ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

I look upon instinct as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism, but as an immediate impression from the first Mover, and the Divine energy acting in the creatures.

On one occasion, while investigating the nature of some large, transparent, spore-like elliptical cells (fungal?) whose protoplasm was rotating, while it was at the same time charged with triangular grains of starch, I observed some actinophorous rhizopods creeping about them, which had similarly shaped grains of starch in their interior; and having determined the nature of these grains in both by the addition of iodine, I cleansed the glasses, and placed under the microscope a new portion of the sediment from the basin containing these cells and actinophryans for further examination, when I observed one of the spore-like cells had become ruptured, and that a portion of its protoplasm, charged with the triangular starch-grains, was slightly protruding through the crevice. It then struck me that the actinophryans had obtained their starch-grains from this source; and while looking at the ruptured cell, an actinophrys made its appearance, and creeping round the cell, at last arrived at the crevice, from which it extricated one of the grains of starch mentioned, and then crept off to a good distance. Presently, however, it returned to the same cell; and although there were now no more starch-grains protruding, the actinophrys managed again to extract one from the interior through the crevice. All this was repeated several times, showing that the actinophrys instinctively knew that those were nutritious grains, that they were contained in this cell, and that, although each time after incepting a grain it went away to some distance, it knew how to find its way back to the cell again which furnished this nutriment.

On another occasion I saw an actinophrys station itself close to a ripe spore-cell of pythium, which was situated upon a filament of Spirogyra crassa; and as the young ciliated monadic germs issued forth, one after another, from the dehiscent spore-cell, the actinophrys remained by it and caught every one of them, even to the last, when it retired to another part of the field, as if instinctively conscious that there was nothing more to be got at the old place.

But by far the greatest feat of this kind that ever presented itself to me was the catching of a young acineta by an old[21] sluggish amœba, as the former left its parent; and this took place as follows:—

In the evening of the 2nd of June, 1858, in Bombay, while looking through a microscope at some Euglenæ, &c., which had been placed aside for examination in a watch-glass, my eye fell upon a stalked and triangular acineta (A. mystacina?), around which an amœba was creeping and lingering, as they do when they are in quest of food. But knowing the antipathy that the amœba, like almost every other infusorian, has to the tentacles of the acineta, I concluded that the amœba was not encouraging an appetite for its whiskered companion, when I was surprised to find that it crept up the stem of the acineta, and wound itself round its body. This mark of affection, too much like that frequently evinced at the other end of the scale, even where there is a mind for its control, did not long remain without interpretation. There was a young acineta, tender, and without poisonous tentacles (for they are not developed at birth), just ready to make its exit from the parent, an exit which takes place so quickly, and is followed by such rapid bounding movements of the non-ciliated acineta, that who would venture to say, à priori, that a dull, heavy, sluggish amœba could catch such an agile little thing? But the amœba are as unerring and unrelaxing in their grasp as they are unrelenting in their cruel inceptions of the living and the dead, when they serve them for nutrition; and thus the amœba, placing itself round the ovarian aperture of the acineta, received the young one, nurse-like, in its fatal lap, incepted it, descended from the parent, and crept off. Being unable to conceive at the time that this was such an act of atrocity on the part of the amœba as the sequel disclosed, and thinking that the young acineta might yet escape, or pass into some other form in the body of its host, I watched the amœba for some time afterwards, until the tale ended by the young acineta becoming divided into two parts, and thus in their respective digestive spaces ultimately becoming broken down and digested.[5]

In moving, the land leeches have the power of planting one extremity on the earth and raising the other perpendicularly to watch for their victim. Such is their vigilance and instinct, that on the approach of a passer-by to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the grass and fallen leaves on the edge of a native path, poised erect, and preparing for their attack on man and horse. On descrying their prey they advance rapidly by semicircular strides, fixing one end firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they can lay hold of the traveller's foot, when they disengage themselves from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture to enter. In these encounters the individuals in the rear of a party of travellers in the jungle invariably fare worst, as the leeches, once warned of their approach, congregate with singular celerity.[8]

Even the headless oyster seems to profit from experience, for Dicquemase ('Journal de Physique,' vol. xxviii. p. 244) asserts that oysters taken from a depth never uncovered by the sea, open their shells, lose the water within, and perish; but oysters taken from the same place and depth, if kept in reservoirs, where they are occasionally left uncovered for a short time, and are otherwise incommoded, learn to keep their shells shut, and then live for a much longer time when taken out of the water.[9]

These animals appear also susceptible of some degree of permanent attachment: an accurate observer, Mr. Lonsdale, informs me that he placed a pair of land-snails (Helix pomatia), one of which was weakly, into a small and ill-provided garden. After a short time the strong and healthy individual disappeared, and was traced by its track of slime over a wall into an adjoining well-stocked garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had deserted its sickly mate; but after an absence of twenty-four hours it returned, and apparently communicated the result of its successful exploration, for both then started along the same track, and disappeared over the wall.[13]

The holes in the chalk in which the limpets are often to be found are, I believe, excavated in a great measure by rasping from the lingual teeth, though I doubt whether the object is to form a cavity to shelter in, though the cavities, when formed, may be of use for that purpose. It must be of the greatest importance to a limpet that, in order that it may insure a firm adherence to the rock, its shell should fit the rock accurately; when the shell does fit the rock accurately, a small amount of muscular contraction of the animal would cause the shell to adhere so firmly to a smooth surface as to be practically immoveable without fracture. As the shells cannot be adapted daily to different forms of surface, the limpets generally return to the same place of attachment. I am sure this is the case with many; for I found shells perfectly adjusted to the uneven surfaces of flints, the growth of the shells being in some parts[29] distorted and indented to suit inequalities in the surface of the flints. . . . .

I noticed signs that limpets prefer a hard, smooth surface to a pit in the chalk. On one surface of a large block, over all sides of which limpets were regularly and plentifully distributed, there were two flat fragments of a fossil shell about 3 inches by 4 inches, each embedded in the chalk. The chalk all round these fragments was free from limpets; but on the smooth surface of the pieces of shell they were packed as closely as they could be. I noticed another case, which almost amounts, to my mind, to a proof that they prefer a smooth surface to a hole. A limpet had formed a clearing on one of the sea-weed-covered blocks before referred to. In the midst of this clearing was a pedestal of flint rather more than one inch in diameter, standing up above the surface of the chalk; it projected so much that a tap from my hammer broke it off. On the top of the smooth fractured surface of this flint the occupant of the clearing had taken up its abode. The shell was closely adapted to the uneven surface, which it would only fit in one position. The cleared surface was in a hollow with several small natural cavities, where the limpet could have found a pit ready made to shelter in; yet it preferred, after each excursion, to climb up to the top of the flint, the most exposed point in all its domain.[15]

These observations seem to me conclusive as far as they go, and they are very surprising. In my experiments of last year, though the results were similar, still the ants experimented with had been brought up in the nest, and were only removed after they had become pupæ. It might therefore be argued that the ants, having nursed them as larvæ, recognised them when they came to maturity; and though this would certainly be in the highest degree improbable, it could not be said to be impossible. In the present case, however, the old ants had absolutely never seen the young ones until the moment when, some days after arriving at maturity, they were introduced into the nest; and yet in all ten cases they were undoubtedly recognised as belonging to the community.

It seems to me, therefore, to be established by these experiments that the recognition of ants is not personal and individual; that their harmony is not due to the fact that each ant is individually acquainted with every other member of the community.

At the same time, the fact that they recognise their friends even when intoxicated, and that they know the young born in their own nest even when they have been brought out of the chrysalis by strangers, seems to indicate that the recognition is not effected by means of any sign or pass-word.

On Sept. 2, therefore, I put two ants from one of my nests of F. fusca into a bottle, the end of which was tied up with muslin as described, and laid it down close to the nest. In a second bottle I put two ants from another nest of the same species. The ants which were at liberty took no notice of the bottle containing their imprisoned friends. The strangers in the other bottle, on the contrary, excited them considerably. The whole day one, two, or more ants stood sentry, as it were, over the bottle. In the evening no less than twelve were collected round it, a larger number than usually came out of the nest at any one time. The whole of the next two days, in the same way, there were more or less ants round the bottle containing the strangers; while, as far as we could see, no notice whatever was taken of the friends. On the 9th the ants had eaten through the muslin, and effected an entrance. We did not chance to be on the spot at the moment; but as I found two ants lying dead, one in the bottle and one just outside, I think there can be no doubt that the strangers were put to death. The friends throughout were quite neglected.

Sept. 21.—I then repeated the experiment, putting three ants from another nest in a bottle as before. The same scene was repeated. The friends were neglected. On the other hand, some of the ants were always watching over the bottle containing the strangers, and biting at the muslin which protected them. The next morning at 6 A.M. I found five ants thus occupied. One had caught hold of the leg of one of the strangers, which had unwarily been allowed to protrude through the meshes of the muslin. They worked and watched, though not, as far as I could see, with any system, till 7.30 in the evening, when they effected an entrance, and immediately attacked the strangers.

Sept. 24.—I repeated the same experiment with the same nest. Again the ants came and sat over the bottle containing the strangers, while no notice was taken of the friends.

[47]

The next morning again, when I got up, I found five ants round the bottle containing the strangers, none near the friends. As in the former case, one of the ants had seized a stranger by the leg, and was trying to drag her through the muslin. All day the ants clustered round the bottle, and bit perseveringly, though not systematically, at the muslin. The same thing happened all the following day.

On repeating these experiments with another species (viz., Formica rufescens) the ants took no notice of either bottle, and showed no sign either of affection or hatred. One is almost tempted to surmise that the spirit of these ants is broken by slavery [i.e. by the habit of keeping slaves]. But the experiments on F. fusca seem to show that in these curious insects hatred is a stronger passion than affection.

One day, watching a small column of these ants (i.e. Eciton humata), I placed a little stone on one of them to secure it. The next that approached, as soon as it discovered its situation, ran backwards in an agitated manner, and soon communicated the intelligence to the others. They rushed to the rescue; some bit at the stone and tried to move it, others seized the prisoner by the legs and tugged with such force that I thought the legs would be pulled off, but they persevered until they got the captive free. I next covered one up with a piece of clay, leaving only the ends of its antennæ projecting. It was soon discovered by its fellows, which set to work immediately, and by biting off pieces of the clay soon liberated it. Another time I found a very few of them passing along at intervals. I confined one of these under a piece of clay at a little distance from the line, with his head projecting. Several ants passed it, but at last one discovered it and tried to pull it out, but could not. It immediately set off at a great rate, and I thought it had deserted its comrade, but it had only gone for assistance, for in a short time about a dozen ants came hurrying up, evidently fully informed of the circumstances of the case, for they made directly for their imprisoned comrade and soon set him free. I do not see how this action could be instinctive. It was sympathetic help, such as man only among the higher mammalia shows. The excitement and ardour with which they carried on their unflagging exertions for the rescue of their comrade could not have been greater if they had been human beings.

I took three tapes, each about 2 feet 6 inches long, and arranged them parallel to one another and about 6 inches apart. An end of each I attached to one of the nests (F. niger), and at the other end I placed a glass. In the glass at the end of one tape I placed a considerable number (300 to 600) of larvæ. In the second I put two or three larvæ only, in the third none at all. The object of the last was to see whether many ants would come to the glasses under such circumstances by mere accident, and I may at once say that scarcely any did so. I then took two ants, and placed one of them to the glass with many larvæ, the other to that with two or three. Each of them took a larva and carried it to the nest, returning for another, and so on. After each journey I put another larva in the glass with only two or three larvæ, to replace that which had been removed. Now, if several ants came under the above circumstances as a mere matter of accident, or accompanying one another by chance, or if they simply saw the larvæ which were being brought, and consequently concluded that they might themselves find a larva in the same place, then the numbers going to the two glasses ought to be approximately equal. In each case the number of journeys made by the ants would be nearly the same; consequently, if it was a matter of scent, the two glasses would be in the same position. It would be impossible for an ant, seeing another in the act of bringing a larva, to judge for itself whether there were few or many left behind. On the other hand, if the strangers were brought, then it would be curious to see whether more were brought to the glass with many larvæ than to that which only contained two or three. I should also mention that every stranger was imprisoned until the end of the experiment.

One case of apparent communication struck me very much. I had had an ant (F. niger) under observation one day, during which she was occupied in carrying off larvæ to her nest. At night I imprisoned her in a small bottle; in the morning I let her out at 6.15, when she immediately resumed her occupation. Having to go to London, I imprisoned her again at 9 o'clock. When I returned at 4.40 I put her again to the larvæ. She examined them carefully, and went home without taking one. At this time no other ants were out of the nest. In less than a minute she came out again with eight friends, and the little heap made straight for the heap of larvæ. When they had gone two-thirds of the way I again imprisoned the marked ant; the others hesitated a few minutes, and then with curious quickness returned home. At 5.15 I put her again to the larvæ. She again went home without a larva, but after only a few seconds' stay in the nest, came out with no less than thirteen friends. They all went towards the larvæ, but when they had got about two-thirds of the way, although the marked ant had on the previous day passed over the ground about 150 times, and though she had just gone straight from the larvæ to the nest, she seemed to have forgotten her way, and considered; and after she had wandered about for half an hour, I put her to the larvæ. Now, in this case, the twenty-one ants must have been brought out by my marked one, for they came exactly with her, and there were no other ants out. Moreover, it would seem that they must have been told, because (which is very curious in itself) she did not in either case bring a larva, and[52] consequently it cannot have been the mere sight of a larva which had induced them to follow her.

On the mantelshelf of our sitting-room my wife has the habit of keeping fresh flowers. A vase stands at each end, and near the middle a small tumbler, usually filled with violets. Some time ago I noticed a pile of very small red ants on the wall above the left-hand vase, passing upward and downward between the mantelshelf and a small hole near the ceiling, at a point where a picture nail had been driven. The ants, when first observed, were not very numerous, but gradually increased in number, until on some days the little creatures formed an almost unbroken procession, issuing from the hole at the nail, descending the wall, climbing the vase directly below the nail, satisfying their desire for water or perfume, and then returning. The other vase and tumbler were not visited at that time.

As I was just then recovering from a long illness it happened that I was confined to the house, and spent my days in the room where the operations of these insects attracted my attention. Their presence caused me some annoyance, but I knew of no effective means of getting rid of them. For several days in succession I frequently brushed the ants in great numbers from the wall down to the floor; but as they were not killed the result was that they soon formed a colony in the wall at the base of the mantel, ascending thence to the shelf, so that before long the vase was attacked from above and below.

One day I observed a number of ants, perhaps thirty or forty, on the shelf at the foot of the vase. Thinking to kill them, I struck them lightly with the end of my finger, killing some and disabling the rest. The effect of this was immediate and unexpected. As soon as those ants which were approaching arrived near to where their fellows lay dead and suffering, they turned and fled with all possible haste. In half an hour the wall above the mantelshelf was cleared of ants.

During the space of an hour or two the colony from below[55] continued to ascend until reaching the lower bevelled edge of the shelf, at which point the more timid individuals, although unable to see the vase, somehow became aware of trouble, and turned about without further investigation, while the more daring advanced hesitatingly just to the upper edge of the shelf, when, extending their antennæ and stretching their necks, they seemed to peep cautiously over the edge until beholding their suffering companions, when they too turned and followed the others, expressing by their behaviour great excitement and terror. An hour or two later, the path or trail leading from the lower colony to the vase was almost entirely free from ants.

I killed one or two ants on their path, striking them with my finger, but leaving no visible trace. The effect of this was that as soon as an ant ascending towards the shelf reached the spot where one had been killed, it gave signs immediately of great disturbance, and returned directly at the highest possible speed.

A curious and invariable feature of their behaviour was that when such an ant, returning in fright, met another approaching, the two would always communicate, but each would pursue its own way, the second ant continuing its journey to the spot where the first had turned about, and then following that example.

For some days after this there were no ants visible on the wall, either above or below the shelf.

Then a few ants from the lower colony began to reappear, but instead of visiting the vase which had been the scene of the disaster, they avoided it altogether, and following the lower front edge of the shelf to the tumbler standing near the middle, made their attack upon that. I repeated the same experiment here with precisely the same result. Killing or maiming a few of the ants and leaving their bodies about the base of the tumbler, the others on approaching, and even before arriving at the upper surface of the shelf where their mutilated companions were visible, gave signs of intense emotion, some running away immediately, and others advancing to where they could survey the field and then hastening away precipitately.

Occasionally an ant would advance towards the tumbler until it found itself among the dead and dying; then it seemed to lose all self-possession, running hither and thither, making wide circuits about the scene of the trouble, stopping at times and elevating the antennæ with a movement suggestive of wringing them in despair, and finally taking flight. After this another interval of several days passed, during which no ants[56] appeared. Now, three months later, the lower colony has been entirely abandoned. Occasionally, however, especially when fresh and fragrant violets have been placed on the shelf, a few 'prospectors' descend from the upper nail-hole, rarely, almost never, approaching the vase from which they were first driven away, but seeking to satisfy their desire at the tumbler. To turn back these stragglers and keep them out of sight for a number of days, sometimes for a fortnight, it is sufficient to kill one or two ants on the trail which they follow descending the wall. This I have recently done as high up as I can reach, three or four feet above the mantel. The moment this spot is reached, an ant turns abruptly and makes for home, and in a little while there is not an ant visible on the wall.

Acting on Mr. M——'s suggestion, I first tried making simple finger-marks on their path (the mantel is of marble), and found just the results which he describes in his note as observed by himself at Mentone, that is, no marked symptoms of fear, but a dislike to the spot, and an effort to avoid it by going around it, or by turning back and only crossing it again after an interval of time. I then killed several ants on the path, using a smooth stone or piece of ivory, instead of my finger, to crush them. In this case the ants approaching all turned back as before, and with much greater exhibition of fear than when the simple finger-mark was made. This I did repeatedly. The final result was the same as obtained last winter. They persisted in coming for a week or two, during which I continued to kill them, and then they disappeared, and we have seen none since. It would appear from this that while the taint of the hand is sufficient to turn them back, the killing of their fellows with a stone or other material produces the effect described in my first[57] note. This was made clear to me at that time, from the behaviour of the ants the first day I killed any, for on that occasion some of them approaching the vase from below, on reaching the upper edge of the mantel, peeped over, and drew back on seeing what had happened about the vase, then turned away a little, and after a moment tried again at another and another point along the edge, with the same result in the end. Moreover, those that found themselves among the dead and dying went from one writhing ant to another in great haste and excitement, exhibiting the signs of fright which I described.

I hardly hope that any will return again, but if they do, and give me an opportunity, I shall endeavour to act further on Mr. M——'s suggestion.

I removed all the ants from a group of about a dozen aphides on a dock plant, and prevented their attendance during several hours. After this interval, I felt sure that the aphides would want to excrete. I watched them for some time through a lens, but not one excreted; I then tickled them with a hair in the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with their antennæ; but not one excreted. Afterwards I allowed an ant to visit them, and it immediately seemed, by its eager way of running about, to be well aware what a rich flock it had discovered; it then began to play with its antennæ on the abdomen, first of one aphis and then of another; and each, as soon as it felt the antennæ, immediately lifted up its abdomen and excreted a limpid drop of sweet juice, which was eagerly devoured by the ant. Even quite young aphides behaved in this manner, showing that the action was instinctive, and not the result of experience.

When my eggs hatched I naturally thought that the aphides belonged to one of the species usually found on the roots of plants in the nests of Lasius flavus. To my surprise, however, the young creatures made the best of their way out of the nest, and, indeed, were sometimes brought out by the ants themselves. In vain I tried them with roots of grass, &c.; they wandered uneasily about, and eventually died. Moreover, they did not in any way resemble the subterranean species. In 1878 I again attempted to rear these young aphides; but though I hatched a great many eggs, I did not succeed. This year, however, I have been more fortunate. The eggs commenced to hatch the first week in March. Near one of my nests of Lasius flavus, in which I had placed some of the eggs in question, was a glass containing living specimens of several species of plants commonly found on or around ants' nests. To this some of the young aphides were brought by the ants. Shortly afterwards I observed on a plant of daisy, in the axils of the leaves, some small aphides, very much resembling those from my nest, though we had not actually traced them continuously. They seemed thriving, and remained stationary on the daisy. Moreover, whether they had sprung from the black eggs or not, the ants evidently valued them, for they built up a wall of earth round and over them. So things remained throughout the summer, but on October 9 I found that the aphides had laid some eggs exactly resembling those found in the ants' nests; and on examining daisy plants from outside, I found on many of them similar aphides, and more or less of the same eggs.

I confess these observations surprised me very much. The statements of Huber have not, indeed, attracted so much notice as many of the other interesting facts which he has recorded, because if aphides are kept by ants in their nests, it seems only natural that their eggs should also occur. The above case, however, is much more remarkable. Here are aphides, not living in the ants' nests, but outside, on the leaf-stalks of plants. The eggs are laid early in October on the food-plant of the insect. They are of no direct use to the ants, yet they are not left where they are laid, where they would be exposed to the severity of the weather and to innumerable dangers, but brought into their nests by the ants, and tended by them with the utmost care through the long winter months until the following March, when the young ones are brought out and again placed[63] on the young shoots of the daisy. This seems to me a most remarkable case of prudence. Our ants may not perhaps lay up food for the winter, but they do more, for they keep during six months the eggs which will enable them to procure food during the following summer.

