necessary for the well-being of the infant grubs? In like manner a young bee, almost directly after it has left its cell, will fly away not only to collect honey from flowers, but will return with its little thighs loaded with what is called bee-bread. Nor is this all. Instinct leads it to discharge the honey from its stomach into some cell prepared for the purpose, and to scrape off the farina from its thighs into another cell, and then trample it down as a deposit to be used as food for the infant grubs.
Ants have a peculiar instinct, indeed a very curious one. On the tender shoots of a poplar tree a number of little green insects called aphes may often be seen clustered together. Ants find their way to these shoots or small branches, and tickle the aphes with their antennae: this process appears to give pleasure to the aphes, who emit a sweet fluid from their bodies, which the ants greedily devour. I have myself witnessed this operation too often to admit a doubt of its truth.
But let me give a few more anecdotes of contrivances of animals to procure their food.
Dr. Darwin tells us that there was, many years ago, an old monkey at Exeter Change, that had lost all his teeth. Visitors were in the habit of giving him nuts, but the old fellow was unable to crack them. He was furnished with a stone, and would thus break them on the floor of his prison.
Crows and rooks have been known to rise in the air with a muscle in their mouth, and to drop it on a rock, in order to break it, so as to enable the bird to feed on its contents. I have heard of a jackdaw, who was seen to drop stones in a hole in which there was some water, which it could not reach, till the water was raised sufficiently high to enable it to quench its thirst. I have also known a cat, when she was shut up in a room and wanted to get out, ring the bell, and make her escape when the servant answered it.
Many other instances might be given of extraordinary instincts in animals, and which may almost be thought to approach to reason, or to a degree of intelligence very nearly allied to it. An elephant has been called, and with truth, a half-reasoning animal, and dogs, who associate so much with man, have a just right to the same appellation. For instance, a dog will come in search of his master to a place where three roads meet. He will first smell at two of them, and, not finding that his owner has passed along either, he will come to the third and run along it, feeling that he must have proceeded that way, without thinking it necessary to put his nose to the ground as he had done at the other two roads. This fact has always appeared to me an extraordinary instance of intelligence; and it need not be doubted, for I witnessed it myself when I was one day riding on Hampton Common.
It is certain that some dogs have hereditary instincts. I have seen a young deer-hound the first time it has been slipped at a deer in Richmond Park, seize the animal by the ear, or by the skin of the forehead, thus preventing the dog from being hurt by the antlers of the animal, and holding it till the keepers came up and secured it. This instinct is peculiar to this breed of deer-hounds. A puppy of the St. Bernard breed has been seen to scratch up the snow the first time it was placed upon it, in imitation of that noble breed of dogs who are known to search for bodies buried in snow on the Alps, and thus preserve many lives. I have seen a young pointer, when only a few weeks old, point steadily at a chicken in a poultry-yard; and young ducks, which have been hatched under a hen, will, by a natural instinct, take to the water. If they were hatched in an oven they would probably do the same. But what can be more curious than that instinct which leads swans, many of whom make their nests on the small aits or islands on the river Thames, to raise their nests, as I have seen them do, some two or three feet in height, in order to protect their eggs from an apprehended sudden rise of the water after much rain.
But I must give here an anecdote of a dog as a proof of great intelligence. Two old women kept the toll-bar at a village in Yorkshire. It appears that they had a sum of money in the house, and feared lest they should be robbed of it. Their fears prevailed to such an extent, that when a carrier, whom they knew was passing by, they urgently requested him to remain with them all night. This, however, his duties would not permit him to do: but in consideration of the alarm of the women, he consented to leave with them his large mastiff dog. When the carrier started, the dog became violent and would not remain behind his master, upon which one of the women ran after the man, who returned and left his coat for the dog to watch, after which the animal remained quietly in the toll-house. In the night the women were disturbed by the uneasiness of the dog, and heard a noise as if an entrance was being forced into the premises through the window. On this they escaped by the back door, and ran to a neighbouring house, which happened to be occupied by a blacksmith. They knocked at the door, and were answered from within by the smith’s wife. She said her husband was absent, but that she was willing to accompany the terrified women to their home. This was agreed to, and on their reaching the house, they heard a savage, but half-stifled growling of the dog. On entering the house, they saw hanging half in and half out of their little window, the body of a man, whom the dog had seized by the throat, and was still worrying. On examination the man proved to be their neighbour the blacksmith, dreadfully torn about the throat, and quite dead. This faithful dog would appear to have known that he was left in the cottage to protect his master’s coat, and we have seen the result of his watchfulness.
To pass on to the instincts of bees. Every keeper of bees knows that these insects form three sorts or sizes of cells, one for workers, the two others for drones and females. Now the queen bee, in laying her eggs, has the wonderful instinct of distinguishing the three different kinds of cells, never putting a royal or a drone egg into the cells destined for the reception of the working bees. In passing over the cells which form the combs, the different sizes of which are much intermixed, she looks first into each of them and then lays her egg, never making a mistake as to the proper grub to be deposited in it. I have often witnessed this curious process with great interest. There is one other extraordinary