5472 lleason and Instinct. 



man, resident at Scarborough. Walking with a favourite Newfound- 

 land dog of large size, one frosty day, he observed the animal's 

 repeated disappointment on putting his head down in the attempt to 

 drink at sundry ice-covered pools. After one of these disappointments 

 my friend broke the ice with his foot for his thirsty companion. The 

 next time the animal was prompted by his thirst to try and drink 

 again, instead of waiting for his master to break the ice as before, he 

 set his own huge paw forcibly on the ice, and obtained water for him- 

 self. I will give but one more anecdote. An elephant, receiving 

 company, has some eatables given him : one article — if I remember 

 right, an apple or an orange — is dropped, and rolls just out of reach 

 of the creature's trunk, but so that it lies only a short distance from a 

 wall. The elephant, finding himself unable to reach the fruit by the 

 ordinary process, by the forcible expulsion of the air from his trunk 

 drives it so strongly against the wall that it rebounds far enough to 

 be easily within his reach. 



To these instances of intelligence, — and I may say, with respect to 

 more than one of them, of sustained reasoning, — I might add a vast 

 number of others, the result of observations on the habits and actions 

 of the elephant, the horse, the cat, the otter, the pig, the seal, the 

 kangaroo, the stoat, the weasel, the fox, the parrot, the magpie, the 

 nuthatch, the ringdove, the flycatcher, &c, &c, many of them to the 

 full as striking and conclusive as the generality of those quoted ; but 

 I cannot think it necessary. And with such an array as has been 

 produced, there must be a strange degree of prejudice, or an equally 

 strange unwillingness to admit a fully-warranted conclusion, if we seek 

 to deny the possession by brutes of intellectual faculties capable of 

 the processes of composition and abstraction. Have we never heard 

 the parent or the nurse telling of the quickness, the intelligence, the 

 cleverness of the little child, and, in support of her eloquence, 

 adducing actions done or remarks spoken by her pet that did not 

 evince so much intelligence and reasoning power by one half as some' 

 of the "dumb brutes" in the instances recorded above, displayed in 

 the conduct attributed to them ? I do not know that I can better 

 close this portion of our subject than by the following passage from 

 Mr. Jesse's * Angler's Rambles :' — "Although no animal is endowed 

 with mental powers equal to those which the human race possesses, 

 yet there is not a faculty of the human mind of which some evident 

 proofs of its existence may not be found in particular animals. Thus 

 we find them possessed with memory, imagination, the powers of imi- 

 tation, curiosity, cunning, gratitude, ingenuity, devotion or affection 