The author is debtor to Herr Nottebohm, Inspector of Buildings at Karlsruhe, who related the following on May 24, 1876, under the title, 'Ants as Founders of Aphides' Colonies:'—'Of two equally strong young weeping ashes, which I planted in my garden at Kattowitz, in Upper Silesia, one succeeded well, and in about five or six years showed full foliage, while the other regularly every year was covered, when it began to bud, with millions of aphides, which destroyed the young leaves and sprouts, and thus completely delayed the development of the tree. As I perceived that the only reason for this was the action of the aphides, I determined to destroy them utterly. So in the March of the following year I took the trouble to clean and wash every bough, sprig, and bud before the bursting of the latter, with the greatest care, by means of a syringe. The result was that the tree developed perfectly healthy and vigorous leaves and young shoots, and remained quite free from the aphides until the end of May or the beginning of June. My joy was of short duration. One fine sunny morning I saw a surprising number of ants running quickly up and down the trunk of the tree; this aroused my attention, and led me to look more closely. To my great astonishment I then saw that many troops of ants were busied in carrying single aphides up the stem to the top, and that in this way many of the lower leaves had been planted with colonies of aphides. After some weeks the evil was as great as ever. The tree stood alone on the grass plot, and offered the only situation for an aphides' colony for the countless ants there present. I had destroyed this colony; but the ants replanted it by bringing new colonists from distant branches, and setting them on the young leaves.[27]

MacCook noticed, of the mound-making ants, that of the workers returning to the nest from the tree on which the milking was going on, a far smaller number had distended abdomens than among those descending the tree itself. A closer investigation showed that at the roots of the trees, at the outlets of the subterranean galleries, a number of ants were assembled, which were fed by the returning ants after the fashion already described in feeding the larvæ, and which were distinguished by the observer as 'pensioners.' MacCook often observed the same fact later, among, with others, the already described Pennsylvanian wood-ant. Distinguished individuals in the body-guard of the queen were fed in like fashion. MacCook is inclined to think that the reason of this proceeding is to be found in the 'division of labour' so general in the ant republic, and that the members of the community which are employed in building and working within the nest, leave to the others the care of providing food for themselves as well as for the younger and helpless members; they thus have a claim to receive from time to time a reciprocal toll of gratitude, and take it, as is shown very clearly, in a way demanded by the welfare of the community.[28]

The latter does not build its own nest, does not determine its own migrations, does not collect food for itself or for its fellows, and cannot even feed itself; it is absolutely dependent on its numerous slaves. Formica sanguinea, on the other hand, possesses much fewer slaves, and in the early part of the summer extremely few; the masters determine when and where a new nest shall be formed, and when they migrate, the masters carry the slaves. Both in Switzerland and England the slaves seem to have the exclusive care of the larvæ, and the masters alone go on slave-making expeditions. In Switzerland the slaves and masters work together, making and bringing materials for the nest; both, but chiefly the slaves, tend and milk, as it may be called, their aphides; and thus both collect food for the community. In England the masters alone usually leave the nest to collect building materials and food for themselves, their slaves and larvæ. So that the masters in this country receive much less service from their slaves than they do in Switzerland.

As ants which are not slave-makers will, as I have seen, carry off pupæ of other species if scattered near their nests, it is possible that such pupæ originally stored as food might become developed, and the foreign ants thus unintentionally reared would then follow their proper instincts, and do what work they could. If their presence proved useful to the species which had seized them—if it were more advantageous to the species to capture workers than to procreate them—the habit of collecting pupæ, originally for food, might by natural selection be strengthened and rendered permanent for the very different purpose of raising slaves. When the instinct was once acquired, if carried out to a much less extent even than in our British F. sanguinea, which, as we have seen, is less aided by its slaves than the same species in Switzerland, natural selection might increase and modify the instinct, always supposing such modification to be of use to the species, until an ant was found as abjectly dependent on its slave as is the Formica rufescens.

According to Audubon certain leaf-bugs are used as slaves by the ants in the Brazilian forests. When these ants want to bring home the leaves which they have bitten off the trees, they do it by means of a column of these bugs, which go in pairs, kept in order on either side by accompanying ants. They compel stragglers to re-enter the ranks, and laggards to keep up by biting them. After the work is done the bugs are shut up within the colony and scantily fed.

They only take place towards the end of the summer and in autumn. At this time the winged members of the slave species (F. fusca and F. cunicularia) have left the nest, and the Amazons will not take the trouble to bring back useless consumers. When the sky is clear our robbers leave their town in the afternoon at about three or four o'clock. At first no order is perceptible in their movements, but when they are all gathered together they form a regular column, which then moves forward quickly, and each day in a different direction. They march closely pressed together, and the foremost always appear to be seeking for something on the ground. They are each moment overtaken by others, so that the head of the column is continually growing. They are in fact seeking the traces of the ants which they propose to plunder, and it is scent that guides them. They snuff over the ground like hounds following the track of a wild animal, and when they have found it they plunge headlong forward, and the whole column rushes on behind. The smallest armies I saw consisted of several hundred individuals, but I have also seen some four times as large. They then form columns which may be five mètres long, and as much as fifty centimètres wide. After a march, which often lasts a full hour, the column arrives at the nest of the slave species. The F. cuniculariæ, which are the strongest, offer keen opposition, but without much result. The Amazons soon penetrate within the nest, to come out again a moment later, while the assailed ants at the same time rush out in masses. During the whole time attention is directed solely to the larvæ and pupæ, which the Amazons steal while the others try to save as many as possible. They know very well that the Amazons cannot climb, so they fly with their precious burdens to the surrounding bushes or plants, whereto their enemies cannot follow them. They then pursue the retreating robbers and try to take away from them as much of their booty as possible. But the latter do not trouble themselves much about them, and hasten on home. On their return they do not follow the shortest road, but exactly the one by which they came, finding their way back by smell. Arrived at their nest, they immediately[70] hand over their booty to the slaves, and trouble themselves no more about it. A few days afterwards the stolen pupæ or nymphæ emerge, without memory of their childhood, and immediately and without compulsion take part in all tasks.

From time to time the army makes a short halt, partly to let the rearguard close up, partly because different opinions arise as to the direction of the host, or because the place at which they are is unknown to them. Forel several times saw the army completely lose its way—an incident only once observed by Huber. Forel puts the number of warriors in such an army at from one hundred to more than two thousand. Its speed is on an average a mètre per minute, but varies much according to circumstances, and is naturally least when returning laden with booty. If the distance be very great, such bodily fatigue may at last be felt that the whole attack on the hostile nest is given up, and a retreat is begun; Forel once saw this happen after they had passed over a distance of two hundred and forty yards. Sometimes it seems as though, on coming within sight of the hostile nest, a kind of discouragement took possession of them, and prevented their making the attack. If the nest cannot at once be found, the whole army halts, and some divisions are sent forward to search for it, and these are gradually seen returning towards the centre. Forel also saw such an army only searching the first day, advancing zigzag, and with frequent halts, whereas on the following day it went forward to its aim swiftly and without delay, having found out the road. It seems that a single ant, even if it knows the way and the place, is not able alone to lead a large army, but that a considerable number must be employed in this duty. Mistakes as to the road occur with special ease during the return journey, because the several ants are laden with booty and cannot readily understand each other. Individual ants are then seen to wander about in every direction often for a long time, until they at last reach a spot known to them, and then advance swiftly to their goal. Many never come back at all. These mistakes easily occur when the robbers which have passed into a hostile nest do not come out again at the same holes whereby they entered, but by others at some distance—for instance, by a subterranean canal. Coming out thus in a strange neighbourhood, they do not know which way to take, and only some chance to find the right road during their aimless wanderings about, and recognise and[71] follow it by smell. On the other hand, such mistakes scarcely ever happen to individuals in an unladen train, kept in good array. Other species of ants (F. fusca, rufa, sanguinea) know better how to manage under such circumstances than do the Amazons. The laden ones lay down their loads, first find where they are, and only take them up again after they have found their way. If the booty seized in the nest first attacked is too large to be all taken at once, the robbers return once, or oftener, so as to complete their work. . . . . The ants, as already said, have no regular leaders nor chiefs, yet it is certain that in each expedition, alteration of road, or other change, the decision during that event comes from a small knot of individuals, which have previously come to an understanding, and carry the rest and the undecided along with them. These do not always follow immediately, but only after they have received several taps on the head from the members of the 'ring.' The procession does not advance until the leaders have convinced themselves by their own eyesight that the main part of the army is following.

One day Forel saw some Amazons on the surface of a nest of the F. fusca seeking and sounding in all directions, without being able to find the entrance. At last one of them found a very little hole, hardly as large as a pin's head, through which the robbers penetrated. But since, owing to the smallness of the hole, the invasion went on slowly, the search was continued, and an entrance was found further off, through which the Amazon army gradually disappeared. All was quiet. About five minutes later Forel saw a booty-laden column emerge from each hole. Not a single ant was without a load. The two columns united outside and retreated together.

A marauding excursion of the Amazons against the F. rufibarbis, a sub-species of the F. fusca, or small black ants, took place as follows:—The vanguard of the robber army found that it had reached the neighbourhood of the hostile nest more quickly than it had expected; for it halted suddenly and decidedly, and sent a number of messengers which brought up the main body and the rearguard with incredible speed. In less than thirty seconds the whole army had closed up, and hurled itself in a mass on the dome of the hostile nest. This was the more necessary as the rufibarbes during the short halt had discovered the approach of the enemy, and had utilised the time to cover the dome with defenders. An indescribable struggle followed, but the superior numbers of the Amazons overcame, and they penetrated into the nest, while the defenders poured[72] by thousands out of the same holes, with their larvæ and pupæ in their jaws, and escaped to the nearest plants and bushes, running over the heaps of their assailants. These looked on the matter as hopeless, and began to retreat. But the rufibarbes, furious at their proceedings, pursued them, and endeavoured to get away from them the few pupæ they had obtained, by trying to seize the Amazons' legs and to snatch away the pupæ. The Amazon lets its jaws slip slowly along the captive pupa, as far as the head of its opponent, and pierces it, if it does not, as generally happens, draw back. But it often manages to seize the pupa at the instant at which the Amazon lets it go and flies with it. This is managed yet more easily when a comrade holds the robber by the legs, and compels it to loose its prey in order to guard itself against its assailant. Sometimes the robbers seize empty cocoons and carry them away, but they leave them on the road when they have discovered their mistake. In the above case the strength of the rufibarbes proved at last so great that the rearguard of the retreating army was seriously pressed, and was obliged to give up its booty. A number of the Amazons also were overpowered and killed, but not without the rufibarbes also losing many people. None the less did some individuals, as though desperate, rush into the thickest hosts of the enemy, penetrated again into the nest, and carried off several pupæ by sheer audacity and skill. Most of them left their prey to go to the help of their comrades when assailed by the rufibarbes. Ten minutes after the commencement of the retreat all the Amazons had left the nest, and, being swifter than their opponents, they were only pursued for about halfway back. Their attack had failed on account of a short delay!

On another occasion observed by Forel, in which several fertile Amazons also took part and killed many enemies, the nest was thoroughly ravished, but the retreat was also in this case very much disturbed and harassed by the superior numbers of the enemy. There were many slain on both sides. That in spite of the above-mentioned unanimity different opinions among the members of an expedition sometimes hinder its conduct, the following observation seems to show:—An advancing column divided after it had gone about ten yards from the nest. Half turned back, while the other half went on, but after some time hesitated and also turned back. Arrived at home, it found those which had formerly turned back putting themselves in motion in a new direction. The newly returned followed them, and the reunited army, after various wheelings, halts, &c., at[73] last turned home again by a long way round. The whole business looked like a promenade. But apparently different parties had different nests in view, while others were entirely against the expedition. Yet perhaps it was only a march for exercise.

Outer obstacles do not, as a rule, hinder the Amazons when they are once on the march. Forel saw them wade through some shallow water, although many were drowned in it, and then march over a dusty high road, although the wind blew half of them away. As they returned, booty-laden, neither wind, nor dust, nor water could make them lay down their prey. They only got back with great trouble, and turned back again to bring fresh booty, although many lost their lives.

The most terrible enemy of the Amazons is the sanguine ant (F. sanguinea), which also keeps slaves, and thereby often comes into collision with the Amazons on their marauding excursions. It is not equal to it in bodily strength or fighting capacity, but surpasses it in intelligence; according to Forel it is the most intelligent of all the species of ants. If Forel, for instance, poured out the contents of a sack filled with a nest of the slave species near an Amazon nest, the Amazons apparently generally regarded the tumbled together heap of ants, larvæ, pupæ, earth, building materials, &c., as the dome of a hostile nest, and took all imaginable but useless pains to find out the entrances thereinto, leaving on one side for this investigation their only object, the carrying off the pupæ; but the sanguine ants under similar circumstances did not allow themselves to be deceived, but at once ransacked the whole heap.

The sanguine ants pressed in, while the fusca came out to defend themselves. At this moment the first Amazons arrived. When they saw the sanguine ants they drew back and awaited the main army, which appeared much disturbed at the news. But once united, the bold robbers rushed at their foes. The latter gathered together and beat back the first attack, but the Amazons closed up their ranks and made a second assault, which carried them on to the dome and into the midst of the enemy. These were overthrown, as well as a number of F. pratensis,[74] which Forel at this moment poured out on the nest. The conquerors delayed for a moment on the dome after their victory, and then entered the nest to bring out a little of the valuable booty. A few Amazons which were mad with anger did not return with the main army, but went on slaughtering blindly among the conquered and the fugitives of the three species, fusca, pratensis, and sanguinea.

The ravished rufibarbes once became so desperate at their overthrow that they followed the robbers to their own nest, and the latter had some trouble in defending it. The rufibarbes let themselves be killed in hundreds, and really seemed as though they courted death. A small number of the Amazons also sank under the bites of their enemies. The nest contained slaves of the rufibarbis species, which on this emergency fought actively against their own race. There were also slaves of the species fusca, so that the nest included three different species of ants.

The same nest is often revisited many times on the same day or at different periods, until either there is no more to steal, or the plundered folk have hit upon better mode of defence. A column which was in the act of going back to such a plundered nest turned when halfway there, and halted, apparently on no other ground than because it had met the rearguard of the army, and had learned that the nest was exhausted, and that there was nothing more to be had there. The robbers then went off to a rufibarbis nest which was in the neighbourhood, and killed half the inhabitants while plundering the nest. The surviving rufibarbes returned after the robbery and brought up new progeny; but thirteen days later the Amazons again reaped a rich harvest from the same nest. The Amazon army often severs itself into two separate divisions when there is not enough for both to do at the same spot. Sometimes one division finds something and the other nothing, and they then reunite. If any obstacle be placed in their way they try to overcome it, in doing which some leave the main army, lose themselves, and only find their way home again with difficulty. Forel has tried to establish the normal frequency of expeditions, and found that a colony watched by himself for a space of thirty days sent out no less than forty-four marauding excursions. Of these about eight-and-twenty were completely, nine partially, and the remainder not at all successful. He four times saw the army divide into two. Half the expeditions were levelled against the rufibarbes, half against the fuscæ. On an average a successful expedition[75] would bring back to the colony a thousand pupæ or larvæ. On the whole, the number of future slaves stolen by a strong colony during a favourable summer may be reckoned at forty thousand!

The internecine battles which occasionally break out among the Amazons themselves are naturally the most cruel. They tear each other to pieces with incredible fury, and knots of five or six individuals which have pierced each other may be seen rolling over each other on the ground, it being impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. Civil wars among men are also known to be the most embittered and the most bloody.

They march in small troops which, in case of need, summon reinforcements, and therefore as a rule only reach their goal slowly. Between the individual troops messengers or scouts run continually backwards and forwards. The first troop which arrives at the hostile nest does not rush at it, as do the Amazons, but contents itself with making provisional reconnaissances, wherein some of the assailants are generally made prisoners by the enemy, which have time to bethink and to collect themselves. Reinforcements are now brought up, and a regular siege of the nest begins. A sudden invasion, like that of the Amazons, is never seen. The besieging army forms a complete ring round the hostile nest, and the besiegers hold this with mandibles open and antennæ drawn back, without going nearer. In this position they beat off all assaults of the besieged, until they feel themselves strong enough to advance to the attack. This attack scarcely ever fails, and has for its chief object the mastering of the entrances and outlets of the nest. A special troop guards each opening, and only allows such of the besieged to pass out as carry no pupæ. This manœuvre gives rise to a number of comical and characteristic scenes. By this means the sanguine ants in a few minutes manage to have all the defenders out of the nests and the pupæ left behind. This is the case at least with the rufibarbes, while the rather less timid fuscæ try, even at the last moment when it is useless, to stop up or barricade the entrances. The sanguine ants do not indeed possess the terrible weapons and the warlike impetuosity of the Amazons, but they are stronger and larger. If a fusca or a rufibarbis fights with a sanguine ant for the possession[76] of a pupa, it is generally very soon overcome. While the main part of the army is penetrating into the nest to steal the pupæ, some divisions pursue the fugitives, to take away from them the few pupæ which may chance to have been saved. They drive them even out of the cricket-holes in which they have meanwhile taken refuge. In short, it is a razzia, or sweeping burglary, as complete as can be imagined. In the retreat the robbers in no wise hurry themselves, for they know that they are threatened by no danger and no loss, and the complete emptying of a large and distant nest often takes several days in accomplishing. The ants which have been so thoroughly robbed scarcely ever return to their former abode.

It must be admitted that a human army, robbing a foreign town or fortress, could not behave better or more prudently.

At ten, in a July morning, he noticed a small band of them emerge from their nest, and march rapidly towards a nest of negroes, around which it dispersed. A number of the blacks rushed out, gave battle, and succeeded in defeating their invaders, and in making several of them prisoners. Upon this, the remainder of the attacking force waited for a reinforcement. When this came up, they still declined further proceedings, and sent more aides-de-camp to their own nest. The result of these messages was a much larger reinforcement; but even yet the pirates appeared to shun the combat. At last, the negroes marched out from their nest in a phalanx of about two feet square, and a number of skirmishes began, which soon ended in a general mêlée. Long before the event seemed certain, the negroes carried off their pupæ to the most distant part of the nest; and when, after a longer encounter, they appeared to think further resistance vain, they retreated, attempting to take with them their young. In this, however, they were prevented, and the invaders obtained possession of their nest and the booty. When they had done this, they put in a garrison, and occupied the night and the succeeding day in carrying off their spoil.

Battles between ants of the same species often end with a lasting alliance, especially when the number of the workers on both sides is comparatively small. The wise little animals under such circumstances discover, much more quickly and better than men, that they can only destroy each other by fighting, while union would benefit both parties. Sometimes they drive each[77] other out of their nests in a quite friendly way. Forel laid on a table a piece of bark with a nest of the gentle Leptothorax acervorum, and then put on it the contents of another nest of the same species. The last comers were by far the more numerous, and soon possessed themselves of the nest, driving out the inmates. But the latter did not know whither to go, and turned back again. They were then seized by their opponents one after the other, carried away as far as possible from the nest, and there put down. The oftener they came back the further were they carried away. One of the carriers arrived in this fashion at the edge of the table, and after it had by means of its feelers convinced itself that it had reached the end of the world, mercilessly let its burden drop into the fathomless abyss. It waited a moment to see if it had attained its object, and then turned back to the nest. Forel picked up the ant which had fallen on the floor, and put it down right in front of the returning ant. The latter repeated the same manœuvre as at first, only stretching its neck further over the edge of the table. He several times reiterated his experiment, and always with the same result. Later the two colonies were shut up together in a glass case, and gradually learned to agree.

They slowly pull from their victim, that is rendered defenceless by wounds, exhaustion, or terror, first one feeler and then the other, then the legs one after another, until they at last kill it, or pull it in a completely mutilated and helpless condition to some out-of-the-way spot where it perishes miserably. Yet some compassionate hearts are to be found among the victors, which only pull the conquered to a distant place in order to get rid of them, and there let them go without injuring them.

