53 
MISCELLANY. 
species, but he informs us that none of the following have been procured—not¬ 
withstanding all his exertions. The Lice which infest the Fox, Otter, Polecat, 
Squirrel, Hedgehog, Mouse and Rat, Shrews, Mole, Dormouse, Hare, Seal, Cat, 
Bat, Pine Marten, and Roebuck, among our quadrupeds ; and the Kite, Goshawk, 
Kestrel, Eagle, Owl, Little Owl, Roller, Nut-cracker, Wren, Blue Tit, Goldfinch, 
Pine Grosbeak, Redbreast, Ring Ousel,Water-ousel, Pratincole, Crane, Night-heron, 
Ibis, Bustard, Little Bustard, Northern Diver, Black Stork, Coot, Quail, and Haw¬ 
finch, among British birds. We are sure Mr. Denny would feel greatly obliged to 
any parties who have opportunities of procuring and sending to him specimens of 
these Lice; such parties will at the same time render a service to Natural History 
itself. The Lice on some of the creatures enumerated are extremely small, and 
can only be seen on a careful examination. 
Animal Instinct. —An old Monkey, at Exeter ’Change, having lost his teeth> 
used, when nuts were given to him, to take a stone in his paw and break them 
with it. This was a thing seen forty years ago by all who frequented Exeter 
’Change, and Darwin relates it in his 'Zoonomia. But I must say that he would 
have shewn himself more of a philosopher had he asked the showman how the 
Monkey learned this expedient. It is very possible he may have been taught it, 
as Apes have oftentimes been taught human habits. Buffon, the great adversary 
of brute intelligence, allows that he had known an Ape who dressed himself in 
clothes to which he had become habituated, and slept in a bed, pulling up the 
sheets and blankets to cover him before going to sleep ; and he mentions another 
which sat at table, drank wine out of a glass, used a knife and fork, and wiped them 
on a table-napkin. All these things, of course, were the consequence of training, 
and showed no more sagacity than the feats of dancing Dogs and Bears, or of the 
learned Pig—unless it were proved that the Ape on being taught these manipula¬ 
tions became sensible of their convenience—and voluntarily, and by preference, 
practised them—a position which no experiments appear to support. Smellie, 
however, mentions a Cat which, being confined in a room, in order to get out and 
meet its mate of the other sex, learnt of itself to open the latch of a door; and I 
knew a pony in the stable here, that used both to open the latchof the ^stable and 
raise the lid of the corn-chest—things which must have been learnt by himself, 
from his own observation, for no one is likely to have taught them to him. Nay, 
it was only the other clay that I observed one of the Horses taken in here to Grass, 
in a field through which the avenue runs, open one of the wickets by pressing down 
the upright bar of the latch, and open it exactly as you or I do.—Lord Brougham's 
Dissertations on Natural Theology. 
