ER 
F 
222 General Notes. (February, 
serious. I may add that, on opening the closet next morning, 
there was Dido mounting guard over a slain rat as big as ever 
spoiled good provisions or tried a housekeeper’s temper. HY 
It is well known that the house-cat will find its way back from 
distant places to which it has been carried blindfolded; and how 
it performs such feats naturalists have never satisfactorily ex- 
plained. The theory accepted by some of them is that the animal 
takes note of the successive odors encountered on the way, that 
_ these leave as distinct a series of images as those we should re- 
ceive by the sense of sight, and that, by taking them in them — 
verse order from that in which they were received, he traces his — 
homeward route. ae 
But, in the cat now described, the sense of smell is by no means 
acute, as has been proved by a variety of methods; and more — 
over, although, as one might say, perpetually blindfolded, he quite 
uniformly chooses the shortest road home without reference to — 
the path he may have taken on leaving the house. Curious to Set 
how far this homing instinct would extend, I took advantage ofa : 
fall of snow that wrapped under its mantle every familiar object 
concealed all the paths, and deadened every odor and soune 
aking Dido to a considerable distance from the house, and 
_ making a number of turns to bewilder him, I tossed him upona 
drift and quietly awaited results. The poor creature turned his 
sightless orbs this way and that, and mewed piteously for nep. 
Finding, at length, that he was thrown entirely on his own tè 
sources, he stood motionless for about one minute, and then, to 
my amazement, made his way directly through the untrodden : 
_ snow to the house door—which, it is needless to add, was promptly 
opened for the shivering martyr to scientific investigation, to whom 
consolation was forthwith offered. in a brimming bowl of i 
m: 
m $ 
_ My conclusion, therefore, is that Wallace’s ingenious theory of 
accounting for orientation by what he calls “ brain registration, 
will not explain what has been described ; but that the mysterious 
homing faculty is probably independent of such methods ot gaii 
_ ing knowledge as have been ordinarily observed, and is analog' 
to the migratory instinct controlling the long flights of some 3 
cies of birds, 
ADDITIONAL REMARKS RELATIVE TO TEACHING BRUTES THE! 
or Lerrers.—In the article published in the January numo 
the NATURALIST, I endeavored to indicate very briefly the m 
to be pursued in a suggested investigation into the limitations = 
the mental action of brutes. From some comments upor i 
article I have been led to believe that it would be accepta? 
some of your readers to add a brief supplement relating to + 
details. : es 
_ If dogs were the subjects chosen for experiments as sugs® 