The doors are often guarded by special sentries, which fulfil their important duty in various ways. Forel saw a nest of the Colobopsis truncata, the two or three very small round openings of which were watched by soldiers, arranged so that their thick cylindrical heads stopped them up, just as a cork stops up the mouth of a bottle. The same observer saw the Myrmecina Latreillei defend themselves against the invasions of the slave-making Strongylognathus, by placing a worker at each of the little openings of the nest, which quite stops up[78] the opening either with its head or abdomen. The Camponotus species also defend their nests by stretching their heads in front of the openings, drawing back the antennæ. Each approaching enemy thus receives a sharp blow or bite delivered with the whole weight of the body. MacCook noticed in the nests of the soon to be described Pennsylvanian mound-building ants, the employment of special sentries, which lay watching within the nest entrances, and sprang out at the first sight of danger to attack the enemy; and it was wonderful to see with what swiftness the news of such an alarm spread through the nest, and how the inhabitants came out en masse to meet the enemy. The Lasius species defend their large, strong, and very extensive nests against hostile attack or sieges with equal courage and skill, while other timid species seek to fly as speedily as possible with their larvæ, pupæ, and fruitful queens. There is, as Forel tells us, a regular barricade fight. Passage after passage is stopped and defended to the uttermost, so that the assailants can only advance step and step. Unless the latter are in an enormous majority, the struggle may last a very long time with these tactics. During this time, other workers are busy preparing subterranean passages backwards for eventual flight. Generally such passages are already made, and during a fight a new dome of the Lasius may be seen rising at a distance, it not being difficult for them to make this with the help of their extended subterranean passages and communications.

The F. exsecta or pressilabris fights in a peculiar way, which is due to care of their small and very tender bodies. It avoids all single combats, and always fights in closed ranks. Only when it thinks victory secure does it spring on its enemy's back. But its chief strength lies in the fact that many together always attack a foe. They nail down their opponent by seizing its legs and holding them firmly to the ground, while a comrade springs on the back of the defenceless creature and tries to bite through its neck. But if threatened the holders sometimes take flight, and so it happens that in battles between the exsectæ and the much stronger pratenses not a few of the latter are seen running about with a small enemy clutching their shoulders, and making violent efforts to tear the neck of its foe. If the bearer is then seized with cramp, the nervous cord has been injured. On the other hand, if an exsecta is seized by the back by a pratensis it is at once lost.

The tactics of the turf ants resemble those of the exsectæ, three or four of them seizing an opponent and pulling off his legs. In similar fashion the attack of the Lasius species is[79] chiefly directed against the legs of its enemies, three, four, or five uniting in the effort. They understand barricade fighting particularly well in their large well-built dwellings, and if it comes to the worst fly by subterranean passages. They are feared by most ants on account of their numerical superiority. Forel one day poured the contents of ten nests of pratenses in front of a tree trunk inhabited by Lasius fuliginosus (jet ant). The siege at once began; but the jet ants called in help from the nests connected with their colony, and thick black columns were at once seen coming out from the surrounding trees. The pratenses were obliged to fly, and left behind them a mass of dead as well as their pupæ, which last were carried off by the victors to their nests to be eaten.

By far the most savage and prolonged contests which I have witnessed were those in which the combatants belong to two different colonies of the same species. . . . . The most singular contests are those which are waged for seeds by A. barbara, when one colony plunders the stores of an adjacent nest belonging to the same species, the weaker nest making prolonged though, for the most part, inefficient attempts to recover their property.

In the case of the other species of ant which I have watched fighting, the strife would last but a short time—a few hours or a day—but A. barbara will carry on the battle day after day and week after week. I was able to devote a good deal of time to watching the progress of a predatory war of this kind, waged by one nest of barbara against another, and which lasted for forty-six days, from January 18 to March 4!

I cannot of course declare positively that no cessation of hostilities may have taken place during the time, but I can affirm that whenever I visited the spot—and I did so on twelve days, or as nearly as possible twice a week—the scene was one of war and spoliation such as that which I shall now describe.

An active train of ants, nearly resembling an ordinary harvesting train, led from the entrance of one nest to that of another lower down the slope, and fifteen feet distant; but on[80] closer examination it appeared that though the great mass of seed-bearers were travelling towards the upper nest, some few were going in the opposite direction and making for the lower. Besides this, at intervals, combats might be seen taking place, one ant seizing the free end of a seed carried by another, and endeavouring to wrench it away, and then frequently, as neither would let go, the stronger ant would drag seed and opponent towards its nest. At times other ants would interfere and seize one of the combatants and endeavour to drag it away, this often resulting in terrible mutilations, and especially in the loss of the abdomen, which would be torn off while the jaws of the victim retained their indomitable bull-dog grip upon the seed. Then the victor might be seen dragging away his prize, while its adversary, though now little more than a head and legs, offered a vigorous though of course ineffectual resistance. I frequently observed that the ants during these conflicts would endeavour to seize one another's antennæ, and that if this were effected, the ant thus assaulted would instantly release his hold, whether of seed or adversary, and appear utterly discomfited. No doubt the antennæ are their most sensitive parts, and injuries inflicted on these organs cause the greatest pain.

It was not until I had watched this scene for some days that I apprehended its true meaning, and discovered that the ants of the upper nest were robbing the granaries of the lower, while the latter tried to recover the stolen seeds both by fighting for them and by stealing seeds in their turn from the nest of their oppressors. The thieves, however, were evidently the stronger, and streams of ants laden with seeds arrived safely at the upper nest, while close observation showed that very few seeds were successfully carried on the reverse journey into the lower and plundered nest.

Thus when I fixed my attention on one of these robbed ants surreptitiously making its exit with the seed from the thieves' nest, and having overcome the opposition and dangers met with on its way, reaching, after a journey which took six minutes to accomplish, the entrance to its own home, I saw that it was violently deprived of its burden by a guard of ants stationed there apparently for the purpose, one of whom instantly started off and carried the seed all the way back again to the upper nest.

This I saw repeated several times.

After March 4 I never saw any acts of hostility between these nests, though the robbed nest was not abandoned. In another case of the same kind, however, where the struggle lasted thirty-one days, the robbed nest was at length completely[81] abandoned, and on opening it I found all the granaries empty with one single exception, and this one was pierced by the matted roots of grasses and other plants, and must therefore have been long neglected by the ants. Strangely enough, not one of the seeds in this deserted granary showed traces of germination.

No doubt some very pressing need is the cause of these systematic raids in search of accumulations of seeds, and there can be little doubt that the requirements of distinct colonies of ants of the same species are often different even at the same season and date. Thus these warring colonies of ants were active on many days when the majority of the nests were completely closed; and I have even seen these robbers staggering along, enfeebled by the cold, and in wind and rain, when all other ants were safe below ground.

A young community has sometimes to struggle into permanent prosperity through many perils. The following example is found in the unpublished Lincecum manuscripts. One day a new ant-city was observed to be located within ten or twelve yards of a long-established nest, a distance that the doctor thought would prove too near for peaceable possession—for the agriculturals seem to pre-empt a certain range of territory around their formicary as their own, within which no intrusion is allowed. He therefore concluded to keep these nests under close observation, and visited them frequently. Only a day or two had elapsed before he found that the inhabitants of the old city had made war upon the new. They had surrounded it in great numbers, and were entering, dragging out and killing the citizens. The young colonists, who seemed to be of less size than their adversaries, fought bravely, and, notwithstanding they were overwhelmed by superior numbers, killed and maimed many of their assailants. The parties were scattered in struggling pairs over a space ten or fifteen feet around the city gate, and the ground was strewed with many dead bodies. The new colonists aimed altogether at cutting off the legs of their larger foes, which they accomplished with much success. The old-city warriors, on the contrary, gnawed and clipped off the heads and abdomens of their enemies. Two days afterward the battlefield was revisited, and many ants were found lying dead tightly locked together by legs and mandibles, while hundreds[82] of decapitated bodies and severed heads were strewed over the ground.

Another example, which is given in the published paper, is quite similar, and had like result. In forty-eight hours the old settlers had exterminated the new. The distance between the nests was about 20 feet. While the young colonists remained in concealment they were not disturbed, but as soon as they began to clear away their open disk war was declared.

The erratic ants do not appear to be held as common enemies by the agriculturals, and they are even permitted to establish their formicaries within the limits of the open disk. Sometimes, however, the diminutive hillocks which mark the entrance to an erratic ant-nest multiply beyond the limit of the agriculturals' forbearance. But they do not declare war, nor resort to any personal violence. Nevertheless, they get rid of them, oddly enough, by a regular system of vexatious obstructions. They suddenly conclude that there is urgent demand for improving their public domain. Forthwith they sally forth in large numbers, fall eagerly to work gathering the little black balls which are thrown up by the earth-worms in great quantities everywhere in the prairie soil, which they bring and heap upon the paved disk until all the erratic ant-nests are covered! The entire pavement is thus raised an inch or so, and pains are taken[83] to deposit more balls upon and around the domiciles of their tiny neighbours than elsewhere. The erratics struggle vigorously against this Pompeian treatment; they bore through the avalanche of balls, only to find barriers laid in their way. The obstructions at length become so serious that it is impossible to keep the galleries open. The dwarfs cease to contend against destiny, and, gathering together their household stores, quietly evacuate the premises of the inhospitable giants. It is the triumph of the policy of obstruction, a bloodless but effectual opposition.

The observation upon the ants now before me began at 8 o'clock; at 11 P.M. the cluster had nearly dissolved, only a few being asleep. To illustrate the soundness of this sleep I take the quill pen with which I write, and apply the feather end of it to an ant who is sleeping upon the soil. She has chosen a little oval depression in the surface, and lies with abdomen upon the raised edge, and face toward the lamp. Her legs are drawn up close to the body. She is perfectly still. I gently draw the feather tip along the body, stroking 'with the fur,' if I may so say. There is no motion. Again and again this action is repeated, the stroke gradually being made heavier, although always quite gentle. Still there is no change. The strokes are now directed upon the head, with the same result. Now the tip is applied to the neck, the point at which the head is united to the pro-thorax, with a waving motion intended to produce a sensation of tickling. The ant remains motionless. After continuing these experiments for several minutes, I[85] arouse the sleeper by a sharp touch of the quill. She stretches out her head, then her legs, which she also shakes, steps nearer to the light, and begins to cleanse herself in the manner already described. This act invariably follows the waking of ants from sleep. The above description applies to the general habit of somnolence as observed upon the two named species of harvesting ants for nearly four months. I have often applied the quill, and even the point of a lead pencil, to the sleeping Floridians without breaking their slumber. There are some other details which have not appeared in the behaviour of the individual just put under observation.

Thus, I have several times seen the ants (Crudelis) yawning after awaking. I use this word for lack of one which more accurately expresses the behaviour. The action is very like that of the human animal; the mandibles are thrown open with the peculiar muscular strain which is familiar to all readers; the tongue also is sometimes thrust out, and the limbs stretched with the appearance, at least, of that tension which accompanies the yawn in the genus homo. During sleep the antennæ have a gentle, quivering, apparently involuntary motion, which seemed to me, at times, to have the regularity of breathing. I also often noted an occasional regular lifting up and setting down of the fore-feet, one leg after another, with almost a rhythmic motion.

The length of time during which sleep is prolonged appears to vary according to circumstances and, perhaps, organism. The large head-soldiers of the Floridian harvesters appear to have a more sluggish nature than the smaller workers. Their sleep is longer and heavier. The former fact the watch readily determined. The latter appeared from the greater stolidity of the creatures under disturbance. While the ants of one group are taking sleep others may be busy at work, and these stalk among and over the sleepers, jostling them quite vigorously at times. Again, new members occasionally join the group, and, in their desire to get close up to the heat and light, crowd their drowsy comrades aside. I have seen ants who had been at work in the galleries drop their pellets, push thus into the cluster, and presently be apparently sound asleep. This rough treatment is invariably received with perfect good humour, as are like jostlings when the ants are awake. I have never seen the slightest display of anger or attempt to resent disturbance even under these circumstances, so peculiarly calculated to excite the utmost irritation in men. But of course some of the sleepers are aroused. They change position a little, or give[86] themselves a brief combing, and then resume their nap, unless, indeed, they are satisfied. In watching these movements it was quite evident that the Florida soldiers were far less easily disturbed than their smaller fellows. They slept on stolidly while all the others were in agitation around them. Moreover, their very appearance, particularly when awaking out of sleep, indicated the greater sluggishness of their temperament in this respect.

We take a couple; the cleanser has begun at the face, which is licked thoroughly, even the mandibles being cared for, they being held apart for convenient manipulation. From the face the cleanser passes to the thorax, thence to the haunch, and so along the first leg, along the second and third in the same manner, around to the abdomen, and thence up the other side of the ant to the head. A third ant approaches and joins in the friendly task, but soon abandons the field to the original cleanser. The attitude of the cleansed all this while is one of intense satisfaction, quite resembling that of a family dog when one is scratching the back of his neck. The insect stretches out her limbs, and, as her friend takes them successively into hand, yields them limp and supple to her manipulation; she rolls gently over upon her side, even quite over upon her back, and with all her limbs relaxed presents a perfect picture of muscular surrender and ease. The pleasure which the creatures take in being thus 'combed' and 'sponged' is really enjoyable to the observer. I have seen an ant kneel down before another and thrust forward the head, drooping, quite under the face, and lie there motionless, thus expressing, as plainly as sign-language could, her desire to be cleansed. I at once understood the gesture, and so did the supplicated ant, for she at once went to work. If analogies in nature-studies were not so apt to be misleading, one might venture to suggest that our[87] insect friends are thus in possession of a modified sort of Emmetonian Turkish bath.

The acrobatic skill of these ants, which has often furnished me amusement, and which I shall yet further illustrate, was fully shown one morning in these offices of ablution. The formicary was taken from the study, where the air had become chilled, and placed in an adjoining chamber upon the hearth, before an open-grate fire. The genial warmth was soon diffused throughout the nest, and aroused its occupants to unusual activity. A tuft of grass in the centre of the box was presently covered with them. They climbed to the very top of the spires, turned round and round, hanging by their paws, not unlike gymnasts performing upon a turning-bar. They hung or clung in various positions, grasping the grass blade with the third and fourth pairs of legs, which were spread out at length, cleansing their heads with the fore-legs or bending underneath to comb and lick the abdomen. Among these ants were several pairs, in one case a triplet, engaged in the cleansing operation just described. The cleanser clung to the grass, having a fore-leg on one side and a hind leg on the other side of the stem, stretched out at full length, while the cleansed hung in a like position below, and reached over and up, submitting herself to the pleasant process. As the progress of the act required a change of posture on the part of both insects, it was made with the utmost agility.

Here and there an ant was seen stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed and washed by one or more of its comrades, who performed the task by passing the limb between the jaws and tongue, finishing by giving the antennæ a friendly wipe.

It was of the pratensis that Huber wrote the observations touching its gymnastic sports which became so famous. He[88] saw these ants on a fine day assembled on the surface of their nest, and behaving in a way that he could only explain as simulating festival sports or other games. They raised themselves on their hind legs, embraced each other with their fore-legs, seized each other by the antennæ, feet, or mandibles, and wrestled—but all in friendliest fashion. They then let go, ran after each other, and played hide-and-seek. When one was victorious, it seized all the others in the ring, and tumbled them over like ninepins.

This account of Huber's found its way into many popular books, but in spite of its clearness won little credence from the reading public. 'I found it hard to believe Huber's observation,' writes Forel, 'in spite of its exactness, until I myself had seen the same.' A colony of the pratensis several times gave him the opportunity when he approached it carefully. The players caught each other by the feet or jaws, rolled over each other on the ground like boys playing, pulled each other inside the entrances of their nest, only to come out again, and so on. All this was done without bad temper, or any spurting of poison, and it was clear that all the rivalry was friendly. The least breath from the side of the observer was enough to put an end to the games. 'I understand,' continues Forel, 'that the affair must seem marvellous to those who have not seen it, especially when we remember that sexual attraction can here play no part.'

At one formicary half a dozen or more young queens were out at the same time. They would climb up a large pebble near the gate, face the wind, and assume a rampant posture. Several having ascended the stone at one time, there ensued a little playful passage-at-arms as to position. They nipped each other gently with the mandibles, and chased one another from favourite spots. They, however, never nipped the workers. These latter evidently kept a watch upon the sportive princesses, occasionally saluted them with their antennæ in the usual way, or touched them at the abdomen, but apparently allowed them full liberty of action.

The life of these Ecitons is not all work, for I frequently saw them very leisurely employed in a way that looked like recreation.[89] When this happened the place was always a sunny nook in the forest. The main column of the army and the branch columns, at these times, were in their ordinary relative positions; but instead of pressing forward eagerly and plundering right and left, they seemed to have been all smitten with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking sternly about, others were brushing their antennæ with their fore-feet; but the drollest sight was their cleaning each other. [Here follows the above-quoted passage.] The actions of these ants looked like simple indulgence in idle amusement. . . . . It is probable that these hours of relaxation and cleaning may be indispensable to the effective performance of their harder burdens; but whilst looking at them, the conclusion that the ants were engaged merely in play was irresistible.[31]

There is nothing which is apt to awaken deeper interest in the life-history of ants than what may properly be called their funereal habits. All species whose manners I have closely observed are quite alike in their mode of caring for their own dead, and for the dry carcasses of aliens. The former they appear to treat with some degree of reverence, at least to the extent of giving them a sort of sepulture without feeding upon them. The latter, after having exhausted the juices of the body, they usually deposit together in some spot removed from the nest. I did not see any of the 'cemeteries' of the agricultural ant upon the field, nor, indeed, observe any of their behaviour towards the dead, but my artificial nests gave me some insight of this. In the first colony had been placed eight agriculturals of another nest, which were literally cut to pieces. Very soon after the ants were comfortably established in their new home, a number of them laid hold upon these disjecta membra, and began carrying them back and forth around the formicarium. The next day this continued, and several of their own number[90] who had died were being treated in like manner. Back and forth, up and down, into every corner of the box the bearers wandered, the very embodiment of restlessness. For four days this conduct continued without any intermission. No sooner would a body or fragment thereof be dropped by one bearer than another would take it up and begin the restless circuit. The difficulty, I easily understood, was that there was no point to be found far enough removed from the living-rooms of the insects in which to inter these dead. Their desire to have their dead buried out of their sight was strong enough to keep them on this ceaseless round, apparently under the continuous influence of the hope that something might turn up to give them a more satisfactory burial-ground. It does not appear greatly to the credit of their wisdom that they were so long discovering that they were limited to a space beyond their power to enlarge. When, however, this fact was finally recognised they gave their habit its utmost bent, and began to deposit the carcasses in the extreme corner of the flat, as distant as possible from the galleries on the terrace above. Here a little hollow was made in the earth, quite up against the glass, wherein a number of bodies were laid. Portions of bodies were thrust into the chinks formed in the dry sod. This flat became the permanent charnel-house of the colony, and here, in corners, crevices, and holes, for the most part out of sight, but not always so, the dead were deposited. But the living never seemed quite reconciled to their presence. Occasionally, restless resurrectionists would disentomb the dead, shift them to another spot, or start them once more upon their unquiet wanderings. Even after the establishment of this cemetery, the creatures did not seem able to lay away their newly deceased comrades—for there were occasional deaths in the formicary—without first indulging in this funereal promenade.

In the formicaries established in glass jars, both of barbatus and crudelis, the same behaviour appeared. So great was the desire to get the dead outside the nest, that the bearers would climb up the smooth surface of the glass to the very top of the jar, laboriously carrying with them a dead ant. This was severe work, which was rarely undertaken except under the influence of this funereal enthusiasm. The jar was very smooth and quite high. Falls were frequent, but patiently the little 'undertaker' would follow the impulse of her instinct, and try and try again. Finally, as in the large box, the fact of a necessity seemed to dawn upon the ants, and a portion of the surface opposite from the entrance to the galleries, and close up against the glass, was[91] used as burial-ground and sort of kitchen-midden, where all the refuse of the nest was deposited. Mrs. Treat has informed me that her artificial nests of crudelis behaved in precisely the same way.

An interesting fact in the funereal habits of Formica sanguinea was related to me by this lady. A visit was paid to a large colony of these slave-makers, which is established on the grounds adjoining her residence at Vineland, New Jersey. I noticed that a number of carcasses of one of the slave species, Formica fusca, were deposited together quite near the gates of the nest. These were probably chiefly the dry bodies of ants brought in from recent raids. It was noticed that the dead ants were all of one species, and thereupon Mrs. Treat informed me that the red slave-makers never deposited their dead with those of their black servitors, but always laid them by themselves, not in groups, but separately, and were careful to take them a considerable distance from the nest. One can hardly resist pointing here another likeness between the customs of these social hymenopters and those of human beings, certain of whom carry their distinctions of race, condition, or religious caste, even to the gates of the cemetery in which the poor body moulders into its mother dust!

I saw a large number of ants surrounding the dead ones. I determined to watch their proceedings closely. I followed four or five that started off from the rest towards a hillock a short distance off, in which was an ants' nest. This they entered, and in about five minutes they reappeared, followed by others. All fell into rank, walking regularly and slowly two by two, until they arrived at the spot where lay the dead bodies of the soldier ante. In a few minutes two of the ants advanced and took up[92] the dead body of one of their comrades; then two others, and so on, until all were ready to march. First walked two ants bearing a body, then two without a burden; then two others with another dead ant, and so on, until the line was extended to about forty pairs, and the procession now moved slowly onwards, followed by an irregular body of about two hundred ants. Occasionally the two laden ants stopped, and laying down the dead ant, it was taken up by the two walking unburdened behind them, and thus, by occasionally relieving each other, they arrived at a sandy spot near the sea. The body of ants now commenced digging with their jaws a number of holes in the ground, into each of which a dead ant was laid, where they now laboured on until they had filled up the ants' graves. This did not quite finish the remarkable circumstances attending this funeral of the ants. Some six or seven of the ants had attempted to run off without performing their share of the task of digging; these were caught and brought back, when they were at once attacked by the body of ants and killed upon the spot. A single grave was quickly dug, and they were all dropped into it.

