have an equal or su- 

 perior mental capacity with it. 



In man, whose physical characters display his relative 

 situation admirably, and whose omnivorous regimen is as 

 apparent by his bodily peculiarities, as it is by the aptness 

 with which he adopts it practically, there is no great im- 

 probability that the ardent love of the chase, of angling, 

 and of such like cruel sports, originates in an instinctive 

 principle, similar to that which impels the carnivora, pro- 



