428 
ON INSTINCT. 
That brutes possess memory, is self-evident to every one : even 
bees are known to possess this quality; for after hours of wan¬ 
dering, they return to their own particular hives, which they 
clearly distinguish from all others in the same neighbourhood. 
This fact is well expressed by Mr. Rogers, in his poem of the 
** Pleasures of Memorythough he is mistaken in supposing 
the bee to be reconducted to its hive by the scent of the various 
flowers which it has visited, for bees fly straight to their hives 
from great distances. 
“Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? 
Who bids her soul wiih conscious triumph swell ? 
With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 
Of varied scents that charm’d her as she flew ? 
Hail! Memory, hail ! thy universal reign 
Guards the least link of Being’s glorious chain.” 
It is true that we can only see the necessary steps leading to 
instinct—its essential character is as impenetrably concealed 
from us as the essence of matter, and to dispute upon it is an 
equal waste of time. 
The same may be said of mind. A string of phenomena de¬ 
pendent upon the living brain is called mind. In observing these 
phenomena, which are simply the functions of the living brain, 
consists the true philosophy of the mind. Sir H. Davy believed 
that there was in the brain and nerves matter of a nature far 
more subtle and refined than any thing discovered in them by 
observation and experiment, and that the immediate connexion 
between the sentient principle and the body may be established 
by kinds of ethereal mattery which can never be evident to the 
senses.” Now, even call it, for a moment, an ethereal matter, 
we are still as ignorant as ever of the essence of mind. But 
Her proceedings having excited attention, she was followed in one of her 
nocturnal retreats ; not to the barn from which her young ones had been so 
cruelly taken and drowned, but to the top of a barley mowhay, at some dis¬ 
tance. On beating up her quarters there, she was discovered feeding- her 
young ones, which had by this time become plump and sleek, and as wild as 
young tigers. The hole which the mother had made in the mowhay to af¬ 
ford a passage and retreat to the young ones was particularly curious. A 
few day afterwards, finding, perhaps, that her own daily journeys were too 
fatiguing, or thinking it necessary that her young ones should be introduced 
to the world, in order to rub off the rust of their country education, or, 
what is most probable, feeling assured that her kittens had attained an age 
which would save them from sharing the fate of their departed relatives, she 
took advantage of two dark and silent nights, when worrying dogs and 
naughty boys were within doors, to convey them to the hotel kitchen, where 
they found an hospitable welcome. Tliis circumstance occurred in the 
town, and the truth can be vouched by many persons now residing here, who 
were witnesses to it. 