Several of the little sextons I observed with dead in their mandibles, and one in the act of burying a corpse. . . . . I should mention that the dead are not interred without considerable difficulty, in consequence of the sides of the trays being almost perpendicular. The work of the sextons continued until no dead bodies remained upon the surface of the nest, but all were interred in the extramural cemeteries. Afterwards I removed the trays, and turned the contents of the formicarium upside down, and then I placed six trays on the surface of the earth, two of which I filled with sugar for food. All six were used freely as cemeteries, being crowded with the corpses of the little people and their young, the larvæ which had perished in the disruption of their home.

I have noticed in one of my formicaria a subterranean cemetery, where I have seen some ants burying their dead by placing earth above them. One ant was evidently much affected, and tried to exhume the bodies, but the united exertions of the yellow sextons were more than sufficient to neutralise the effort of the disconsolate mourner. The cemetery was now converted[93] into a large vault, the chamber where the dead were placed, together with the passage which led to it, being completely covered in.

They mount a tree in multitudes. . . . . Each one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but generally each marches off with the piece it has operated on, and as all take the same road to the colony, the path they follow becomes in a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a cart-wheel through the herbage.

They are very particular about the ventilation of their underground chambers, and have numerous holes leading up to the surface from them. These they open out or close up, apparently to keep up a regular degree of temperature below. The great care they take that the pieces of leaves they carry into the nest should be neither too dry nor too damp, is also consistent with the idea that the object is the growth of a fungus that requires particular conditions of temperature and moisture to ensure its vigorous growth. If a sudden shower should come on, the ants do not carry the wet pieces into the burrows, but throw them down near the entrances. Should the weather clear up again, these pieces are picked up when nearly dried, and taken inside: should the rain, however, continue, they get sodden down into the ground, and are left there. On the contrary, in dry and hot weather, when the leaves would get dried up before they could be conveyed to the nest, the ants, when in exposed situations, do not go out at all during the hot hours, but bring in their leafy burdens in the cool of the day and during the night. As soon as the pieces of leaves are carried in they must be cut up by the small class of workers into little pieces. Some of the ants make mistakes, and carry in unsuitable leaves. Thus grass is always rejected by them, but I have seen some ants, perhaps young ones, carrying leaves of grass; but after a while these pieces are always brought out again and thrown away. I can imagine a young ant getting a severe ear-wigging from one of the major-domos for its stupidity.

When a nest is disturbed and the masses of ant-food spread[95] about, the ants are in great concern to carry every morsel of it under shelter again; and sometimes, when I had dug into a nest, I found the next day all the earth thrown out filled with little pits, that the ants had dug into it to get out the covered-up food. When they migrate from one part to another, they also carry with them all the ant-food from their old habitations.

It would be quite impossible for them to creep even through short grass with loads on their heads for miles. They therefore bite off the grass close to the ground for a breadth of about five inches, and throw it on one side. Thus a road is constructed, which is finally made quite smooth and even by the continual passing to and fro of millions upon millions night and day. . . . . If the road is looked down upon from a height with these millions thickly pressed together, and all moving along with their green bannerets over their heads, it looks as though a giant green snake were gliding slowly along the ground; and this picture is all the more striking in that all these bannerets are swaying backwards and forwards.[33]

I wished to see how they would manage if I put an obstacle in their way. Thick high grass stood on either side of their narrow road, so that they could not pass through it with the load on their heads. I placed a dry branch, nearly a foot in diameter, obliquely across their path, and pressed it down so tightly on the ground that they could not creep underneath. The first comers crawled beneath the branch as far as they could, and then tried to climb over, but failed owing to the weight on their heads. Meanwhile the unloaded ants from the other side came on, and when these succeeded in climbing over the bough there was such a crush that the unladen ants had to clamber over the laden, and the result was a terrible muddle. I now walked along the train, and found that all the ants with their bannerets on their heads were standing still,[96] thickly pressed together, awaiting the word of command from the front. When I turned back to the obstacle, I saw with astonishment that the loads had been laid aside by more than a foot's length of the column, one imitating the other. And now work began on both sides of the branch, and in about half an hour a tunnel was made beneath it. Each ant then took up its burden again, and the march was resumed in the most perfect order.

The road led towards a cocoa plantation, and here I soon discovered the building which I afterwards visited daily. As I again went thither one day I was met, at a considerable distance from the nest, by a closely pressed column coming thence, and all the ants laden with leaves, beetles, pupæ, butterflies, &c.; the nearer I came to the nest, the greater was the activity. It was soon plain to me that the ants were in the act of leaving their dwelling, and I walked along the train to discover the new abode. They had gone for some distance along the old road, and had then made a new one through the grass to a cooler place, lying rather higher. The grass on the new road was all bitten off close to the ground, and thousands were busy carrying the path on to the new building. At the new home itself was an unusual stir of life. There were all sorts of labourers—architects, builders, carpenters, sappers, helpers. A number were busy digging a hole in the ground, and they carried out little pellets of earth and laid them together on end to make a wall. Others drew along little twigs, straws, and grass-stalks, and put them near the place of building. I was anxious to know why they had quitted their old home, and when the departure was complete, I dug it up with a spade. At a depth of about a foot and a half I found several tunnels of a large marmot species, the terror of cocoa planters, because in making their passages they gnaw off the thickest roots of the cocoa plants. The interior of the ant-hill had apparently fallen in through these mines. Unfortunately I was unable to follow further the progress of the new building, for I was obliged to leave the next day for San Juan del Sur. When I returned at the end of a week the building was finished, and the whole colony was again busy with the leaves of the coffee plants.

It is not a little surprising to see that the ants bring in not only seeds of large size and fallen grain, but also green capsules, the torn stalks of which show that they have been freshly gathered from the plant. The manner in which they accomplish this feat is as follows. An ant ascends the stem of a fruiting plant of shepherd's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), let us say, and selects a well-filled but green pod about midway up the stem, those below being ready to shed their seeds at a touch. Then, seizing it in its jaws, and fixing its hind legs firmly as a pivot, it contrives to turn round and round, and so strain the fibres of the fruit-stalk that at length they snap. It then descends to the stem, patiently backing and turning upwards again as often as the clumsy and disproportionate burden becomes wedged between the thickly set stalks, and joins the line of its companions on their way to the nest. In this manner capsules of chickweed (Stellaria media) and entire calyces, containing the nutlets of calamint, are gathered; two ants also sometimes combine their efforts, when one stations itself near the base of the peduncle and gnaws it at the point of greatest tension, while the other hauls upon and twists it. I have never seen a capsule severed from its stalk by cutting alone, and the mandibles of this ant are perhaps incompetent to perform such a task. I have occasionally seen ants engaged in cutting the capsules of certain plants, drop them, and allow their companions below to carry them away; and this corresponds with the curious account given by Ælian of the manner in which the spikelets of corn are severed and thrown down 'to the people below,' τῷ δήμῳ τῷ κάτω.

Too large to pass through the door, so they tried to dismember it. Failing in this, several ants drew the wings and legs as far back as possible, while others gnawed through the muscles where the strain was greatest. They succeeded at last in thus pulling it in.

If the road from the place where they are gathering their harvest to the nest is very long, they make regular depôts for their provisions under large leaves, stones, or other suitable places, and let certain workers have the duty of carrying them from depôt to depôt.

The subterranean workers of this remarkable genus are very clever. The Rev. H. Clark reports from Rio de Janeiro, that the Sa-ubas have made a regular tunnel under the bed of the river Parahyba, which is there as broad as the Thames at London, in order to reach a storehouse which is on the opposite bank. Bates tells us that close to the Magoary rice-mills, near Para, the ants bored through the dam of a large reservoir, and the water escaped before the mischief could be remedied. In the Para Botanical Gardens an enterprising French gardener did everything he could to drive the Sa-ubas away. He lit fires at the chief entrances of their nests, and blew sulphur vapour into their galleries by means of bellows. But how astonished was Bates when he saw the vapour come out at no less a distance than seventy yards! Such an extension have the subterranean passages of the Sa-ubas.

Between the old burrows and the new one was a steep slope. Instead of descending this with their burdens, they cast them down on the top of the slope, whence they rolled down to the bottom, where another relay of labourers picked them up and carried them to the new burrow. It was amusing to watch the ants hurrying out with bundles of food, dropping them over the slope, and rushing back immediately for more.

In Herr Gredler's monastery one of the monks had been accustomed for some months to put food regularly on his window-sill[100] for ants coming up from the garden. In consequence of Herr Gredler's communications he took it into his head to put the bait for the ants, pounded sugar, into an old inkstand, and hung this up by a string to the cross-piece of his window, and left it hanging freely. A few ants were in with the bait. These soon found their road out over the string with their grains of sugar, and so their way back to their friends. Before long a procession was arranged on the new road from the window-sill along the string to the spot where the sugar was, and so things went on for two days, nothing fresh occurring. But one day the procession stopped at the old feeding-place on the window-sill, and took the food thence, without going up to the pendent sugar-jar. Closer observation revealed that about a dozen of the rogues were in the jar above, and were busily and unwearyingly carrying the grains of sugar to the edge of the pot, and throwing them over to their comrades down below.

It sometimes happens that an ant has manifestly made a bad selection, and is told on its return that what it has brought home with much pains is no better than rubbish, and is hustled out of the nest, and forced to throw its burden away. In order to try whether these creatures were not fallible like other mortals, I one day took out with me a little packet of grey and white porcelain beads, and scattered these in the path of a harvesting train. They had scarcely lain a minute on the earth before one of the largest workers seized upon a bead, and with some difficulty clipped it with its mandibles and trotted back at a great pace to the nest. I waited for a little while, my attention being divided between the other ants who were vainly endeavouring to remove the beads, and the entrance down which the worker had disappeared, and then left the spot. On my return in an hour's time, I found the ants passing unconcernedly by and over the beads which lay where I had strewed them in[101] apparently undiminished quantities; and I conclude from this that they had found out their mistake, and had wisely returned to their accustomed occupations.

By a fortunate chance I have been able to prove that the seeds will germinate in an undisturbed granary when the ants are prevented from obtaining access to it: and this goes to show not only that the structure and nature of the granary chamber is not sufficient of itself to prevent germination, but also that the presence of the ants is essential to secure the dormant condition of the seeds.

I discovered in two places portions of distinct nests of Atta structor which had been isolated owing to the destruction of the hollow wall behind which they lay, and then the granaries well filled up and literally choked with growing seeds, though the earth in which they lay completely enclosed and concealed them[102] until by chance I laid them bare. In one case I knew that the destruction of the wall had only taken place ten days before, so that the seeds had sprouted in the interval.

My experiments also tend to confirm this, and to favour the belief that the non-germination of the seeds is due to some direct influence voluntarily exercised by the ants, and not merely to the conditions found in the nest, or to acid vapours which in certain cases are given off by the ants themselves.

At last a satisfactory seed is found. It is simply lifted from the ground, or, as often happens, has to be pulled out of the soil into which it has been tightly pressed by the rain or by passing feet. Now follows a movement which at first I thought to be a testing of the seed, and which, indeed, may be partially that; but finally I concluded that it was the adjusting of the burden for safe and convenient carriage. The ant pulls at the seed-husk with its mandibles, turning and pinching or 'feeling' it on all sides. If this does not satisfy, and commonly it does not, the body is raised by stiffening out the legs, the abdomen is curved underneath, and the apex applied to the seed. I suppose this to be simply a mechanical action for the better adjusting of the load. Now the worker starts homeward. It has not lost itself in the mazes of the grass forest. It turns directly towards the road with an unerring judgment. There are many obstacles to overcome. Pebbles, pellets of earth, bits of wood, obtruding rootlets, or bent-down spears of grass block up or hinder the way. These were scarcely noticed when the ant was empty-handed. But they are troublesome barriers now that she is burdened with a seed quite as thick, twice as wide, and half as long as herself. It is most interesting to see the skill, strength, and rapidity with which the little harvester swings her treasure over or around, or pushes it beneath these obstacles. Now the seed has caught against the herbage as the[105] porter dodges under a too narrow opening. She backs out and tries another passage. Now the sharp points of the husk are entangled in the grass. She jerks or pulls the burden loose, and hurries on. The road is reached, and progress is comparatively easy. Holding the grain in her mandibles well above the surface, she breaks into what I may describe with sufficient accuracy as 'a trot,' and with little further interruption reaches the disk and disappears within the gate. There are variations from this behaviour, more or less marked, according to the nature of the grounds, the seeds, and (I suppose) the individuality of the harvesters; but the mode of ingathering the crop is substantially as above. Each ant operated independently. Once only did I see anything like an effort to extend sympathy and aid. A worker minor seeming to have difficulty in testing or adjusting a large seed of buffalo-grass, was assisted (apparently) by one worker major, and then by another, after which she went on her way.

In order to test the disposition of crudelis to garner the seeds from the stem, bunches of millet were obtained from the North, and stalks eighteen inches high, crowned by the boll of close-set seeds, were stuck in the mound of an active formicary. The ants mounted the stems and set to work vigorously to secure the seeds, clusters of twenty or more being engaged at once upon one head. The seeds were carried off and stored within the nest. This experiment proved pretty conclusively that in the seeding season crudelis does not wait for the seeds to drop, but harvests them from the plant.

There can be no doubt of the fact that the particular species of grain-bearing grass mentioned above is intentionally planted. In farmer-like manner the ground upon which it stands is carefully divested of all other grasses and weeds during the time it is growing. When it is ripe the grain is taken care of, the dry stubble cut away and carried off, the paved area being left unencumbered until the ensuing autumn, when the same 'ant-rice' reappears within the same circle, and receives the same agricultural attention as was bestowed upon the previous crop—and so on year after year, as I know to be the case, in all situations when the ant's settlements are protected from graminivorous animals.

I have not the slightest doubt of it. And my conclusions have not been arrived at from hasty or careless observation, nor from seeing the ants do something that looked a little like it, and then guessing at the results. I have at all seasons watched the same ant-cities during the last twelve years, and I know that what I stated in my former letter is true. I visited the same cities yesterday, and found the crop of ant-rice growing finely, and exhibiting also the signs of high cultivation, and not a blade of any other kind of grass or weed was to be seen within twelve inches of the circular row of ant-rice.—(Journ. Linn. Soc., vol. vi. p. 30-1.)

In sinking the galleries the difficulty of carrying is not great in a moist or tough soil, which permits the ant to obtain goodly-sized pellets for portage. But when the soil is light and dry, so that it crumbles into dust as it is bitten off, the difficulty is greatly increased. It would be a very tedious task indeed to take out the diggings grain by grain. This difficulty the worker overcomes by balling the small particles against the surface of the gallery, the under side of the head, or within and against the mandibles. The fore-feet are used for this purpose, being pressed against the side face, turned under, and pushed upward with a motion similar to that of a man putting his hand upon his mouth. The abdomen is then swung underneath the body and the apex pressed against the little heap of grains of dirt massed against the under side of the mandibles, or between that and the smooth under surface of the head. Thus the dust is compressed into a ball which is of sufficient size to justify deportation.

The same operation is observed in the side-galleries, where the ants work very frequently upon their sides or backs, precisely as I have seen colliers do in Pennsylvania coal-mines.

Seeds are evidently not the only food of our agriculturals. When the ants at disk No. 2 had broken through the slight mud-sediment that sealed up their gate, as described above, they exhibited a peculiar behaviour. Instead of heading for the roads and pressing along them, they distributed themselves at once over the entire disk, radiating from the gate to all points in the circumference, from which they penetrated the jungle of grass beyond. In a moment a large number were returning across the roads, out of the grass, over the pavement toward the entrance. They bore in their mandibles objects which I presently found to be the males and females of white ants (Termes flavipes), which were filling the air, during and after the rain, in marriage flight. They had probably swarmed just before the shower. The agriculturals were under great excitement, and hurried forth and back at the top of their speed. The number of ants bearing termites was soon so great that the vestibule became choked, and a mass of struggling anthood was piled up around the gate. A stream of eager insects continually poured out of the door, pushing their way[109] through the crowd that vainly but persistently endeavoured to get in with their burdens. The outcoming ants had the advantage, and succeeded in jostling through the quivering rosette of antennæ, legs, heads, and abdomens. Occasionally a worker gained an entrance by dint of sheer physical force and perseverance. Again and again would the crowd rush from all sides upon the gate, only to be pushed back by the issuing throng. In the meanwhile quite a heap of termites, a good handful at least, had been accumulated at one side of the gate, the ants having evidently dropped them, in despair of entrance, and hurried off to garner more.

In due time the pressure upon the vestibule diminished, the laden workers entered more freely, and in the end this heap was transferred to the interior. The rapidity with which the ants were distributed to all parts of their roads, after the first opening of the gates, was truly surprising. I was greatly puzzled, at the first, to know what the cause of such a rush might be. The whole behaviour was such as to carry the conviction that they knew accurately what effect the rain would have, had calculated upon it, and were acting in accordance with previous experience. I had no doubt at the time, and have none now, that the capturing of insects beaten down by the rain is one of the well-established customs of these ants. I saw a few other insects taken in, and one milliped, but chiefly the white ants.

That very afternoon I found in a formicary which I then opened several large colonies, or parts of one colony of termites, nested within the limits of the disk and quite at home. The next day numbers of the winged white ants were found stored within the granaries of a large formicary. There is no reason to doubt that these insects were intended for food, in accordance with the quite universal habit of the Formicariæ.

Keeping these facts in mind, we have a key to the solution of the press-gang operations which Lincecum observed among the agriculturals, and which have been fully described in other species. In the absence of any common head or directory, and of all executive officers, a change of location or any other concerted movement must be carried forward by the willing co-operation of individuals. At first sight, the act of seizing and carrying off workers does not appear like an appeal to free-will. It is indeed coercive, so far as the first act goes. But, in point of fact, the coercion ceases the moment the captive is set down within the precincts of the new movement. The carrier-ant has depended upon securing her consent and co-operation by thus bringing her within the circle of activity for which her service is sought. As a rule, no doubt, the deported ant at once yields to the influence around her, and drops into the current of fresh enterprise, in which she moves with as entire freedom and as independently as any other worker. But she is apparently under no restraint, and if she so please, may return to her former haunts.

They have established themselves on the plain where water stands so long annually as to allow the lotus and other aqueous plants to come to maturity. When all the ant-horizon is submerged a foot deep, they manage to exist by ascending to little houses built of black tenaceous loam on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation. This must have been the result of experience, for, if they had waited till the water actually invaded their terrestrial habitations, they would not have been able to procure materials for their aërial quarters, unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful of clay.[42]

The community appears to consist of three distinct kinds of ants, probably of two separate genera, whose offices in the general order of the nest would seem to be entirely apart from each other, and who perform the labour allotted to them without the least encroachment upon the duties of their fellows. These three kinds are—

I. Yellow workers; nurses and feeders of II.

II. Yellow honey-makers; sole function to secrete a kind of honey in their large globose abdomens, on which the other ants are supposed to feed. They never quit the nest, and are fed and tended by I.

[112]

III. Black workers, guards, and purveyors; surround the nest as guards or sentinels, in a manner presently to be described, and also forage for the food required for I. They are much larger and stronger insects than either I. or II., and are provided with very formidable mandibles.

On the following morning no trace of ants could be found near the place where I had seen them the preceding day, nor were there signs of insects of any description in the thicket; but at the distance of eighty or one hundred yards, I came upon the same army, engaged evidently on a razzia of a similar kind to that of the previous evening; but requiring other resources of their instinct, owing to the nature of the ground. They were eagerly occupied on the face of an inclined bank of light earth in excavating mines, whence, from a depth of eight or ten inches, they were extracting the bodies of a bulky species of ant of the genus Formica. It was curious to see them crowding round the orifices of the mines, some assisting their comrades[117] to lift out the bodies of the Formicæ, and others tearing them in pieces, on account of their weight being too great for a single Eciton; a number of carriers seizing each a fragment, and carrying it off down the slope.

The workers are of various sizes, and the smallest are here of use, for they squeeze themselves into the narrowest holes, and search out their prey in the furthest ramifications of the nests. When a nest of the Hypoclinea is attacked, the ants rush out, carrying the larvæ and pupæ in their jaws, but are immediately despoiled of them by the Ecitons, which are running about in every direction with great swiftness. Whenever they come across a Hypoclinea carrying a larva or pupa, they take it from it so quickly, that I could never ascertain exactly how it was done.

