208 ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 
this knowledge, all the acute perceptive faculties of 
the adult savage are devoted to acquiring and perfect- 
ing it. The good hunter or warrior thus comes to 
know the bearing of every hill and mountain range, 
the directions and junctions of all the streams, the 
situation of each tract characterized by peculiar 
vegetation, not only within the area he has himselt 
traversed, but for perhaps a hundred miles around 
it. His acute observation enables him to detect 
the slightest undulations of the surface, the various 
changes of subsoil and alterations in the character of 
the vegetation, that would be quite imperceptible to 
a stranger. His eye is always open to the direction: 
in which he is going; the mossy side of trees, the 
presence of certain plants under the shade of rocks, 
the morning and evening flight of birds, are to him 
indications of direction, almost as sure as the sun in 
the heavens. Now, if such a savage is required to 
find his way across this country in a direction in 
which he has never been before, he is quite equal 
to the task. By however circuitous a route he has 
come to the point he is to start from, he has observed 
all the bearings and distances so well, that he knows 
pretty nearly where he is, the direction of his own 
home and that of the place he is required to go to. 
He starts towards it, and knows that by a certain time 
he must cross an upland or a river, that the streams 
should flow in a certain direction, and that he should 
cross some of them at a certain distance from their 
sources. The nature of the soil throughout the whole 
