Reason and Instinct, 



6053 



journeys, and, in several cases, such as required other means of loco- 

 motion besides the animal's own for their accomplishment, before the 

 return could be effected. No one disputes that this is done by In- 

 stinct, and indeed no one can, for there is no other explanation to be 

 given. It is very wonderful and mysterious, but possibly not at all 

 more so than what we see or may see almost every day, in a hundred 

 different directions, if we have our eyes open. I refer to such things 

 as the migration of various birds and beasts, the return of the bee to 

 its hive,* and the like. 



Well ! we go into the vast forests of North America, equally 

 boundless, trackless, directionless : but the Red Man f will guide us 

 to a point in any given direction, though he has never been there 

 before ; and, if we take him by a circuitous route to any given point, 

 scores of miles distant, and never before visited by him, he will return 



* In this moorland country it is customary, when the ling (Scottice, heather) is in 

 bloom, for the keepers of bees to convey their hives to the close vicinity of the moors. 

 You may sometimes see thirty or forty hives placed in some little enclosure connected 

 witli a cottage or other house just on the verge of the moor. This transportation, I 

 hardly need say, is effected after nightfall, and the bees have " gone to bed." The 

 next morning, after a little seeming '* wonder where they have got to," they go about 

 their business as usual, amid the new scenes and flowers and sweets, — and very pow- 

 erful and delicious is the aromatic smell of the ling blossom on a fine sunny day in 

 August, — and at the usual time return well laden, in their customary direct undoubting 

 flight, to their comb, notwithstanding its new " whereabouts.'' The honey, I may 

 add, is almost equal in flavour and scent to the renowned honey of Greece. 



f " It is truly wonderful to witness the sagacity and unerring precision with which 

 the Indian hunter can trace his route from one spot to another, no matter how great 

 the distance may be, through the most dense forests, and over the most rough and 

 broken country. It does not signify whether he has travelled through the same 

 country before or not ; he knows the direction, and that is sufficient. In his native 

 forests he is never at a loss; walks evenly and softly at all times, as if he were on the 

 trail ; seldom speaks or makes a false step, or unintentionally breaks a branch.'' — 

 Hardy s Sporting Adventures in the New World, i. 32. I quote from this book as it 

 happens to be the volume at hand, but the facts adduced are testified to by many dif- 

 ferent authors. Again, " Many are the rules which I have heard laid down by white 

 settlers for finding one's way through the woods." The writer then mentions two or 

 three, such as noticing the bark on the trees, and being " guided by the mosses and 

 lichens, which always grow thickest on the north side," or observing the " direction in 

 which the top foliage of pines and the hackmatack grows: they will invariably be 

 found pointing to the north-east," &c. &c. He then proceeds, " I have heard all 

 these methods described as being resorted to by the Indians in finding their way, but 

 I am confident that they do not use them. When I have mentioned them to an 

 Indian, he has invariably laughed heartily, saying, ' lugiue no want look at bark or 

 tree-top, 'cept when he hunt porcupine.' '' — Id, 33, 35. 