As soon as an Eciton gets hold of its prey, it rushes off back along the advancing column, which is composed of two sets, one hurrying forward, the other returning laden with their booty, but all and always in the greatest haste and apparent hurry. About the nest which they are harrying, all appears in confusion, Ecitons running here and there and everywhere in the greatest haste and disorder; but the result of all this apparent[118] confusion is that scarcely a single Hypoclinea gets away with a pupa or larva. I never saw the Ecitons injure the Hypoclineas themselves, they were always contented with despoiling them of their young.

The eyes in the Ecitons are very small, in some of the species imperfect, and in others entirely absent; in this they differ greatly from the Pseudomyrma ants, which hunt singly and which have the eyes greatly developed. The imperfection of eyesight in the Ecitons is an advantage to the community, and to their particular mode of hunting. It keeps them together, and prevents individual ants from starting off alone after objects that, if their eyesight was better, they might discover at a distance; the Ecitons and most other ants follow each other by scent, and, I believe, they can communicate the presence of danger, of booty, or other intelligence, to a distance by the different intensity or qualities of the odours given off. I one day saw a column of Eciton hamata running along the foot of a nearly perpendicular tramway cutting, the side of which was about six feet high. At one point I noticed a sort of assembly of about a dozen individuals that appeared in consultation. Suddenly one ant left the conclave, and ran with great speed up the perpendicular face of the cutting without stopping. It was followed by others, which, however, did not keep straight on like the first, but ran a short way, then returned, then again followed a little further than the first time. They were evidently scenting the trail of the pioneer, and making it permanently recognisable. These ants followed the exact line taken by the first one, although it was far out of sight. Wherever it had made a slight détour they did so likewise. I scraped with my knife a small portion of the clay on the trail, and the ants were completely at fault for a time which way to go. Those ascending and those descending stopped at the scraped[119] portion, and made short circuits until they hit the scented trail again, when all their hesitation vanished, and they ran up and down it with the greatest confidence. On gaining the top of the cutting, the ants entered some brushwood suitable for hunting. In a very short space of time the information was communicated to the ants below, and a dense column rushed up to search for their prey. The Ecitons are singular amongst the ants in this respect, that they have no fixed habitations, but move on from one place to another, as they exhaust the hunting grounds around them. I think Eciton hamata does not stay more than four or five days in one place. I have sometimes come across the migratory columns; they may easily be known. Here and there one of the light-coloured officers moves backwards and forwards directing the columns. Such a column is of enormous length, and contains many thousands if not millions of individuals. I have sometimes followed them up for two or three hundred yards without getting to the end.

They make their temporary habitations in hollow trees, and sometimes underneath large fallen trunks that offer suitable hollows. A nest that I came across in the latter situation was open at one side. The ants were clustered together in a dense mass, like a great swarm of bees, hanging from the roof but reaching to the ground below. Their innumerable long legs looked like brown threads binding together the mass, which must have been at least a cubic yard in bulk, and contained hundreds of thousands of individuals, although many columns were outside, some bringing in the pupæ of ants, others the legs and dissected bodies of various insects. I was surprised to see in this living nest tubular passages leading down to the centre of the mass, kept open just as if it had been formed of inorganic materials. Down these holes the ants who were bringing in booty passed with their prey. I thrust a long stick down to the centre of the cluster, and brought out clinging to it many ants holding larvæ and pupæ, which probably were kept warm by the crowding together of the ants. Besides the common dark-coloured workers and light-coloured officers, I saw here many still larger individuals with enormous jaws. These they go about holding wide open in a threatening manner.

This is a small dark reddish species, very similar to the common red stinging ant of England. It differs from all other Ecitons in its habit of hunting, not in columns, but in dense phalanxes consisting of myriads of individuals, and was first met with at Ega, where it is very common. Nothing in insect movements is more striking than the rapid march of these large and compact bodies. Wherever they pass, all the rest of the animal world is thrown into a state of alarm. They stream along the ground and climb to the summits of all the lower trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and whenever they encounter a mass of decaying vegetable matter, where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of shining and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over the surface, looking like a flood of dark red liquid. They soon penetrate every part of the confused heap, and then, gathering together again in marching order, onward they move. All soft-bodied and inactive insects fall an easy prey to them, and, like other Ecitons, they tear their victims in pieces for facility of carriage. A phalanx of this species, when passing over a tract of smooth ground, occupies a space of from four to six square yards; on examining the ants closely they are seen to move, not all together in one straightforward direction, but in variously spreading contiguous columns, now separating a little from the general mass, now reuniting with it. The margins of the phalanx spread out at times like a cloud of skirmishers from the flanks of an army. I was never able to find the hive of this species.

The armies of E. vastator and E. erratica move, as far as I could learn, wholly under covered roads, the ants constructing them gradually but rapidly as they advance. The column of foragers pushes forward step by step, under the protection of these covered passages, through the thickets, and on reaching a rotting log, or other promising hunting-ground, pour into the crevices in search of booty. I have traced their arcades, occasionally, for a distance of one or two hundred yards; the grains of earth are taken from the soil over which the column is passing, and are fitted together without cement. It is this last-mentioned feature that distinguishes them from the similar covered roads made by termites, who use their glutinous saliva to cement the grains together. The blind Ecitons, working in numbers, build up simultaneously the sides of their convex arcades, and contrive, in a surprising manner, to approximate them and fit in the key-stones without letting the loose uncemented structure fall to pieces. There was a very clear division of labour between the two classes of neuters in these blind species. The large-headed class, although not possessing monstrously lengthened jaws like the worker-majors in E. hamata and E. drepanophora, are rigidly defined in structure from the small-headed class, and act as soldiers, defending the working community (like soldier termites) against all comers. Whenever I made a breach in one of their covered ways, all the ants underneath were set in commotion, but the worker-minors remained behind to repair the damage, whilst the large-heads issued forth in a most menacing manner, rearing their heads and snapping their jaws with an expression of the fiercest rage and defiance.

The ants kept on coming, and tried hard to reach down from D to A, which was only just out of their reach. . . . . After a while they all gave up their efforts and went away, losing their prize in spite of most earnest efforts, because it did not occur to them to drop ³/₁₀ of an inch. At the moment when the separation was made there were fifteen ants on the larvæ. These could, of course, have returned if one had stood still and allowed the others to get on its back. This, however, did not occur to them; nor did they think of letting themselves drop from the bottom of the paper (P) on to the nest. Two or three, indeed, fell down, I have no doubt by accident; but the remainder wandered about, until at length most of them got into the water.

To test their intelligence I made the following experiments: I suspended some honey over a nest of Lasius flavus at a height of about ½ an inch, and accessible only by a paper bridge more than 10 feet long. Under the glass I then placed a small heap of earth. The ants soon swarmed over the earth on to the glass, and began feeding on the honey. I then removed a little of the earth, so that there was an interval of about ¹/₃ of an inch between the glass and the earth; but though the distance was so small, they would not jump down, but preferred to go round by the long bridge. They tried in vain to stretch up from the earth to the glass, which, however, was just out of their reach, though they could touch it with[125] their antennæ; but it did not occur to them to heap the earth up a little, though if they had moved only half a dozen particles of earth they would have secured for themselves direct access to the food. This, however, never occurred to them. At length they gave up all attempts to reach up to the glass, and went round by the paper bridge. I left the arrangement for several weeks, but they continued to go round by the long paper bridge.

I put some provisions in a shallow box with a glass top and a single hole in one side; I then put some specimens of Lasius niger to the food, and soon a stream of ants was at work busily carrying supplies off to the nest. When they had got to know their way thoroughly, and from thirty to forty were so occupied, I poured some fine mould in front of the hole, so as to cover it to a depth of about ½ an inch. I then took out the ants which were actually in the box. As soon as the ants had recovered from the shock of this unexpected proceeding on my part, they began to run all round and about the box, looking for some other place of entrance. Finding none, however, they began digging down into the earth just over the hole, carrying off the grains of earth one by one and depositing them without any order all round at a distance of from ½ to 6 inches, until they had excavated down to the doorway, when they again began carrying off the food as before.

The feeders at the beginning of the experiment were those known to us as Nos. 5, 6, and 7. On the 22nd of November a friend, registered as No. 8, came to the honey, and again on the 11th December; but with these two exceptions the whole of the supplies were carried in by Nos. 5 and 6, with a little help from No. 7. Thinking now it might be alleged that possibly these were merely unusually active or greedy individuals, I imprisoned No. 6 when she came out to feed on the 5th. As will be seen from the table, no other ant had been out to the honey for some days; and it could therefore hardly be accidental that on that very evening another ant (then registered as No. 9) came out for food. This ant, as will be seen from the table, then took the place of No. 6 (No. 5 being imprisoned). On the 11th January No. 9 took in all the supplies, again with a little help from No. 7. So matters continued until the 17th, when I imprisoned No. 9, and then again, i.e. on the 19th, another ant (No. 10) came out for the food, aided, on and after the 22nd, by another (No. 11). This seems to me very curious. From the 1st November to the 5th January, with two or three casual exceptions, the whole of the supplies were carried in by three ants, one of whom, however, did comparatively little. The other two are imprisoned, and then, but not till then, a fresh ant appears on the scene. She carries in the food for a week, and then she being imprisoned, two others undertake the task. On the other hand, in nest 1, when the first foragers were not imprisoned, they continued during the whole time to carry in the necessary supplies.

Réaumur states that ants will make no attempt to enter an inhabited beehive to get at the contained honey, knowing that the bees will slaughter them if they do so. But if the hive is uninhabited, or the bees all dead, the ants will swarm into the hive as long as any honey is to be found there.

As though it were intended to support the still unfinished arched roof of a large room, which was being built from the opposite side. But the workers which had begun the arch had given it too low an elevation for the wall on which it was to rest, and if it had been continued on the same lines it would have met the partition wall halfway up, and this was to be avoided. I had just made this criticism to myself, when a new arrival, after looking at the work, came to the same conclusion. For it began at once to destroy what had been done, and to heighten the wall on which it was supported, and to make a new arch with the materials of the old one under my very eyes. When the ants begin an undertaking it seems exactly as if an idea slowly ripened into execution in their minds. Thus if one of them finds two stalks lying crosswise on the nest, which make possible the formation of a room, or some little rafters which suggest the walls and the corners, it first observes the various parts accurately, and then quickly and neatly heaps little pellets of earth in the interspaces and alongside the stalks. It brings from every side materials that seem appropriate, and sometimes takes such from the uncompleted works of its companions, so much is it urged on by the idea which it has once conceived, and by the desire to execute it. It goes and comes and turns back again, until its plan is recognisable by the others.

The earth was damp and the workers were in full swing. It was a constant coming and going of ants, coming forth from their underground dwelling, and carrying back little pellets of earth for building. In order to concentrate my attention I fixed my gaze on the largest of the rooms which were being built, wherein several ants were busy. The work had made considerable progress; but although a projection could be plainly seen along the upper edge of the wall, there remained an interspace of about twelve or fifteen millimetres to fill in. Here would have been the place, in order to support the earth still to be brought in, to have had recourse to those pillars, buttresses, or fragments of dried leaves, which many ants are wont to use in building. But the use of this expedient is not customary with the ants I was observing (F. fusca). Our ants, however, were sufficient for the occasion. For a moment they seemed inclined to leave their work, but soon turned instead to a grass-plant growing near, the long narrow leaves of which ran close together. They chose the nearest, and weighted its distal end with damp earth, until its apex just bent down to the space to be covered. Unfortunately the bend was too close to the extremity, and it threatened to break. To prevent this misfortune, the ants gnawed at the base of the leaf until it bent along its whole length and covered the space required. But as this did not seem to be quite enough, they heaped damp earth between the base of the plant and that of the leaf, until the latter was sufficiently bent. After they had thus attained their object, they heaped on the buttressing leaf the materials required for building the arched roof.

The characteristic trait of the building of ants, says Forel, is the almost complete absence of an unchangeable model, peculiar to each species, such as is found in wasps, bees, and others. The ants know how to suit their indeed little perfect work to circumstances, and to take advantage of each situation. Besides, each works for itself and on a given plan, and is only occasionally aided by others when these understand its plan. Naturally many collisions occur, and some destroy that which others have made. This also gives the key to understanding the labyrinth of the dwelling. For the rest, it is always those workers which have discovered the most advantageous method, or which have shown the most patience, which win over to their plan the majority of their comrades and at last the whole colony, although not without many fights for supremacy. But if one succeeds in obtaining a second to follow it, and this second draws the others after it, the first is soon lost again in the crowd.

I have observed on more than one occasion that when in digging into an ants' nest I have thrown out an elater larva, the ants would cluster round it and direct it towards some small opening in the soil, which it would quickly enlarge and disappear down. At other times, however, the ants would take no notice of the elater, and it is my belief that the attentions paid to it on former occasions were purely selfish, and that they intended to avail themselves of the tunnel thus made down into the soil, with the view of reopening communications with the galleries and granaries concealed below, the approaches to which had been covered up. I have frequently watched the ants make use of these passages mined by the elater on these occasions.

On the following morning the openings were ten in number, and the greatly increased heaps of excavated earth showed that they must probably have been at work all night. The amount of work done in this short time was truly surprising, for it must be remembered that, eighteen hours before, the earth presented a perfectly level surface, and the larvæ and ants, now housed below, found themselves prisoners in a strange place, bounded by glass walls, and with no exit possible.

It seems to me that the ants displayed extraordinary intelligence in having thus at a moment's notice devised a plan by which the superabundant number of workers could be employed at one time without coming in one another's way. The soil contained in the jar was of course less than a tenth part of that comprised within the limits of an ordinary nest, while the number of workers was probably more than a third of the total number belonging to the colony. If therefore but one or two entrances had been pierced in the soil, the workers would have been for ever running against one another, and a great number[131] could never have got below to help in the all-important task of preparing passages and chambers for the accommodation of the larvæ. These numerous and funnel-shaped entrances admitted of the simultaneous descent and ascent of large numbers of ants, and the work progressed with proportionate rapidity. After a few days only three entrances, and eventually only one, remained open.

A nest was made which was partly shaded by a small mesquite tree that stood just beyond the margin of the clearing. The sapling had probably grown up after the location of the community, and for some reason had been permitted to remain until too old to kill off. The shadow thrown upon the pavement was very slight; nevertheless, fifteen feet distant a new formicary was being established. The path from the ranch to the spring ran between this new hill and the old one, and ants were in communication between the two. An opening had been made in the ground, and the beginnings of a new formicary were quite apparent. This is the only instance observed of what seemed an attempt at colonising or removing, and I associated it with the presence of the small but growing shadow of the young tree.

While studying the habits of the cutting ant I was tempted to make a night visit to a farm some distance from camp, by the farmer's story of depredations made by these insects upon certain plants and vegetables. A long, dark tramp, a blind and vain search among the fields, compelled us at last to call out the countryman from his bed. He led us directly to one of the cutting ants' nests, which was overshadowed by a young peach tree. 'There they be, sir,' cried he triumphantly.[132] They were agriculturals! So also were the other nests shown. The reason for this confounding of the two ants on the part of the people hereabouts, and the reason for the 'cutting' operations of our harvesters, will be explained farther on. It is only in point here to say that the farmer affirmed that the ants under the peach tree had stripped off the first tender leaves last spring, so that scarcely one had been left upon the limbs. I am convinced that the reason for this onslaught was the desire to be rid of the obnoxious shade, and open the formicary to the full light of the sun.

Here I observed what appeared to be a new mode of operation. The workers, in several cases, left the point at which they had begun a cutting, ascended the blade, and passed as far out toward the point as possible. The blade was thus borne downward, and as the ant swayed up and down it really seemed that she was taking advantage of the leverage thus gained, and was bringing the augmented force to bear upon the fracture. In two or three cases there appeared to be a division of labour; that is to say, while the cutter at the roots kept on with her work, another ant climbed the grass blade and applied the power at the opposite end of the lever. This position may have been quite accidental, but it certainly had the appearance of a voluntary co-operation. I was sorry not to be able to establish this last inference by a series of observations, as the facts were only observed in this one nest.

I was also in this way able to see for myself much that I otherwise could not have seen. Thus I was able to watch the operation of removing roots which had pierced through their galleries, belonging to seedling plants growing on the surface, and which was performed by two ants, one pulling at the free end of the root, and the other gnawing at its fibres where the strain was greatest, until at length it gave way.

Two ants sometimes combine their efforts, when one stations itself near the base of the peduncle, and gnaws it at the point of greatest tension, while the other hauls upon and twists it. . . . . I have occasionally seen ants engaged in cutting the capsules of certain plants, drop them, and allow their companions below to carry them away.

As green as a leaf, which live upon trees and build their nests of various sizes, between that of a man's head and his fist. These nests are of a very curious structure: they are formed by bending down several of the leaves, each of which is as broad as a man's hand, and gluing the points of them together so as to form a purse. The viscous matter used for this purpose is an animal juice. . . . . Their method of bending down leaves we had no opportunity to observe; but we saw thousands uniting all their strength to hold them in this position, while other busy multitudes were employed within, in applying this gluten, that was to prevent their returning back. To satisfy ourselves that the leaves were bent and held down by the efforts of these diminutive artificers, we disturbed them in their work; and as soon as they were driven from their station, the leaves on which they were employed sprang up with a force much greater than we could have thought them able to conquer by any combination of their strength.

The most formidable of all is the great red ant, or Dimiya. It is particularly abundant in gardens and on fruit-trees; it constructs its dwellings by gluing the leaves of such species as are suitable from their shape and pliancy into hollow balls, and these it lines with a kind of transparent paper, like that manufactured by the wasp. I have watched them at the interesting operation of forming these dwellings;—a line of ants standing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact with it, and hold both together with their mandibles till their companions within attach them firmly by means of their adhesive paper, the assistants outside moving along as the work proceeds. If it be necessary to draw closer a leaf too distant to be laid hold of by the immediate workers, they form a chain by depending one from the other till the object is reached, when it is at length brought into contact, and made fast by cement.

When resident at Poona, the dessert, consisting of fruits, cakes, and various preserves, always remained upon a small side table, in a verandah of the dining-room. To guard against inroads, the legs of the table were immersed in four basins filled with water; it was removed an inch from the wall, and, to keep off dust from open windows, was covered with a tablecloth. At first the ants did not attempt to cross the water, but as the strait was very narrow, from an inch to an inch and a half, and the sweets very tempting, they appear, at length, to have braved all risks, to have committed themselves to the deep, to have scrambled across the channel, and to have reached the objects of their desires, for hundreds were found every morning revelling in enjoyment: daily vengeance was executed upon them without lessening their numbers; at last the legs of the table were painted, just above the water, with a circle of turpentine. This at first seemed to prove an effectual barrier, and for some days the sweets were unmolested, after which they were again attacked by these resolute plunderers; but how they got at them seemed totally unaccountable, till Colonel Sykes, who often passed the table, was surprised to see an ant drop from the wall, about a foot above the table, upon the cloth that covered it; another and another succeeded. So that though the turpentine and the distance from the wall appeared effectual barriers, still[135] the resources of the animal, when determined to carry its point, were not exhausted, and by ascending the wall to a certain height, with a slight effort against it, in falling it managed to land in safety upon the table.

The ants behaved in yet more ingenious fashion under the following very similar circumstances. Herr G. Theuerkauf, the painter (Wasserthorstr. 49, Berlin), writes to the author, November 18, 1875: 'A maple tree standing on the ground of the manufacturer, Vollbaum, of Elbing (now of Dantzic), swarmed with aphides and ants. In order to check the mischief, the proprietor smeared about a foot width of the ground round the tree with tar. The first ants who wanted to cross naturally stuck fast. But what did the next? They turned back to the tree and carried down aphides, which they stuck down on the tar one after another until they had made a bridge over which they could cross the tarring without danger. The above-named merchant, Vollbaum, is the guarantor of this story, which I received from his own mouth on the very spot whereat it occurred.'

To make this impossible for the future, the four legs of the beehive-stand were put into small, shallow bowls filled with water, as is often done with food in ant-infested places. The ants soon found a way out of this, or rather a way into their beloved honey, and that over an iron staple with which the stand was attached to a neighbouring wall. The staple was removed, but the ants did not allow themselves to be defeated. They climbed into some linden trees standing near, the branches of which hung over the stand, and then dropped upon it from the branches, doing just the same as their comrades do with respect to food surrounded by water, when they drop upon it from the ceiling of the room. In order to make this impossible, the boughs were cut away. But once more the ants were found in the stand, and closer investigation showed that one of the bowls was dried up, and that a crowd of ants had gathered in it. But they found themselves puzzled how to go on with their robbery, for the leg did not, by chance, rest on the bottom of the bowl, but was about half an inch from it. The ants were seen rapidly touching each other with their antennæ, or carrying on a consultation, until at last a rather[137] larger ant came forward and put an end to the difficulty. It rose to its full height on its hind legs, and struggled until at last it seized a rather projecting splinter of the wooden leg, and managed to take hold of it. As soon as this was done other ants ran on to it, strengthened the hold by clinging, and so made a little living bridge, over which the others could easily pass.

