CHAP. XV.

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING ANIMALS.-(Concluded.,

Remarkable Strength of Affection in Animals-Surprising Instances of their Sociality-Unaccountable Faculties possessed by some Animals-Remarkable Instances of Fasting in Animals-Extraordinary Adventures of a Sheep-Sagacity of a Monkey-Astonishing Instance of Sagacity in a Horse-Sagacity of Dogs-Curious Anecdotes of a Dog-Remarkable Dg.

Far as creation's ample range extends,

The scale of sensual, mental powers, ascends:
Mark, how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass!
What modes of sight, betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curiain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious, on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true,
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew:
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier,
For ever separate, yet for ever near!

Pope.

REMARKABLE STRENGTH OF AFFECTION IN ANIMALS.Mr. White, in his Natural History, &c. of Selborne, speaking of the natural affection of brutes, says, "The more I reflect on it, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful, than the shortness of its duration. Thus, every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or sow in defence of those chickens, which, in a few weeks, she will drive before her with relentless cruelty. This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity, of the brute creation. Thus, a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid. bird she used to be, but, with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger, in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman, in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In the time of nidification, the most feeble birds will assault the most rapa

cious. All the hirundines of a village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that dis trict. A very exact observer has often remarked, that a pair of ravens, nestling in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with amazing fury; even the blue thrush, at the season of breeding, would dart out from the clefts of the rocks, to chase away the kestrel or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together. The fly-catcher builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed; but a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while, with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow-wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird, a friend and myself had observed as she sat in her nest; but we were particularly careful not to disturb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on; but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up a large bundle of long green moss as it were carelessly thrown over the nest, in order to deceive the eye of any impertinent intruder."

Next in order is the account of SURPRISING INSTANCES OF SOCIALITY IN ANIMALS.-A wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, independent of sexual attachment, has been frequently remarked. Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves; the strongest fences cannot restrain them. A horse has been known to leap out of a stable window, through which dung was thrown, after company; and yet in other respects was remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves, but will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended by society. It would be needless to instance in sheep, which constantly flock together. But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same species. Mr. White mentions a doe that was brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows. "With them it goes to the field, and with them it

returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no no ice of this doe, being used to her; but if strange dogs come by, a chase ensues; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or style, till she returns to the cows, who with fierce lowings and menacing horns drive the assailants quite out of the pasture."-Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social advances and mutual fellowship. Of this the following remarkable instance is given by the same author.

"A very intelligent and observant person has assured me, that in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs; while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive companion. Thus by mutual good cffices each seemed to console the vacant hours of the other."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1788, we have the following anecdotes of a raven, communicated by a correspondent who does not sign his name, but says it is at the service of the doubtful. The raven alluded to lived at the Red Lion at Hungerford; his name was Ralph. "You must know then, (says the writer,) that coming into that inn, my thaise ran over or bruised the leg of my Newfoundland dog, and while we were examining the injury done to the dog's foot, Ralph was evidently a concerned spectator; for, the minute the dog was tied up under the manger with my horse, Ralph not only visited him, but fetched him bones, and attended upon him with particular and repeated proofs of kindness. The bird's notice of the dog was so marked, that I observed it to the hostler; for I had not heard a word before of the history of this benevolent creature. John then told me, that he had been bred from his pin-feather in intimacy with a dog; that the affection between them was mutual; and that all the neighbourhood had often been witnesses of the innumerable acts of kindness they had conferred upon each other. Ralph's poor dog, after a while, unfortunately broke his leg; and during the long time he was confined, Ralph waited upon him constantly, carried him provisions daily, and scarcely ever left him alone! One night by accident the hostler had shut the stable-door, and Ralph was deprived of his friend the whole night; but the hostler found in the morning the bottom of the door so pecked away, that had it not been opened, Ralph would

in another hour have made his own entrance-port. I then inquired of my landlady, (a sensible woman,) and heard what I have related confirmed by her, with several other singular traits of the kindnesses this bird shews to all dogs in general, but particularly to maimed or wounded ones. I hope and believe, however, Ralph is still living; and the traveller will find I have not over-rated this wonderful bird's merit."

To these instances of attachment between incongruous animals from a spirit of sociality, or the feelings of sympathy, may be added the following instance of fondness from a different motive, recounted by Mr. White, in the work already so often quoted.

"My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the servants fed with milk in a spoon; and about the same time his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be gone the way of most foundlings, or to be killed by some dog or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling with little short inward notes of complacency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling after, which proved to be the leveret, which the cat had supported with her milk, and continued to support with great affection. Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous and predacious one! Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious genus of Felis, the murian leo, (the lion of the mice,) as Linnæus calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine. The strange affection probably was occasioned by that sympathy, and those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast; and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself from the procuring her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended with milk; till from habit she became as much delighted with this foundling, as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which grave historians, as well as poets, assert, of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts, that probably had lost their young; for it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that a poor little suck ling leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin.”

We shall now give the history of the UNACCOUNTABLE FACULTIES POSSESSED BY SOME ANIMALS.-Besides reflection and sagacity, often in an astonishing degree, and besides

the sentiments and actions prompted by social or natural attachments, brutes seem on many occasions inspired with a superior faculty, a kind of presentiment or second sight, as it were, with regard to events and designs altogether unforeseen by the rational beings whom they concern. The following account is of unquestionable authenticity.

At the seat of the late Earl of Litchfield, three miles from Blenheim, there is a portrait in the dining-room of Sir Henry Lee, by Johnston, with that of a mastiff dog which saved his life. A servant had formed the design of assassinating his master, and robbing the house; but the night he had fixed on, the dog, which had never been much noticed by Sir Henry, for the first time followed him up stairs, got under his bed, and could not be got from thence by either master or man: in the dead of night, the same servant entered the room to execute his horrid design, but was instantly seized by the dog, and, being secured, confessed his intentions. Upon what hypothesis can we account for a degree of foresight and penetration such as this? Will it be suggested, as a solution of the difficulty, that a dog may possibly become capable in a great measure of understanding human discourse, and of reasoning and acting accordingly; and that, in the present instance, the villain had either uttered his design in soliloquy, or imparted it to an accomplice, in the hearing of the animal?

It has been disputed whether the brutes have any language whereby they can express their minds to each other; or whether all the noise they make consists only of cries, inarticulate and unintelligible even to themselves. Father Bougeant gives the following instance, among others, to prove that brutes are capable of forming designs, and of communicating those designs to others.-A sparrow, finding a nest that a martin had just built, standing very conveniently for him, possessed himself of it. The martin, seeing the usurper in her house, called for help to expel him. A thousand martins came full speed, and attacked the sparrow; but the latter being covered on every side, and presenting only his large beak at the entrance of the nest, was invulnerable, and made the boldest of them who durst approach him repent of their temerity. After a quarter of an hour's combat, all the martins disappeared: the sparrow thought he had got the better, and the spectators judged that the martins had abandoned the undertaking. Not in the least; immediately they returned to the charge, and each of them having procured a little of that tempered earth with which they make their nests, they all at once fell upon the sparrow, and enclosed him in the nest, to perish there, though they could not drive him thence.-Can it be imagined that the martins could have been able to hatch and concert this