went to the menagerie, and walked up to the cage in which the bird was confined. The crane instantly recognised him; and when Valentin went into its cage, lavished upon him every mark of affectionate attachment.

That animals possess parental and filial affections, friendly dispositions, and generous sympathies, is known even to superficial observers. The artifices, which partridges and plovers employ to delude their enemies from the nest of their young, are equally known. The hind, when she hears the sound of dogs, puts herself in the way of her hunters; and, choosing her ground, takes an opposite direction to that in which she left her fawns. The love of this animal, too, for its native haunts, is not unfrequently exemplified. A farmer at Mount Vernon, in the state of Kentucky, having domesticated a female deer, lost her during one whole spring and summer. After an absence of several months, however, she returned with a young fawn by her side; and, on her arrival, seemed to take great pleasure in showing her young.

a

Grief, too, works in a lively manner upon animals. I knew a dog that died for the loss of its master; and a bullfinch, that abstained from singing ten entire months on account of the absence of its mistress. On her return it resumed its song. Lord Kaimes relates an instance of a canary, which, in singing to his mate, hatching her eggs in a cage, fell dead. The female quitted her nest; and, finding him dead, rejected all food, and died by his side. Homer was not so extravagant, as some may be inclined to esteem him, when he makes the proud horses of the proud Achilles weep for the loss of their master: for horses, I have little doubt, can regret; and their countenances frequently exhibit evident marks of melancholy.

Some animals are more truly sensitive to the value of liberty than men. Vipers, when in a state of bondage, never take their annual repose; and leeches will breed in con

a Sketches, vol. ii. p. 19.

.

finement only when placed in situations, somewhat resembling their natural positions". But, without recurring to many of those instances, which the page of nature so copiously records, we may borrow an instance from the borders of the Delaware. The mocking birds of that region will not live in cages; and so entirely free are they, by nature, that when a nest is procured, placed in a cage, and hung out, the parents will come, indeed, three or four times to feed their young; but, finding them incapable of release, they will give them poisonous food, in order to release them from captivity. I will not vouch for the truth of this; but the Delawarians believe, and Captain Aubury has recorded it.

Democritus contended, that men learnt music and architecture from birds; and weaving from spiders. The hippopotamus is said to have taught the art of bleeding; goats the uses of dittany; snakes the properties of fennel and the ibis the use of clysters. The wild hog of the West Indies, when wounded, repairs to the balsam tree; and, rubbing itself till the turpentine exudes, cures itself. To this animal, therefore, the Indians esteem themselves indebted for a knowledge of the healing powers of balsam.

Animals have many of their faculties superior to men. Birds, in general, have a quicker sight; dogs, camels, and storks a livelier scent; and fishes an acuter sense of touch: though some blind men are said to have the faculty of feeling colours. Frogs and bees perceive the approach of rain long before it comes. The bee has, also, a very peculiar instinct, in returning from the distance of several miles to its own hive; though it can see only three inches before it. The nautilus, too (it is said ), will quit its shell in the deep, and return to it again. But the superior reason of man not only enables him to surpass the strength of lions, as in the instances of

a

They will breed, for instance, in a trough, the bottom of which is covered, to a certain thickness, with clay. b Trav. vol. ii. p. 248. The fluctuation of the waves, one may reasonably suppose, will admit this but seldom. Some naturalists, indeed, deny the phenomenon altogether.

Samson; David: Benaiah; and Hercules: but even to guard against the collective hostility of the entire animated world.

That fishes have the sense of hearing has been proved by Rondeletius, Abbé Nollet, and other naturalists. The Bramins calling to the fish in many of the sacred streams of India, they come from their recesses, feed out of their benefactors' hands, and even suffer them to handle them. I had once the pleasure of shaking a seal by the fin in one of the most public streets of London. This animal had a lively sense of hearing, and would do various things its master desired it to do. It was of a cold day in November, and yet it absolutely panted with heat. Renard d says, he had a fish, of the lophius genus, which followed him about like a dog. This, however, is not only dubious and improbable, but, I should suppose, impossible.