It is a hard matter to protect any eatables from these creatures, let the custody be ever so close. The legs of cupboards and tables in or on which eatables are kept are placed in vessels of water. I myself did this, but I none the less found thousands of ants in the cupboard next morning. It was a puzzle to me how they crossed the water, but the puzzle was soon solved; for I found a straw in one of the saucers, which lay obliquely across the edge of the pan and touched the leg of the press: this they had used for a bridge. Hundreds were drowned in the water, apparently because disorder had reigned at first, those coming down with booty meeting those going up. But now there was perfect order; the descending stream used one side of the straw, the ascending the other. I now pushed the straw about an inch away from the cupboard leg; a terrible confusion arose. In a moment the leg immediately over the water was covered with hundreds of ants, feeling for the bridge in every direction with their antennæ, running back again and coming in ever larger swarms, as though they had communicated to their comrades within the cupboard the fearful misfortune that had taken place. Meanwhile the new-comers continued to run along the straw, and not finding the leg of the cupboard the greatest perplexity arose. They hurried round the edge of the pan, and soon found out where the fault lay. With united forces they quickly pulled and pushed at the straw, until it again came into contact with the wood, and the communication was again restored.

Proceeding along the whitewashed wall a string of ants going and coming from the outer door to a height of four feet on my wall, and corresponding with that of the safe; and looking between it and the wall, I discovered the secret—the bridge which these persevering little insects had made. It consisted of a broken bit of straw, which rested with one end on a mud buttress fixed to the wall, and the other on the overhanging or projecting top of the safe, which came within an inch and a half of the wall. So they must have carried the straw up from the floor, and resting their end of it on the support they had prepared, let it fall until its other end reached the safe, and then crossed and completed the structure, for it was fastened at both ends with the mortar composed of their saliva and fine earth. Ruthlessly I destroyed the bridge, and moving the safe farther from the wall, managed to prevent their inroads for that season at least. Since then I have frequently seen short bridges, composed entirely of the concrete or mortar which the white ants use to cover up their workings, extending from a damp earthen wall to anything not more than three-quarters of an inch from it.

I shall relate two more instances of the use of a reasoning faculty in these ants. I once saw a wide column trying to pass along a crumbling, nearly perpendicular slope. They would have got very slowly over it, and many of them would have fallen, but a number having secured their hold, and reaching to each other, remained stationary, and over them the main column passed. Another time they were crossing a watercourse along a small branch, not thicker than a goose-quill. They widened this natural bridge to three times its width by a number of ants clinging to it and to each other on each side, over which the column passed three or four deep; whereas excepting for this expedient they would have had to pass over in single file, and treble the time would have been consumed. Can it be contended that such insects are not able to determine by reasoning powers which is the best way of doing a thing?

On both sides of the train, at about 10 mm. distance from each other, stronger ants are to be seen, distinguishable from the others by their foxy colour and very thick heads with gigantic mandibles. These 'thickheads' play the same rôle in the ant-state for which they are cast in cultured communities. They look after the order of the march, and allow none to turn either to the right or left. The least confusion in the regularity of the march makes them turn round and put things straight again. While the procession of the brown workers streams on unceasingly with a swarming motion, the 'officers,' as the natives call these thickheads, run constantly backwards and forwards, ready to take the command on meeting any difficulty. The crossing of streams by these creatures is the most interesting point. If the watercourse be narrow, the thickheads soon find trees, the branches of which meet on the bank on either side, and after a short halt the column set themselves in motion over these bridges, rearranging themselves in the narrow train with marvellous quickness on reaching the further side. But if no natural bridge be available for the passage, they travel along the bank of the river until they arrive at a flat sandy shore. Each ant now seizes a bit of dry wood, pulls it into the water, and mounts thereupon. The hinder rows push the front ones even further out, holding on to the wood with their feet and to their comrades with their jaws. In a short time the water is covered with ants, and when the raft has grown too large to be held together by the small creatures' strength, a part breaks itself off and begins the journey across, while the ants left on the bank busily pull their bits of wood into the water, and work at enlarging the ferry-boat until it again breaks. This is repeated as long as an ant remains on shore. I had often heard described this method of crossing rivers, but in the year 1859 I had the opportunity of seeing it for myself.

A nest was made near one of our tramways, and to get to the trees the ants had to cross the rails, over which the waggons were continually passing and repassing. Every time they came along a number of ants were crushed to death. They persevered in crossing for some time, but at last set to work and tunnelled underneath each rail. One day, when the waggons were not running, I stopped up the tunnels with stones; but although great numbers carrying leaves were thus cut off from the nest, they would not cross the rails, but set to work making fresh tunnels underneath them.

An ant, whose brain has been perforated by the pointed mandibles of an amazon, remains as though nailed to its place; a shudder runs from time to time through its body, and one of its legs is lifted at regular intervals. It occasionally makes a short and quick step, as though driven by an unseen spring, but, like that of an automaton, aimless and objectless. If it is pulled, it makes a movement of avoidance, but falls back into its stupefied condition as soon as it is released. It is no longer capable of action consciously directed to a given object; it neither tries to escape, nor to attack, nor to go back to its home, nor to rejoin its companions, nor to walk away; it feels neither heat nor cold, it knows neither fear nor desire for food. It is merely an automatic and reflex machine, and is exactly similar to one of those pigeons from which Flourens removed the hemispheres of the cerebrum. Just in the same way behaves the body of an ant from which the head has been taken away. In the numerous fights between amazons and other ants, countless cases have been observed of slight injury to the brain, which have caused the most remarkable phenomena. Many of the wounded were seized with a mad rage, and flung themselves at every one that came in their way, whether friend or foe. Others assumed an appearance of indifference, and walked serenely about in the midst of the fighting. Others exhibited a sudden failure of strength; but they still recognised their enemies, approached them, and tried to bite them in cold blood, in a way quite foreign to the behaviour of healthy ants. They were also often observed to run round and round in a circle, the motion resembling the manège, or riding-school action of mammals, when one of the crura cerebri has been removed.

If an ant is cut in half through the thorax, so that the great nerve ganglia of the pro-thorax remain untouched, the behaviour of the head shows that intelligence also remains untouched. Ants mutilated in this way try to go forwards with their two remaining legs, and beg with their antennæ for their companions' aid. If one of these latter lets itself be stopped, then we observe a lively interchange of thanks and sympathy expressed by the actively moving antennæ. Forel placed near to[142] each other two such mutilated bodies of the F. rufibarbis. They conversed with each other in the above-described way, and appeared each to beg for help. But when he put in some similarly mutilated ants of a hostile species, F. sanguinea, the picture was changed; war broke out between these cripples just in the same way and with the same fury as between perfect ants.[44]

Every one has heard of a 'bee-line.' It would be no less correct to speak of a wasp-line. On August 6 I marked a wasp, the nest of which was round the corner of the house, so that her direct way home was not out at the window by which she had entered, but in the opposite direction, across the room to a window which was closed. I watched her for some hours, during which time she constantly went to the wrong window, and lost much time in buzzing about at it. For ten consecutive days this wasp paid numerous visits, coming in at the open window, and always trying, though always unsuccessfully, to return to her nest in the 'wasp-line' of the closed window—buzzing about that window for hours at a time, though eventually on finding it closed she returned and went round through the open window by which she always entered.

Again:—August 24 at 7.20 a bee came through the postern: I fed her; and though she was not frightened or disturbed, when she had finished her meal she flew to the window and had evidently lost her way; so at 8 o'clock I in pity put her back myself.

August 29.—A bee came out to the honey at 10.10; at 10.12 she flew to the window, and remained buzzing about till 11.12, when, being satisfied that she could not find her way, I put her in.

Nay, even those who seemed to know the postern, if taken near the other window, flew to it, and seemed to have lost themselves.

This cost me a great many bees. Those which got into my room by accident continually died on the floor near the window.

In vain, during my stay at St. Nicholas, I sallied out at every outlet to try to gain some idea of the extent and form of the town. Trees, trees, trees, still met me, and intercepted the view in every direction; and I defy any inhabitant bee of this rural metropolis, after once quitting its hive, ever to gain a glimpse of it again until nearly perpendicularly over it. The bees, therefore, . . . . must be led to their abodes by instinct, &c.

On October 29, 1873, I removed a hive of bees in my garden, after it was quite dark, for a distance of 12 yards from the place in which it had stood for several months; and between its original situation and the new one there was a bushy evergreen tree, so that all sight of its former place was[149] obstructed to a person looking from the new situation of the hive.

Notwithstanding this change, the bees every day flew to the locality where they formerly lived, and continued flying around the site of what had been their home until, as night came on, they many of them sank upon the grass exhausted and chilled by the cold. Numbers, however, returned alive to their new position, after having looked in vain for their hive in its old place. At night I picked the exhausted bees up, and having restored warmth to them (by leaving them for a time on my coat-sleeve), I returned them to their companions.

Here was an illustration that the faculty of memory was superior to that of observation; but that was not all. Nearly every bee which I picked up during the 23 days through which this effort of memory lasted was an old one, as was easily deduced from observing the worn edges of the wings; showing that whilst the young insects were quick in receiving new impressions and in correcting errors, the nervous system of the old bees continued acting in the direction which early habit had effected. So true it is that 'one touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'

It is highly remarkable that they [bees] know their hive more from its locality than from its appearance, for if it be removed during their absence and a similar one be substituted, they enter the strange one. If the position of a hive be changed, the bees for the first day take no distant flight till they have thoroughly scrutinised every object in its neighbourhood.[47]

A specimen of Polistes carnifex (i.e. the sand-wasp noticed by Mr. Bates) was hunting about for caterpillars in my garden. I found one about an inch long, and held it out towards it on the point of a stick. It seized it immediately, and commenced biting it from head to tail, soon reducing the soft body to a mass of pulp. It rolled up about one-half of it into a ball, and prepared[151] to carry it off. Being at the time amidst a thick mass of a fine-leaved climbing plant, it proceeded, before flying away, to take note of the place where it was leaving the other half. To do this, it hovered in front of it for a few seconds, then took small circles in front of it, then larger ones round the whole plant. I thought it had gone, but it returned again, and had another look at the opening in the dense foliage down which the other half of the caterpillar lay. It then flew away, but must have left its burden for distribution with its comrades at the nest, for it returned in less than two minutes, and making one circle around the bush, descended to the opening, alighted on a leaf, and ran inside. The green remnant of the caterpillar was lying on another leaf inside, but not connected with the one on which the wasp alighted, so that in running in it missed it, and soon got hopelessly lost in the thick foliage. Coming out again, it took another circle, and pounced down on the same spot again, as soon as it came opposite to it. Three small seed-pods, which here grew close together, formed the marks that I had myself taken to note the place, and these the wasp seemed also to have taken as its guide, for it flew directly down to them, and ran inside; but the small leaf on which the fragment of caterpillar lay not being directly connected with any on the outside, it again missed it, and again got far away from the object of its search. It then flew out again, and the same process was repeated again and again. Always when in circling round it came in sight of the seed-pods down it pounced, alighted near them, and recommenced its quest on foot. I was surprised at its perseverance, and thought it would have given up the search; but not so, it returned at least half-a-dozen times, and seemed to get angry, hurrying about with buzzing wings. At last it stumbled across its prey, seized it eagerly, and as there was nothing more to come back for, flew straight off to its nest, without taking any further note of the locality. Such an action is not the result of blind instinct, but of a thinking mind; and it is wonderful to see an insect so differently constructed using a mental process similar to that of man.

It struck me as curious that on the following day this wasp seemed by no means so sure of her way, but over and over again went to the closed window.

In this respect they certainly differ considerably. Some of the bees which came out of the little postern door (already described) were able to find their way back after it had been shown to them a few times. Others were much more stupid; thus one bee came out on the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th, and came to the honey; but though I repeatedly put her back through the postern, she was never able to find her way for herself.

I often found that if bees which were brought to honey did not return at once, still they would do so a day or two afterwards. For instance, on July 11, 1874, a hot thundery day, and when the bees were much out of humour, I brought twelve bees to some honey; only one came back, and that one only twice; but on the following day several of them returned.

I kept a specimen of Polistes Gallica for no less than nine months.[49] . . . . I had no difficulty in inducing her to feed on my hand; but at first she was shy and nervous. She kept her sting in constant readiness. . . . . Gradually she became quite used to me, and when I took her on my hand apparently expected to be fed. She even allowed me to stroke her without any appearance of fear, and for some months I never saw her sting.

I have already mentioned with reference to the attachment which bees have been said to show for one another, that though I have repeatedly seen them lick a bee which had smeared herself in honey, I never observed them show the slightest attention to any of their comrades who had been drowned in water. Far, indeed, from having been able to discover any evidence of affection among them, they appear to be thoroughly callous and utterly indifferent to one another. As already mentioned, it was necessary for me occasionally to kill a bee; but I never found that the others took the slightest notice. Thus on the 11th of October I crushed a bee close to one which was feeding—in fact, so close that their wings touched; yet the survivor took no notice whatever of the death of her sister, but went on feeding with every appearance of composure and enjoyment, just as if nothing had happened. When the pressure was removed, she remained by the side of the corpse without the slightest appearance of apprehension, sorrow, or recognition. It was, of course, impossible for her to understand my reason for killing her companion; yet neither did she feel the slightest emotion at her sister's death, nor did she show any alarm lest the same fate should befall her also. In a second case exactly the same occurred. Again, I have several times, while a bee has been feeding, held a second bee by the leg close to her; the prisoner, of course, struggled to escape, and buzzed as loudly as she could; yet the selfish eater took no notice whatever. So[156] far, therefore, from being at all affectionate, I doubt whether bees are in the least fond of one another.

Once (he says[51]) I assisted at a curious contest, which took place between the queen and the other bees in one of my hives, which throws some light on the intellectual faculties of these animals. A set of forty-seven cells have been filled, eight on a newly completed comb, thirty-five on the following, and four around the first cell of a new comb. When the queen had laid eggs in all the cells of the two older combs she went several times round their circumference (as she always does, in order to ascertain whether she has not forgotten any cell), and then prepared to retreat into the lower part of the breeding-room. But as she had overlooked the four cells of the new comb, the workers ran impatiently from this part to the queen, pushing her, in an odd manner, with their heads, as they did also other workers they met with. In consequence the queen began again to go around on the two older combs; but as she did not find any cell wanting an egg she tried to descend, but everywhere she was pushed back by the workers. This contest lasted for a rather long while, till the queen escaped without having completed her work. Thus the workers knew how to advise the queen that something was as yet to be done, but they knew not how to show her where it had to be done.

Going to a field or wood at a distance from tame bees, with their box of honey they gather up from the flowers and imprison one or more bees, and after they have become sufficiently gorged, let them out to return to their home with their easily gotten load. Waiting patiently a longer or shorter time, according to the distance of the bee-tree, the hunter scarcely ever fails to see the bee or bees return accompanied with other bees, which are in like manner imprisoned till they in turn are[158] filled, when one or more are let out at places distant from each other, and the direction in each case in which the bee flies noted, and thus, by a kind of triangulation, the position of the bee-tree proximately ascertained.

Those who have stored honey in their houses understand very well how important it is to prevent a single bee from discovering its location. Such discovery is sure to be followed by a general onslaught from the hive unless all means of access is prevented. It is possible that our American are more intelligent than European bees, but hardly probable; and I certainly shall not ask an Englishman to admit it. Those in America who are in the habit of playing first, second, and third fiddle to instinct will probably attribute this seeming intelligence to that principle.

As soon as a bee arrives with important news, it is at once surrounded, emits two or three shrill notes, and taps a comrade with its long, flexible, and very slender feelers, or antennæ. The friend passes on the news in similar fashion, and the intelligence soon traverses the whole hive. If it is of an agreeable kind—if, for instance, it concerns the discovery of a store of sugar or of honey, or of a flowering meadow—all remains orderly. But, on the other hand, great excitement arises if the news presages some threatened danger, or if strange animals are threatening invasion of the hive. It seems that such intelligence is conveyed first to the queen, as the most important person in the state.

The best way to observe the power of communication possessed by bees by means of their interchange of touches, is to take away the queen from a hive. In a little time, about an hour afterwards, the sad event will be noticed by a small part of the community, and these will stop working and run hastily about over the comb. But this only concerns part of the hive, and the side of a single comb. The excited bees, however, soon leave the little circle in which they at first revolved, and when they meet their comrades they cross their antennæ and lightly touch the others with them. The bees which have received some impression from this touch now become uneasy in their turn, and convey their uneasiness and distress in the same way to the other parts of the dwelling. The disorder increases rapidly, spreads to the other side of the comb, and at last to all the people. Then arises the general confusion before described.

Huber tested this communication by the antennæ by a striking experiment. He divided a hive into two quite separate parts by a partition wall, whereupon great excitement arose in the division in which there was no queen, and this was only quieted when some workers began to build royal cells.

He then divided a hive in similar fashion by a trellis, through which the bees could pass their feelers. In this case all remained quiet, and no attempt was made to build royal cells: the queen could also be clearly seen crossing her antennæ with the workers on the other side of the trellis.

Apparently the feelers are also connected with the exceedingly fine scent of the bees, which enables them, wonderful as it may seem, to distinguish friend and foe, and to recognise the members of their own hive among the thousands and thousands of bees swarming around, and to drive back from the entrance stranger or robber bees. The bee-masters, therefore, when they want two separate colonies or the members of them to unite in one hive, sprinkle water over the bees, or stupefy them with some fumigating substance, so as to make them to a certain extent insensible to smell, in order to attain their object. It is always possible to unite colonies by making the bees smell of some strong-smelling stuff, such as musk.[53]

Herr L. Brofft relates, in 'der Zoologische Garten' (XVIII. Year, No. 1, p. 67), that a poor and a rich hive stood next each other on his father's bee stand, and the latter suddenly lost its queen. Before the owner had come to a decision thereupon the bees of the two hives came to a mutual understanding as to the condition of their two states. The dwellers in the queenless hive, with their stores of provisions, went over into the less populous or poorer hive, after they had assured themselves, by many influential deputations, as to the state of the interior of the poor hive, and, as appeared, especially as to the presence of an egg-laying queen!

The bees, far from seeking to prevent these battles, appear to excite the combatants against each other, surrounding and[164] bringing them back to the charge when they are disposed to recede from each other; and when either of the queens shows a disposition to approach her antagonist, all the bees forming the cluster instantly give way to allow her full liberty of attack. The first use which the conquering queen makes of her victory is to secure herself against fresh dangers by destroying all her future rivals in the royal cells; while the other bees, which are spectators of the carnage, share in the spoil, greedily devouring any food which may be found at the bottom of the cells, and even sucking the fluid from the abdomen of the pupæ before they toss out the carcasses.[54]

A circle of bees instinctively crowd around the invader, not, however, to attack her—for a worker never assaults a queen—but to respectfully prevent her escape, in order that a combat may take place between her and their reigning monarch. The lawful possessor then advances towards the part of the comb where the invader has established herself, the attendant workers clear a space for the encounter, and, without interfering, wait the result. A fearful encounter then ensues, in which one is stung to death, the survivor mounting the throne. Although the workers of a de facto monarch will not fight for her defence, yet, if they perceive a strange queen attempting to enter the hive, they will surround her, and hold her until she is starved to death; but such is their respect for royalty that they never attempt to sting her.[55]

That the massacre of the drones is not performed entirely from an instinctive impulse, but in full consciousness of the object to be gained, is proved by the circumstance that it is carried out the more completely and mercilessly the more fertile the queen shows herself to be. But in cases where this fertility is subject to serious doubt, or when the queen has been fertilised too late or not at all, and therefore only lays drones' eggs, or when the queen is barren, and new queens, to be fertilised later, have to be brought up from working-bee larvæ, then all or some of the drones are left alive, in the clear prevision that their services will be required later. . . . . This wise calculation of consequences is further exemplified in that sometimes the massacre of the drones takes place before the time for swarming, as, for instance, when long-continued unfavourable weather succeeds a favourable beginning of spring, and makes the bees anxious for their own welfare. If, however, the weather breaks, and work again becomes possible, so that the[167] bees take courage anew, they then bring up new drones, and prepare them in time for the swarming. This killing of drones is distinguished from the regular drone massacre by the fact that the bees then only kill the developed drones, and leave the drone larvæ, save when absolute hunger compels their destruction. Not less can it be regarded as a prudent calculation of circumstances when the bees of a hive, brought from our temperate climate to a more southern country, where the time of collecting lasts longer, do not kill the drones in August, as usual, but at a later period, suitable to the new conditions.

M. de Fravière had the opportunity of observing the manner in which such an examination is carried on, and with what prudence and accuracy. He placed an empty beehive, made in a new style, in front of his house, so that he could exactly watch from his own window what went on inside and out without disturbance to himself or to the bees. A single bee came and examined the building, flying all round it and touching it. It then let itself down on the board, and walked carefully and thoroughly over the interior, touching it continually with its antennæ so as to subject it on all sides to a thorough investigation. The result of its examination must have been satisfactory, for after it had gone away it returned accompanied by a crowd of some fifty friends, which now together went through the same process as their guide. This new trial must also have had a good result, for soon a whole swarm came, evidently from a distant spot, and took possession. Still more remarkable is the behaviour of the scouts when they take possession of a satisfactory hive or box for an imminent or approaching swarm. Although it is not yet inhabited they regard it as their property, watch it and guard it against stranger bees or other assailants, and busy themselves earnestly in the most careful cleansing of it, so far as this cleansing is impossible to the setter up of the hive. Such a taking possession sometimes occurs eight days before the entrance of the swarm.

