has these moral sensitivities, as truly as the superior LETTER human spirit.""> 59The Sea Otters are so affectionate to their young, that they will pine to death at the loss of them; and die on the very spot where those have been taken from them. They are very sportive, embrace each other, and even kiss.' Pennant. If the hunters come on the female by surprise, and separate her from her young one, the cub is instantly taken; but the mother no sooner hears its cries, than she swims to the boat from which they proceed; and, regardless of all danger, shares its fate. Buffon remarks of the Mole- So lively and reciprocal an attachment subsists between the male and female, that they seem to dread or disrelish all other society. They enjoy the placid habits of repose and of solitude.' He describes the curious architecture of their subterraneous abode and its passages. In 1827, at Brighton, an Hyæna was shown, with its usual fierceness; but the young man coming in who some years before had reared it from a cub, and brought it to England, tho it was snarling and snapping at others as he entered, yet it recognized him, bounded about the cage in manifest delight, rubbed himself against the young man's hand that patted his head, and seemed gratified by his caresses. Monkeys abound at Gibraltar. In a letter from thence, in 1827, the writer says, 'I fell in with a family of ten, and watched their motions. They appeared to be a father and mother, with five grown up and three small ones. Of these, one was still at the breast, tho large enough to be weaned. The mother was sitting with great gravity, nursing it, with her hand behind it. The older offspring were skipping up and down the rocks and walls, playing all sorts of antic tricks with one another.' XIII. XIV. LETTER XIV. A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE QUALITIES, PHENOMENA, AND LETTER FROM the senses and sensibilities of Quadrupeds, let us pass to the consideration of their indications of a perceiving, attending, and thinking mind. To collect provisions for their future use; to hoard them in safe places; and to use them gradually for their daily sustenance, are actions in the human race which display and require great prudence, foresight, just reasoning, will acting upon judgment, and much self command. A very large portion of mankind will not exert either this forethought, or the self-government that alone makes it effectual. The Scottish nation is eminently and honorably distinguished for this intellectual quality and power. The lower Irish are too often conspicuous for the want of it. Yet this is strikingly exhibited in the Alpine Hares, who literally make hay for their winter food;1 in the active 1 Pennant describes this habit in the Alpine Hares of Siberia. In August they begin to cut great quantities of soft, tender grass and other herbs, which they spread out to dry. This hay, about Autumn, they collect into large heaps, and place, either beneath the overhanging rocks, or between the chasms, or round the trunks of trees, in conical heaps, of various sizes, according to the number of the society that makes them. They are usually about three feet high. Being covered in winter by snow, the animals form a trodden path from their holes to them. They select the best of vegetables, and crop them when in the fullest vigour, which they make into the best and greenest hay, by the judicious manner in which they dry it. These ricks are the origin of fertility among the rocks; for the relics, mixed with the animals' soil, rot in the barren chasms, and create a soil productive of vegetables.' Penn. A. Zool. XIV. and provident Squirrels ; in the ingenious Beaver;3 LETTER and by many of the Glires genus.* The tuition which Quadrupeds are capable of receiving, discovers a lower degree of that improveability which distinguishes our superior race, which, as far as it extends, resembles ours, altho at the same time it marks its specific difference by its unvarying limitation. Apes have often amused their possessors by their imitative faculty. Cats display this teach 2 The common Squirrel makes a nest of moss and dried leaves at the forks of a tree's branches, with two holes at opposite sides, and as the wind varies, shuts the hole towards it. It lays up magazines of nuts, acorns, fruit and berries, for winter. Kerr. Linn. p. 256. It places these in the hollows of the tree, never touching them till wanted. The larger American Squirrel puts its store under ground. 258....The Ground species in Canada never willingly ascend trees, but makes its burrows under the earth, with long branched galleries leading to several apartments, in which it deposits maize, acorns, nuts and chesnuts, all in separate chambers, for its winter food. Pennant. 3 The Beavers build their houses together, like small villages. Each cabin has in its neighbourhood a magazine of bark and boughs of trees for winter provision, kept constantly under water. K. Linn. 223. Thus the Field Mouse collects large stores of grain, nuts, acorns and beech mast, in its places under ground. The Hogs, by their exquisite smell, are often led to their hoards, and dig them up. Kerr's Linn. 230. The Siberian Mouse makes similar collections of garlic roots, which it is fond of. 236. The Economic Mouse in Kamschatka forms magazines of bulbous roots under the turf, which it lays out to dry on sunny days, and never touches but in winter. 238. The German Hamster makes large chambers for grain, beans, peas and linseed, each in a separate cell, sometimes a hundred pounds weight in the whole. 243. The Dormice and Brown Rat have the same habit. 220. The Jerboa also collects the purest herbs in her subterraneous burrows. The Casan Marmot likewise. 