Spiders also have the auricular sense, and they are not insensible to music. Other insects have the olfactory power. In some parts of the Arctic circle the air is impregnated with the fragrance of the linnea borealis, round the twin blossoms of which myriads of mosquitoes, hover, as if enchanted with its odour, and "inflict," says a recent traveller, "the most envenomed stings upon the hand of any one who presumes to pluck them." Some insects exercise no little ingenuity in robbing those flowers, the nectar of which they find a difficulty in procuring. Those, which have not a proboscis sufficiently long to penetrate the honeysuckle from within, tap it below, and suck the honey as it flows at the bottom.

Locusts and summer flies display an astonishing method in their flight. There is nothing in nature to compare with them. The former fly in bodies, generally the eighth part of a mile square in extent; and yet, such is the order and regu

larity with which they fly, they never incommode each other; and when they approach a vineyard, they send out spies a, in order to explore places for them on which to settle.

Some birds are artisans. The razor-bill fastens the only egg, which it lays, to the bare cliff with cement; but the East Indian tailor-bird sews together the leaves of trees. To effect this its bill serves as a needle, and the small fibres of plants as thread. The loxia of Bengal is also a remarkable bird, and has no disinclination to an intercourse with mankind. In a wild state it sits and builds upon the Indian figtree, and suspends its nest from the branches, in a manner that prevents all injury from the wind. Its nest consists of two, and sometimes of three, chambers, in which fire-flies are occasionally found. These insects, the Hindoos believe, the bird cherishes for the purpose of illuminating its nest. It is of a nature so docile, that if a ring is dropped into the cavity of a well, it will dart down with celerity, seize the ring before it reaches the water, and return it to its master. Birds of this species frequently carry letters to a short distance, after the manner of pigeons.

b

The Loxia pensilis of Madagascar fastens its nest to the extreme branches of a tree, hanging over a river, and suspends the nest of this year to that of the last, frequently even to the amount of five. What a wonderful instance of reasoning, too, is sometimes exhibited by sparrows: they will even pierce the craws of young pigeons for the corn they contain ! Falcons conquer eagles by attacking them under the pinion; and eagles attack deer in a manner which shows they have mind as well as swiftness and strength. They soak their wings in a river, cover them with sand or light gravel, and then fly in the faces of the deer, flap their wings, and blind their eyes with dust. The deer, smarting with pain, run and roll about after a curious manner; and, coming at length to a precipice, fall headlong into a gulf below; where, torn b Pontoppidan.

Shaw;-Pococke.

and mangled by the fall, they become easy preys to the eagle, who picks out their eyes, and feasts upon their bodies.

Some animals live in one continued scene of opposition and combat with those of their own species: in this, also, they bear a remarkable affinity with the human character. When humming birds meet with a withered flower, or one that contains no nectar, they pluck it off, and throw it to the ground with the greatest fury: and when they meet with one of their own tribe upon the flower, in which they wish to insert their bills, they never part without fighting. Eagles, when pressed with hunger, will prey upon eagles of less force than themselves: wild horses, found in the great Mongolian deserts, and in the southern parts of Siberia, will feed upon tame horses and large pike will feed upon smaller ones. The sea, indeed, is one vast arena of destruction; and the elder fishes are by far the most dangerous of enemies to the young of their own tribe. Nor is this abhorrent nature confined to fishes; even swine and rabbits, if pressed for water, devour frequently their own young. Scorpions and spiders have a similar propensity; and ostriches sometimes eat their young as they issue from the egg.

A hundred scorpions were placed by Maupertuis under the same glass. "Nothing," says he, "was seen, but one universal carnage: and, in a few days, they had so mangled, and afterwards eaten each other, that only fourteen remained." Even tadpoles will eat each other. I put between thirty and forty in a large bason, and kept them for several weeks: during that time, I chanced to wound one of them with a pair of scissors. As soon as the other tadpoles found he was wounded, two or three fastened upon the wound: then a third a fourth; and, lastly, ten tadpoles fastened upon him like a cluster of bees: every now and then rising to the top of the water to get air. The injured tadpole made many struggles; but they conquered; peeled his back; and at last entirely devoured him. The hare-tailed mouse of Yaik and