There are only three possible figures of the cells which can make them all equal and similar, without any useless interstices. These are the equilateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon. Mathematicians know that there is not a fourth way possible in which a plane may be cut into little spaces that shall be equal, similar, and regular, without useless spaces. Of the three figures, the hexagon is the most proper for convenience and strength. Bees, as if they knew this, make their cells regular hexagons.

Again, it has been demonstrated that, by making the bottoms of the cells to consist of three planes meeting in a point, there is a saving of material and labour in no way inconsiderable. The bees, as if acquainted with these principles of solid geometry, follow them most accurately. It is a curious mathematical problem, at what precise angle the three planes which compose the bottom of a cell ought to meet, in order to make the greatest possible saving, or the least expense of material and labour. This is one of the problems which belong to the higher parts of mathematics. It has accordingly been resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by the ingenious Maclaurin, by a fluctionary calculation, which is to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. He has determined precisely the angle required, and he found, by the most exact mensuration the subject would admit, that it is the very angle in which the three planes in the bottom of the cell of a honeycomb do actually meet.[58]

Let us look to the great principle of gradation, and see whether Nature does not reveal to us her method of work. At one end of a short series we have humble-bees, which use their old cocoons to hold honey, sometimes adding to them short tubes of wax, and likewise making separate and very irregular rounded cells of wax. At the other end of the series we have the cells of the hive-bee, placed in a double layer. . . . . In the series between the extreme perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and the simplicity of those of the humble-bee we have the cells of the Mexican Melipona domestica, carefully described and figured by Pierre Huber. . . . . It forms a nearly regular waxen comb of cylindrical cells, in which the young are hatched, and, in addition, some large cells of wax for holding honey. These latter cells are nearly spherical and of nearly equal sizes, and are aggregated into an irregular mass. But the important thing to notice is, that these cells are always made at that degree of nearness to each other that they would have intersected or broken into each other if the spheres had been completed; but this is never permitted, the bees building perfectly flat cells of wax between the spheres which thus tend to intersect. Hence each cell consists of an outer spherical portion; and of two, three, or more flat surfaces, according as the cell adjoins two, three, or more other cells. When one cell rests on three other cells, which, from the spheres being nearly of the same size, is very frequently and necessarily the case, the three flat surfaces are united into a pyramid; and this pyramid, as Huber has remarked, is manifestly a gross imitation of the three-sided pyramidal base of the cell of the hive-bee. . . . .

Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes, and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee. Accordingly I wrote to Prof. Miller of Cambridge, and this geometer has kindly read over the following statement, drawn up from his information, and tells me that it is strictly correct.

Hence we may safely conclude that, if we could slightly modify the instincts already possessed by the Melipona, and in themselves not very wonderful, this bee would make a structure as wonderfully perfect as that of the hive-bee. We must suppose the Melipona to have the power of forming her cells truly spherical, and of equal sizes; and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she already does so to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows many insects make in wood, apparently by turning round on a fixed point. We must suppose the Melipona to arrange her cells in level layers, as she already does her cylindrical cells; and we must further suppose—and this is the greatest difficulty—that she can somehow judge accurately at what distance to stand from her fellow-labourers when several are making their spheres; but she is already so far able to judge of distance that she always describes her spheres so as to intersect to a certain extent; and then she unites the points of intersection by perfectly flat surfaces. By such modifications of instinct, which in themselves are not very wonderful—hardly more wonderful than those which guide a bird to make its nest,—I believe that the hive-bee has acquired through natural selection her inimitable architectural powers.[60]

Invariably found that the colour was most delicately diffused by the bees—as delicately as a painter could have done it with his brush—by atoms of the coloured wax having been taken from the spot on which it had been placed, and worked into the growing edges of the cells all round.

The work of construction seems to be a sort of balance struck between many bees, all instinctively standing at the same relative distance from each other, all trying to sweep equal spheres, and then building up, or leaving ungnawed, the planes of intersection between these spheres.

With respect to the formation of wax, it is known that bees are often hard pressed to get sufficient nectar; and I am informed by Mr. Tegetmeier that it has been experimentally proved that from twelve to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are consumed by a hive of bees for the secretion of a pound of wax; so that a prodigious quantity of fluid nectar must be collected and consumed by the bees in a hive for the secretion of the wax necessary for the construction of their combs. Moreover, many bees have to remain idle for many days during the process of secretion. . . . . Hence it would continually be more and more advantageous to our humble-bees if they were to make their cells more and more regular, nearer together, and aggregated into a mass, like the cells of Melipona; for in this case a large part of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to bound the adjoining cell, and much labour and wax would be saved. Again, from the same cause, it would be advantageous to the Melipona if she were to make her cells closer together, and more regular in every way than at present; for then, as we have seen, the spherical surfaces would wholly disappear and be replaced by plane surfaces; and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that of the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economising labour and wax.

It was really curious to note in cases of difficulty, as when two pieces of comb met at an angle, how often the bees would pull down and rebuild in different ways the same cell, sometimes recurring to a shape which they had at first rejected.[61]

All the cells have not the same shape, as would be the case if the bees in building worked according to a perfectly instinctive and unchangeable plan. There are very manifold changes and irregularities. Almost in every comb irregular and unfinished cells are to be found, especially where the several divisions of a comb come together. The small architects do not begin their comb from a single centre, but begin building from many different points, so as to progress as rapidly as possible, and so that the greatest number may work simultaneously; they therefore build from above downwards, in the shape of flat truncated cones or hanging pyramids, and these several portions are afterwards united together during the winter budding. At these lines of junction it is impossible to avoid irregular cells between the pressed together or unnaturally lengthened ones. The same is true more or less of the passage cells, which are made to unite the large cells of the so-called drone wax with the smaller ones of the working bees, and which are generally placed in two or three rows. The cells also which they usually build from the combs to the glass walls of their hives, in order to hold them up, show somewhat irregular forms. Finally, in places where special conditions of the situation do not otherwise permit, it may be observed that the bees, far from clinging obstinately to their plan, very well understand how to accommodate themselves to circumstances not only in cell-building, but also in making their combs. F. Huber tried to mislead their instinct, or rather to put to the proof their reason and cleverness in every possible way, but they always emerged triumphant from the ordeal. For instance, he put bees in a hive[178] the floor and roof of which were made of glass, that is of a body which the bees use very unwillingly for the attachment of their combs, on account of its smoothness. Thus the possibility of building as usual from above downwards, and also from below upwards, was taken away from them; they had no point of support save the perpendicular walls of their dwelling. They thereupon built on one of these walls a regular stratum of cells, from which, building sideways, they tried to carry the comb to the opposite side of the hive. To prevent this Huber covered that side also with glass. But what way out of the difficulty was found by the clever insects? Instead of building further in the projected direction, they bent the comb round at the extreme point, and carried it at a right angle towards one of the inner sides of the hive which was not covered with glass, and there fastened it. The form and dimensions of the cells must necessarily have been altered thereby, and the arrangement of their work at the angle must have been quite different from the usual. They made the cells of the convex side so much broader than those of the concave that they had a diameter two or three times as great, and yet they managed to join them properly with the others. They also did not wait to bend the comb until they came to the glass itself, but recognised the difficulty beforehand,[62] which had been interposed by Huber while they were building with a view to overcome the first difficulty.

I have found, he says, that some bees are much more intelligent in this respect than others. A bee which I had fed several times, and which had flown about in the room, found its way out of the glass in a quarter of an hour, and when put in a second time came out at once. Another bee, when I closed the postern door, used to come round to the honey through an open window.

Bees seem to me much less clever in finding things than I had expected. One day (April 14, 1872), when a number of them were very busy on some barberries, I put a saucer with some honey between two bunches of flowers; these were repeatedly visited, and were so close that there was hardly room for the saucer between them, yet from 9.30 to 3.30 not a single bee took any notice of the honey. At 3.30 I put some[182] honey on one of the bunches of flowers, and it was eagerly sucked by the bees; two kept continually returning till past five in the evening.

One day when I came home in the afternoon I found that at least a hundred bees had got into my room through the postern and were on the window, yet not one was attracted by an open jar of honey which stood in a shady corner about 3 feet 6 inches from the window.

One day (29th April, 1872) I placed a saucer of honey close to some forget-me-nots, on which bees were numerous and busy; yet from 10 A.M. till 6 only one bee went to the honey.

I put some honey in a hollow in the garden wall opposite the hives at 10.30 (this wall is about five feet high and four feet from the hives); yet the bees did not find it during the whole day.

On the 30th March, 1873, a fine sunshiny day, when the bees were very active, I placed a glass containing honey at 9 in the morning on the wall in front of the hives; but not a single bee went to the honey the whole day. On April 20 I tried the same experiment, with the same result.

September 19.—At 9.30 I placed some honey in a glass about four feet from and just in front of the hive; but during the whole day not a bee observed it.

As it then occurred to me that it might be suggested that there was something about this honey which rendered it unattractive to the bees, on a following day I placed it again on the top of the wall for three hours, during which not a single bee came, and then moved it close to the alighting-board of the hive. It remained unnoticed for a quarter of an hour, when two bees observed it; and others soon followed in considerable numbers. . . . . On the whole, wasps seem to me more clever in finding their way than bees. I tried wasps with the glass mentioned on p. 124 [i.e. the bell-jar], but they had no difficulty in finding their way out.

The following fact struck me as rather remarkable. The wasp already mentioned at the foot of p. 135 one day smeared her wings with syrup, so that she could not fly. When this happened to a bee, it was only necessary to carry her to the alighting-board, when she was soon cleaned by her comrades. But I did not know where this wasp's nest was, and therefore[183] could not pursue a similar course with her. At first, then, I was afraid that she was doomed. I thought, however, that I would wash her, fully expecting, indeed, to terrify her so much that she would not return again. I therefore caught her, put her in a bottle half full of water, and shook her up well till the honey was washed off. I then transferred her to a dry bottle and put her in the sun. When she was dry I let her out, and she at once flew to her nest. To my surprise, in thirteen minutes she returned, as if nothing had happened, and continued her visits to the honey all the afternoon.

This experiment interested me so much that I repeated it with another marked wasp, this time, however, keeping the wasp in the water till she was quite motionless and insensible. When taken out of the water she soon recovered; I fed her; she went quietly away to her nest as usual, and returned after the usual absence. The next morning this wasp was the first to visit the honey.

I was not able to watch any of the above-mentioned wasps for more than a few days; but I kept a specimen of Polistes Gallica for no less than nine months.

It is sometimes said of bees that those of one hive all know one another, and immediately recognise and attack any intruder from another hive. At first sight this certainly implies a great deal of intelligence. It is, however, possible that the bees of particular hives have a particular smell. Thus Langshaft, in his interesting 'Treatise on the Honey-Bee,' says: 'Members of different colonies appear to recognise their hive companions by the sense of smell; and I believe that if colonies are sprinkled with scented syrup, they may generally be safely mixed. Moreover, a bee returning to its own hive with a load of treasure is a very different creature from a hungry marauder; and it is said that a bee, if laden with honey, is allowed to enter any hive with impunity.' Mr. Langshaft continues, 'There is an air of roguery about a thieving bee which, to the expert, is as[184] characteristic as are the motions of a pickpocket to a skilful policeman. Its sneaking look, and nervous, guilty agitation, once seen, can never be mistaken.' It is, at any rate, natural that a bee which enters a wrong hive by accident should be much surprised and alarmed, and would thus probably betray herself.

On the whole, then, I do not attach much importance to their recognition of one another as an indication of intelligence.

Since their extreme eagerness for honey may be attributed rather to their anxiety for the common weal than to their desire for personal gratification, it cannot fairly be imputed as greediness; still the following scene, one which most of us have witnessed, is incompatible surely with much intelligence. The sad fate of their unfortunate companions does not in the least deter others who approach the tempting lure from madly alighting on the bodies of the dying and dead, to share the same miserable end. No one can understand the extent of their infatuation until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees. I have seen thousands strained out from the syrup in which they had perished; thousands more alighting even upon the boiling sweets, the floor covered and windows darkened with bees, some crawling, others flying, and others still, so completely besmeared as to be able neither to crawl nor fly, not one in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoils, and yet the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers.

Dr. Brown, in his book on the bee, gives another illustration of the reasoning power of bees, observed by a friend of his. A centre comb in a hive, being overburdened with honey, had parted from its fastenings, and was pressing against another comb, so as to prevent the passage of the bees between them. This accident excited great bustle in the colony, and as soon as their proceedings could be observed, it was found that they had constructed two horizontal beams between the two combs, and had removed enough of the honey and wax above them to admit the passage of a bee, while the detached comb had been secured by another beam, and fastened to the window with spare wax. But what was most remarkable was, that, when the comb was thus fixed, they removed the horizontal beams first constructed, as being of no further use. The whole occupation took about ten days.

On one occasion, when a large portion of the honeycomb had been broken off, they pursued another course. The fragment had somehow become fixed in the middle of the hive, and the bees immediately began to erect a new structure of comb on the floor, so placed as to form a pillar supporting the fragment,[186] and preventing its further descent. They then filled up the space above, joining the comb which had become detached to that from which it had been separated, and they concluded their labours by removing the newly constructed comb below, thus proving that they had intended it to answer a merely temporary purpose.

The cleverness of the bees in repairing perfectly injuries to their cells and combs, in supporting on pillars pieces of their building accidentally knocked down by a hasty push, in fastening them with rivets, and bringing everything again into proper unity, making hanging bridges, chains, and ladders, compels our astonishment.

Bees show great ingenuity in obviating the inconvenience they experience from the slipperiness of glass, and certainly beyond what we can conceive that mere instinct would enable them to do. I am in the habit of putting small glass globes on the top of my straw hives, for the purpose of having them filled with honey; and I have invariably found that before the bees commence the construction of combs, they place a great number of spots of wax at regular distances from each other, which serve as so many footstools on the slippery glass, each bee resting on one of these with its middle pair of legs, while the fore claws were hooked with the hind ones of the bee next above him; thus forming a ladder, by means of which the workers were enabled to reach the top, and begin to make their combs there.

The wind threw down from the stand of a bee-master—a friend of the author's, whose name will soon become known—a straw beehive, the inmates of which were surprised in full work, and no small disorder in the interior was the result. The owner repaired the hive, put the loose comb back in its place, and replaced it in such a manner that the wind could not again catch it, hoping that the accident would have no further results. But when he examined the hive a few days later, he found that the bees had left their old home in the lurch, and had tried to enter other hives, clearly because they could no longer trust the weather, and feared that the terrible accident might again befall them.

Impure air within the hive is that which the bees must above all things fear and avoid, for with the pressure together of so many individuals in a comparatively small space, it would not only be directly harmful to individual bees, but would produce among them dangerous diseases. They therefore also never void their excrements within, but always outside the hive. While this is very easy to do in summer, it is, on the contrary, very difficult in the winter, when the bees sit close together and generally motionless in the upper part of the hive, and when, from impure air and foul evaporations, as well as from bad and insufficient food, dysentery-like diseases break out among them, and often carry off the whole community in a brief space of time. In such cases they utilise the first fine day to relieve themselves, and in the spring they take a long general cleansing flight. But they also know how to take advantage of special circumstances so as to perform the process of purification in the way least harmful to the hive. Herr Heinrich Lehr, of Darmstadt, a bee-keeping friend of the author, has sent the following communication:—During an epidemic of dysentery in winter, from which most of his hives suffered (as the bees were no longer able to retain their excrements), one hive suffered less than the others. Exact investigation showed that this hive was soiled all over at the back with the excrement of the bees, and that the inmates had here made a kind of drain. On this spot a little opening had been made by the falling off of the covering clay, which led directly to the upper part of the hive, where the bees were accustomed to sit together during the winter. This excellent opportunity, whereby they could reach in the shortest way an otherwise difficult object, and one rendered complicated by circumstances, did not escape them.

Very interesting, and closely connected with this characteristic of cleanliness, is the conduct of the so-called ventilating-bees, which have to take care that in summer or hot weather the air necessary for respiration of the bees in the interior of the hive is renewed, and the too high temperature cooled down. The latter precaution is necessary, not only on account of the bees working within the hive, to whom, as already said, a temperature risen beyond a certain point would be intolerable, but also to guard against the melting or softening of the wax. The bees charged with the care of the ventilation divide themselves into rows and stages in regular order through all parts of the hive, and by swift fanning of their wings send little currents of air in such fashion that a powerful stream or change of air passes through all parts of the hive. Other bees stand at the mouth of the hive, which fan in the same way and considerably accelerate the wind from within. The current of air thus caused is so strong that little bits of paper hung in front of the mouth are rapidly moved, and that, according to F. Huber, a lighted match is extinguished. The wind can be distinctly felt if the hand be held in front.

The motion of the wings of the ventilating bees is so rapid that it is scarcely perceptible, and Huber saw some bees working[192] their wings in this way for five-and-twenty minutes. When they are tired they are relieved by others. According to Jesse, the bees in very hot weather, in spite of all their efforts, are unable to sufficiently lower the temperature, and prevent the melting of some of the wax; they then get into a condition of great excitement, and it is dangerous to approach them. In such a case they also try to mend matters by a number leaving the hive and settling in large masses on its surface, so as to protect it as much as possible from the scorching rays of the sun.

Although the described plan of ventilation is remarkable enough in itself, it is yet more remarkable in that it is clearly only the result of bee-keeping, and is evoked by this misfortune. For there could be no need of such ventilation for bees in a state of nature, whose dwellings in hollow trees and clefts of rocks leave nothing to be desired as to roominess and airiness, while in the narrow artificial hive this need at once comes out strongly. In fact, the fanning of the bees almost entirely ceased when Huber brought them into large hives five feet high, in which there was plenty of air. It follows, therefore, that the fanning and ventilating can have absolutely nothing to do with an inborn tendency or instinct, but have been gradually evoked by necessity, thought, and experience.

This aperture was sufficient, and only just sufficient, to admit of the ingress or egress of a single wasp. The circumstance which struck me as very remarkable was this—that the wasp did not make its way through the aperture with its head first, as I should have expected, but with its tail, darting out its sting to its utmost extent, and brandishing it furiously. In this manner it came out of the apple backwards. Then, finding itself in the open air upon the outer surface of the apple, it turned round, and without any attempt to molest me, flew off in the usual way. The moment this first wasp had emerged, the sting[193] and tail of another was seen protruding. This, too, I watched with much interest, and exactly the same process was repeated as in the case of the first. I held the apple in my hand until some ten or a dozen wasps had made their exit in the same identical manner in each individual case. I then threw down the apple, inside of which, however, there were still apparently a good many wasps.

It seemed to me at the time, and I have always felt since, that the wasps coming out of the apple backwards, brandishing their stings as a defensive weapon against possible enemies, whom of course they were not able to see, was an evidence of what would be called thought and reflection in the case of human beings. It seems to me that these wasps must have reflected that if they came out of the narrow aperture in the apple, which was their only possible means of ready egress, in the usual manner, head first, they might be taken at a disadvantage by a possible enemy, and destroyed in detail. They, therefore, with great prudence and foresight, came out of the apple backwards, protecting themselves by means of their chief offensive and defensive weapons, their stings, which, according to their normal method of locomotion, would have been useless to them as long as they were making their exit.

Mr. Seth Green, writing to the New York World of May 14, says that one morning when he was watching a spider's nest, a wasp alighted within an inch or two of the nest, on the side opposite the opening. Creeping noiselessly around towards the entrance of the nest the wasp stopped a little short of it, and for a moment remained perfectly quiet; then reaching out one of his antennæ he wriggled it before the opening and withdrew it. This overture had the desired effect, for the boss of the nest, as large a spider as one ordinarily sees, came out to see what was wrong and to set it to rights. No sooner had the spider emerged to that point at which he was at the worst disadvantage than the wasp, with a quick movement, thrust his sting into the body of his foe, killing him easily and almost instantly. The experiment was repeated on the part of the wasp, and when there was no response from the inside he became satisfied, probably, that he held the fort. At all events, he proceeded to enter the nest and slaughter the young spiders, which were afterwards lugged off one at a time.