252. The Zemni, or Podolian one, which pervades Asia also. 'Each individual has its separate burrow, in which, for provision in the beginning and end of winter (for in the middle its lies torpid) it lays up magazines of grain, tender vegetables, and berries; sometimes adding mice and small birds.' K. Linn. 253. Blumenbach's Ape, which he kept above a year, would manage the XIV. 6 7 LETTER ability. Pigs have also repeatedly shown that they can learn to do things not natural to them. A Sow has been trained to the services of a Pointer. 8 the wood for his stove, and put it in with as much judgment and economy as a cook maid. He was often at the college, and used to examine the pupils' specimens with amusing imitation and grimace. One day he found a work on Insects on the table, which he studied with great gravity; but a person entering the room an hour afterwards, found that the Ape had, with great dexterity, pinched out all the Beetles of the large plates, and eaten them, mistaking the pictures for real insects. This was an unlucky, but not a foolish action. Vosmaer's Oran Otan was taught to eat with a spoon and fork, and picked out his strawberries one by one from a plate. Getting loose one day, it uncorked a bottle of Malaga wine, drank it off, and put the bottle in its place. Seeing others open its chain padlock with a key, it put a bit of stick into the key-hole, and turned it about in all directions to unlock it itself.....Buffon describes one that he had seen, sit down at table, unfold his napkin, wipe his lips, use his fork, pour liquor into a glass, and make it touch that of the person who drank with him. At tea, it brought a cup and saucer, placed them on the table, put in sugar, and poured out the tea. But in the woods this animal sits by the fire the Negroes leave, till it burns out, without adding to it fresh fuel....Dampier mentions the Striated Monkeys to take up Oysters from the beach, place them on a stone, and beat them with another till they get at the fish. ...Gamelli Careri describes others to watch the Oysters that open, and then to put a stone within them, to hinder them closing on their paws as they pull them out. • In 1828, a Cat from Tuscany was exhibited in London, that had been trained to beat a drum, strike on an anvil, draw water from a well, ring bells, and roast coffee. 7 I saw a large pig at Ross, which could pick out from an alphabet on the ground, on being ordered, and without mistake, the letters that were wanted for the name of any persons present; and also the figures for the hour. The watch was placed to its eye, but the secret directing signs must have been previously established between it and its master. It went round a paper dial on the floor, and placed its snout first on the hour, and then, in another circuit, on the minutes. There was no visible concert, that I could trace, so that the assisting tokens were the more intellectual. The owner mentioned, that being more dull at learning than some, it had taken him three months close labour to teach him. 8 A black Sow was taught to find Game, and to back and stand nearly as well as a Pointer. When very young, she became attached to XIV. The Quadruped Animals, of their own will and LETTER nature, and from inborn instincts, do actions which require knowlege, reasoning, and judgment in mankind. Reindeers follow and obey leaders of their own species. Elephants also make their journies on this plan, when they deem it necessary.10 Baboons have been found to make defensive arrangements, like military tactics." Mules and Cats make signals to have a door opened.12 Bisons place themselves in the to some Pointer puppies, and the Keeper resolved to try her. He gave her some pudding of barley meal as her reward, and threw stones at her when she did wrong. By this mode, he soon taught her what he wished. As soon as the game she pointed rose, she always returned to him for her reward. Bing. An. Biog. v. 2. p. 148. 9 Mr. Bullock brought a herd of twelve Reindeer from Norway. They seemed to be completely under the command of a leader or captain, who not only headed their march, but appeared on every difficulty to give orders that were obeyed....The Mongolian Antelopes run in a regular file, led by an old one. K. Linn. 311. 10 The Elephants are seldom seen alone. They generally move in bodies. In dangerous marches, the oldest are the foremost, the young and feeble in the middle, and the next in age bring up the rear. Bingl. p. 130.....The Hottentots told Mr. Pringle that in the dense thorny forests, the great bull Elephants always march in the van, bursting thro the jungle, treading down the thorny brushwood, and breaking off with their trunks the larger branches that obstruct the passage, while the females and younger part follow them in single file. Menag. v. 7. p.36. "A Cape Baboon having taken off some clothes from the barracks, Lieut. Shipp formed a party to recover them. With 20 men, I made a circuit to cut them off from the caverns to which they always fled for shelter. They observed my movements, and detaching about 50 to guard the entrance, the others kept their post. We could see them collecting large stones and other missiles. One old grey-headed one, who had often paid us a visit at our barracks, was seen distributing his orders as if a General. We rushed on to the attack, when, on a scream from him, they rolled down enormous stones upon us, so that we were forced to give up the contest.' Shipp's Mem. vol. 1. p. 86. 12 As our Cat, when she wanted to be let into the room, always rose up and shook the handle of the door outside, till she was admitted, which she had taught herself to do from seeing that we opened |