120 
shun the society of each other; but jackals (canis 
aureus) hunt commonly in flocks or packs, and wolves 
occasionally. Most of the rodentia, rabbits and 
beavers, love society: some, as hares, are lonely. 
The ruminants assemble in herds, as kine and deer. 
The hedgehog, erinaceus, is nocturnal and lonely. 
The mus lemmus Norvegicus is an object of terror 
from the vastness of its all-devouring multitudes. 
The sorex fodiens, or aquaticus, is ever solitary. 
Docility. 
Few characteristics of inferior animals are so im- 
mediately interesting to man as their docility. This 
is obviously not an object, like many previously no- 
ticed, of mere observation, however attentive. It is 
only discoverable by experiment; and that experi- 
ment may require, in many cases, much time, and 
patience, and skill, in adapting various means to the 
remote end. Experiments made on the young may 
prove successful, which, applied to animals of ma- 
ture age, would be hopeless. But this is a truth 
too well known to the instructors even of boys and 
girls, and of adults, to need further remark. Tain 
up a child, says Solomon. 
“Tis education forms the common mind ; 
“« Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclin’di.” 
Plants may be made to twist themselves into a 
vast variety of forms by ligaments and partial ob- 
} Moral Essays, p. 150. 