I was sitting one summer's afternoon at an open window (my bedroom) looking into a garden, when I was surprised to observe a large and rare species of spider run across the window-sill in a crouching attitude. It struck me the spider was evidently alarmed, or it would not have so fearlessly approached me. It hastened to conceal itself under the projecting ledge of the window-sill inside the room, and had hardly done so when a very fine large hunting wasp buzzed in at the open window and flew about the room, evidently in search of something. Finding nothing, the wasp returned to the open window and settled on the window-sill, running backwards and forwards as a dog does when looking or searching for a lost scent. It soon alighted on the track of the poor spider, and in a moment it discovered its hiding-place, darted down on it, and no doubt inflicted a wound with its sting. The spider rushed off again, and this time took refuge under the bed, trying to conceal itself under the framework or planks which supported the mattress. The same scene occurred here; the wasp now appeared to follow the spider by sight, but ran backwards and forwards in large circles like a hound. The moment the trail of the spider was found the wasp followed all the turns it had made till it came on it again. The poor spider was chased from hiding-place to hiding-place, out of the bedroom, across a passage, and into the middle of another large room, where it finally succumbed to the repeated stings inflicted by the wasp. Rolling itself up into a ball the wasp then took possession of its prey, and after ascertaining it could make no resistance, tucked it up under its very long hind legs, just as a hawk or eagle carries off its quarry, when I interposed and secured both for my collection.

Similarly as, on the savannahs, I had observed a wasp attending the honey-glands of the bull's-horn acacia along with the ants; so at Santo Domingo another wasp, belonging to quite a different genus (Nectarina), attended some of the clusters of frog-hoppers, and for the possession of others a constant skirmishing was going on. The wasp stroked the young hoppers, and sipped up the honey when it was exuded, just like the ants.[195] When an ant came up to a cluster of leaf-hoppers attended by a wasp, the latter would not attempt to grapple with its rival on the leaf, but would fly off and hover over the ant; then when its little foe was well exposed, it would dart at it and strike it to the ground. The action was so quick that I could not determine whether it struck with its fore-feet or its jaws; but I think it was with the feet. I often saw a wasp trying to clear a leaf from ants that were already in full possession of a cluster of leaf-hoppers. It would sometimes have to strike three or four times at an ant before it made it quit its hold and fall. At other times one ant after the other would be struck off with great celerity and ease, and I fancied that some wasps were much cleverer than others. In those cases where it succeeded in clearing the leaf, it was never left long in peace; for fresh relays of ants were continually arriving, and generally tired the wasp out. It would never wait for an ant to get near it, doubtless knowing well that if its little rival once fastened on its leg, it would be a difficult matter to get rid of it again. If a wasp first obtained possession, it was able to keep it; for the first ants that came up were only pioneers, and by knocking these off, it prevented them from returning and scenting the trail to communicate the intelligence to others.

Many years ago I was examining an apple tree, when a wasp alighted on a leaf which formed a caterpillar's nest neatly rolled up. The wasp examined both ends, and finding them closed, it soon clipped a hole in the leaf at one end of the nest about one-eighth of an inch in diameter. It then went to the other end[196] and made a noise which frightened the caterpillar, which came rushing out of the hole. It was immediately seized by the wasp, who finding it too large to carry off at once, cut it in two and went off with his game. I waited a little and saw the wasp come back for the other half, with which it also flew away.

I here found a robber-wasp busied in lifting from the ground a large fly which it had apparently killed. It succeeded indeed in its attempt, but had scarcely raised its prey a few inches above the ground when the wind caught the wings of the dead fly, and they began to act like a sail. The wasp was clearly unable to resist this action, and was blown a little distance in the direction of the wind, whereupon it let itself fall to the ground with its prize. It now made no more attempts to fly, but with eager industry pulled off with its teeth the fly's wings which hindered it in its object. When this was quite done it seized the fly, which was heavier than itself, and flew off with it untroubled on its journey through the air at a height of about five feet.

The murderer walked over its prey, which was considerably larger than itself, grasped its body with its feet, spread out its wings, and tried to fly away with it. Its strength was not sufficient, and after many efforts it gave up the attempt. Half a minute went by; sitting astride on the corpse and motionless—only the wings occasionally jerking—it seems to reflect, and indeed not in vain. A mulberry tree stood close by, really only a trunk—for the top had been broken off, clearly by the last flood—of about ten or twelve feet high. The hornet saw this trunk, dragged its prey toilsomely to the foot of it, and then up to the top. Arrived thereat, it rested for a moment, grasped its victim firmly, and flew off with it to the prairies. That which it was unable to raise off the ground it could now carry easily once high in the air.

Th. Meenan ('Proc. of the Acad. of Nat.,' Philadelphia, Jan. 22, 1878) observed a very similar case with Vespa maculata. He saw one of these wasps try in vain to raise from the ground a grasshopper it had killed. When all its efforts proved to be in vain, it pulled its prey to a maple tree, about thirty feet off, mounted it with its prize, and flew away from it. 'This,' adds the writer, 'was more than instinct. It was reflection and judgment, and the judgment was proved to be correct.'

These internal arrangements are so various and so complicated that pages of description might be written thereupon. There are myriads of rooms, cells, nurseries, provision[199] chambers, guard-rooms, passages, corridors, vaults, bridges, subterranean streets and canals, tunnels, arched ways, steps, smooth inclines, domes, &c., &c., all arranged on a definite, coherent, and well-considered plan. In the middle of the building, sheltered as far as possible from outside dangers, lies the stately royal dwelling, resembling an arched oven, in which the royal pair reside, or rather are imprisoned; for the entrances and outlets are so small, that although the workers on service can pass easily in and out, the queen cannot; for during the egg-laying her body swells out to an enormous size, two or three thousand times the size and weight of an ordinary worker. The queen, therefore, never leaves her dwelling, and dies therein. Round the palace, which is at first small, but is later enlarged in proportion as the queen increases in size until it is at least a yard long and half a yard high, lie the nurseries, or cells for the eggs and larvæ; next these the servants' rooms, or cells for the workers which wait on the queen; then special chambers for the soldiers on guard, and, between these, numerous store-rooms, filled with gums, resins, dried plant-juices, meal, seeds, fruits, worked-up wood, &c. According to Bettziech-Beta, there is always in the midst of the nest a large common room, which is used either for popular assemblies or as the meeting and starting point of the countless passages and chambers of the nest. Others are of the opinion that this space serves for purposes of ventilation.

Above and below the royal cell are the rooms of the workers and soldiers which are specially charged with the care and defence of the royal pair. They communicate with each other, as well as with the nursery-cells and store-rooms, by means of galleries and passages which, as already said, open into the common room in the middle under the dome. This room is surrounded by high, boldly projected arched ways, which lose themselves further out in the walls of the countless rooms and galleries. Many roofs outside and in protect this room and the surrounding chambers from rain, which, as already said, is drained away by countless subterranean canals, made of clay and of a diameter of ten or twelve centimetres. There are also, under the layer of clay covering the whole building, broad spirally winding passages running from below to the highest points, which communicate with the passages of the interior, and apparently, as they mainly consist of smooth inclines, serve for carrying provisions to the higher parts of the nest.[71]

If the assailant withdraws beyond their reach and inflicts no further injury, they retire within their dwelling in the course of half an hour, as though they had come to the conclusion that the enemy who had done the mischief had fled. Scarcely have the soldiers disappeared when crowds of workers appear in the breach, each with a quantity of ready-made mortar in its mouth. As soon as they arrive they stick this mortar round the open place, and direct the whole operation with such swiftness and facility that in spite of their great number they never hinder each other, nor are obliged to stop. During this spectacle of apparent restlessness and confusion the observer is agreeably surprised to see arising a regular wall, filling up the gap. During the time that the workers are thus busied the soldiers remain within the nest, with the exception of a few, which walk about apparently idly, never touching the mortar, among the hundreds and thousands of workers. Nevertheless one of them stands on guard close to the wall which is being built. It turns gently each way in turn, lifting its head at intervals of one or two minutes to strike the building with its heavy mandibles, making the before-mentioned crackling noise. This signal is immediately answered by a loud rustling from the interior of the nest and from all the subterranean passages and holes. There is no doubt that this noise arises from the workers, for as often as the sign is given they work with increased energy and speed. A renewal of the attack instantaneously changes the scene. 'At the first stroke,' says Smeathman, 'the workers run into the many tunnels and passages which run through the building, and this happens so quickly that they seem regularly to vanish. In a few seconds they are all gone, and in their stead appear the soldiers once more, as numerous and as pugnacious as before. If they find no enemy, they turn back slowly into the interior of the hill, and immediately the mortar-laden workers again appear, and among them a few soldiers, which behave just as on the first occasion. So one can have the pleasure of seeing them work and fight in turn, as often as one chooses; and it will be found[201] each time that one set never fight, and the other never work, however great the need may be.'[72]

They can even carry their viaducts through the air, and that in such bold arches that it is difficult to understand how they were projected. In order to reach a sack of meal which was well protected below, they broke through the roof of the room in which it was, and built a straight tube from the breach they had made down to the sack. As soon as they tried to carry off their booty to a safe place, they became convinced that it was impossible to pull it up the straight road. In order to meet this difficulty, they adopted the principle of the smooth incline, the use of which we have already seen in the interior of their nests, and built close to the first tube a second, which wound spirally within, like the famous clock tower of Venice. It was now an easy task to carry their booty up this road and so away. . . . . Either from the desire to remain undiscovered, or from their liking for darkness, they have the remarkable habit of destroying and gnawing everything from within outwards, and of leaving the outside shell standing, so that from the outside appearance the dangerous state of the inside is not perceptible. If, for instance, they have destroyed a table or other piece of household furniture, in which they always manage from the ground upwards to hit exactly the places on which the feet of the article rest, the table looks perfectly uninjured outside, and people are quite astonished when it breaks down under the slightest pressure. The whole inside is eaten away, and only the thinnest shell is left standing. If fruits are lying on the table, they also are eaten out from the exact spot on which they rest on the surface of the table.

In similar fashion things consisting wholly of wood, such as wooden ships, trees, &c., are destroyed by them so that they finally break in without any one having noticed the mischief. Yet it is said that they go so prudently to work in their destruction[202] that the main beams, the sudden breakage of which would threaten the whole building and themselves therewith, are either spared, or else so fastened together again with a cement made out of clay and earth that their strength is greater than ever!(?) Hagen also states that they never cut right through the corks which stop up stored bottles of wine, but leave a very thin layer, which is sufficient to prevent the outflow of the wine and the consequent destruction of the workers. The same author relates that in order to reach a box of wax lights they made a covered road from the ground up to the second story of a house.[73]

I was always amused at the pugnacity displayed when, in making a hole in the earthy cemented archway of their covered roads, a host of these little fellows mounted the breach to cover the retreat of the workers. The edges of the rupture bristled with their armed heads as the courageous warriors ranged[203] themselves in compact line around them. They attacked fiercely any intruding object, and as fast as their front ranks were destroyed, others filled up their places. When the jaws closed in the flesh, they suffered themselves to be torn in pieces rather than loosen their hold. It might be said that this instinct is rather a cause of their ruin than a protection when a colony is attacked by the well-known enemy of termites, the ant-bear; but it is the soldiers only which attach themselves to the long worm-like tongue of this animal, and the workers, on whom the prosperity of the young brood immediately depends, are left for the most part unharmed. I always found, on thrusting my finger into a mixed crowd of termites, that the soldiers only fastened upon it. Thus the fighting caste do in the end serve to protect the species by sacrificing themselves to its good.[74]

Having made some observations on the garden spider which are I believe new, I send a short account of them, in the hope that they may be of interest to the readers of Nature.

Last autumn, while watching some spiders spinning their beautiful geometrical webs, it occurred to me to try what effect a tuning-fork would have upon them. On sounding an A fork, and lightly touching with it any leaf or other support of the web, or any portion of the web itself, I found that the spider, if at the centre of the web, rapidly slues round so as to face the direction of the fork, feeling with its fore-feet along which radial thread the vibration travels. Having become satisfied on this point, it next darts along that thread till it reaches either the fork itself or a junction of two or more threads, the right one of which it instantly determines as before. If the fork is not removed when the spider has arrived it seems to have the same charm as any fly; for the spider seizes it, embraces it, and runs about on the legs of the fork as often as it is made to sound, never seeming to learn by experience that other things may buzz besides its natural food.

If the spider is not at the centre of the web at the time that the fork is applied, it cannot tell which way to go until it has been to the centre to ascertain which radial thread is vibrating, unless of course it should happen to be on that particular thread, or on a stretched supporting thread in contact with the fork.

If, when a spider has been enticed to the edge of the web the fork is withdrawn, and then gradually brought near, the spider is aware of its presence and of its direction, and reaches out as far as possible in the direction of the fork; but if a sounding fork is gradually brought near a spider that has not been disturbed, but which is waiting as usual in the middle of[207] the web, then, instead of reaching out towards the fork, the spider instantly drops—at the end of a thread, of course. If under these conditions the fork is made to touch any part of the web, the spider is aware of the fact, and climbs the thread and reaches the fork with marvellous rapidity. The spider never leaves the centre of the web without a thread along which to travel back. If after enticing a spider out we cut this thread with a pair of scissors, the spider seems to be unable to get back without doing considerable damage to the web, generally gumming together the sticky parallel threads in groups of three and four.

By means of a tuning-fork a spider may be made to eat what it would otherwise avoid. I took a fly that had been drowned in paraffin and put it into a spider's web, and then attracted the spider by touching the fly with a fork. When the spider had come to the conclusion that it was not suitable food, and was leaving it, I touched the fly again. This had the same effect as before, and as often as the spider began to leave the fly I again touched it, and by this means compelled the spider to eat a large portion of the fly.

The few house-spiders that I have found do not seem to appreciate the tuning-fork, but retreat into their hiding-places as when frightened; yet the supposed fondness of spiders for music must surely have some connection with these observations; and when they come out to listen, is it not that they cannot tell which way to proceed?

The few observations that I have made are necessarily imperfect, but I send them, as they afford a method which might lead a naturalist to notice habits otherwise difficult to observe, and so to arrive at conclusions which I in my ignorance of natural history must leave to others.[76]

The web of the garden spider—the most ingenious and perfect contrivance that can be imagined—is usually fixed in a perpendicular or somewhat oblique direction in an opening between the leaves of some plant or shrub; and as it is obvious that round its whole extent lines will be required to which those ends of radii that are farthest from the centre can be attached, the construction of those exterior lines is the spider's first operation. It seems careless about the shape of the area they are to enclose, well aware that it can as readily inscribe a circle in a triangle as a square; and in this respect it is guided by the distance or proximity of the points to which it can attach them. It spares no pains, however, to strengthen and keep them in a proper degree of tension. With the former view it composes each line of five or six or even of more threads glued together; and with the latter it fixes to them from different points a numerous and intricate apparatus of smaller threads; and having thus completed the foundation of its snare, it proceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a thread to one of the main lines, it walks along it, guiding it with one of its hind legs, that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, and crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying its spinners, it firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, which is to form the centre of its net, it fixes a second, which in like manner it conveys and fastens to another part of the lines including the area. The work now proceeds rapidly. During the preliminary operations it sometimes rests, as though its plan required meditation; but no sooner are the marginal lines of the net firmly stretched, and two or three radii spun from its centre, than it continues its labour so quickly and unremittingly that the eye can scarcely follow its progress. The radii, to the number of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a wheel, are speedily finished. It then proceeds to the centre, quickly turns itself round, pulls each thread with its feet to ascertain its strength, breaking any one that seems defective, and[211] replacing it by another. Next it glues, immediately round the centre, five or six small concentric circles, distant about half a line from each other, and then four or five larger ones, each separated by the space of half an inch or more. These last serve as a sort of temporary scaffolding to walk over, and to keep the radii properly stretched while it glues to them the concentric circles that are to remain, which it now proceeds to construct. Placing itself at the circumference, and fastening its thread to the end of one of the radii, it walks up that one, towards the centre, to such a distance as to draw the thread from its body of a sufficient length to meet the next. Then stepping across and conducting the thread with one of its hind legs, it glues it with its spinners to the point in the adjoining radius to which it is to be fixed. This process it repeats until it has filled up nearly the whole space from the circumference to the centre with concentric circles, distant from each other about two lines. It always, however, leaves a vacant interval around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to the centre, and bites away the small cotton-like tuft that united all the radii, which being held now together by the circular threads have thus probably their elasticity increased; and in the circular opening, resulting from this procedure, it takes its station and watches for its prey, or occasionally retires to a little apartment formed under some leaf, which it also uses as a slaughter-house.[80]

The long main threads, with the help of which the spider begins and attaches its web, are always the thickest and strongest; while the others, forming the web itself, are considerably weaker. Injuries to the web at any spot the spider very quickly repairs, but without keeping to the original plan, and without taking more trouble than is absolutely necessary. Most spiders' webs, therefore, if closely looked into, are found to be somewhat irregular. When a storm threatens, the spider, which is very economical with its valuable spinning material, spins no web, for it knows that the storm will tear it in pieces and waste its pains, and it also does not mend a web which has been torn. If it is seen spinning or mending, on the other hand, fine weather may be generally reckoned on. . . . . The emerged young at first spin a very irregular web, and only gradually learn to make a larger and finer one, so that here, as everywhere else, practice and experience play a great part. . . . .[212] The position must also offer favourable opposite points for the attachment of the web itself. People have often puzzled their brains, wondering how spiders, without being able to fly, had managed first to stretch their web through the air between two opposite points. But the little creature succeeds in accomplishing this difficult task in the most various and ingenious ways. It either, when the distance is not too great, throws a moist viscid pellet, joined to a thread, which will stick where it touches; or hangs itself by a thread in the air and lets itself be driven by the wind to the spot; or crawls there, letting out a thread as it goes, and then pulls it taut when arrived at the desired place; or floats a number of threads in the air and waits till the wind has thrown them here or there. The main or radial threads which fasten the web possess such a high degree of elasticity, that they tighten themselves between two distant points to which the spider has crawled, without it being necessary for the latter to pull them towards itself. When the little artist has once got a single thread at its disposition, it strengthens this until it is sufficiently strong for it to run backwards and forwards thereupon, and to spin therefrom the web.[81]

Less idyllic than the water-spider is our native hunting-spider (Dolomedes fimbriata), which belongs to those species which spin no web, but hunt their victims like animals of prey. As the Argyroneta is the discoverer of the diving-bell, so may this be regarded as the discoverer or first builder of a floating raft. It is not content with hunting insects on land, but follows them on the water, on the surface of which it runs about with ease. It, however, needs a place to rest on, and makes it by rolling together dry leaves and such like bodies, binding them into a firm whole with its silken threads. On this raft-like vessel it floats at the mercy of wind and waves; and if an unlucky water-insect comes for an instant to the surface of the water to breathe, the spider darts at it with lightning speed, and carries it back to its raft to devour at its ease. Thus everywhere in nature are battle, craft, and ingenuity, all following the merciless law of egoism, in order to maintain their own lives and to destroy those of others!

Thus, for example, in one case where I had cut out a little clod of mossy earth, about two inches thick and three square on the surface, containing the top of the tube and the moss-covered cork door of N. cæmentaria, I found, on revisiting the[215] place six days later, that a new door had been made, and that the spider had mounted up to fetch moss from the undisturbed bank above, planting it in the earth which formed the crown of the door. Here the moss actually called the eye to the trap, which lay in the little plain of brown earth made by my digging.

Certain nests which were furnished with two doors of the cork type were observed by Mr. S. S. Saunders in the Ionian Islands. The door at the surface of these nests was normal in position and structure, but the lower one was placed at the very bottom of the nest, and inverted, so that, though apparently intended to open downwards, it was permanently closed by the surrounding earth. The presence of a carefully constructed door in a situation which forbade the possibility of its ever being opened seemed, indeed, something difficult to account for. However, it occurred to Mr. Saunders that, as these nests were found in the cultivated ground round the roots of olive trees, they may occasionally have got turned topsy-turvy when the soil was broken up. The spider then, finding her door buried below in the ground and the bottom of the tube at the surface,[216] would have either to seek new quarters or to adapt the nest to its altered position, and make an opening and door at the exposed end. In order to try whether one of these spiders would do this, Mr. Saunders placed a nest, with its occupant inside, upside down in a flower-pot. After the lapse of ten days a new door was made, exactly as he had conjectured it would be, and the nest presented two doors like those which he had found at first.

It seems to be the rule with spiders generally that the offspring should leave the nest and construct dwellings for themselves when very young.

Mr. Blackwall, speaking of British spiders, says:—'Complicated as the processes are by which these symmetrical nets are produced, nevertheless young spiders, acting under the influence of instinctive impulse, display, even in their first attempts to fabricate them, as consummate skill as the most experienced individuals.'

[217]

Again, Mr. F. Pollock[85] relates of the young of Epeira aurelia, which he observed in Madeira, that when seven weeks old they made a web the size of a penny, and that these nets have the same beautiful symmetry as those of the full-grown spider.

I cannot help thinking that these very small nests, built as they are by minute spiders probably not very long hatched from the egg, must rank among the most marvellous structures of this kind with which we are acquainted. That so young and weak a creature should be able to excavate a tube in the earth many times its own length, and know how to make a perfect miniature of the nest of its parents, seems to be a fact which has scarcely a parallel in nature.[86]

To show, lastly, how various are the transitional forms and gradations so important in deciding upon the gradual origin of the forms of nests, Moggridge also alludes to the similar buildings made by other genera of spiders. Lycosa Narbonensis, a spider of Southern France much resembling the Apuleian tarantula, and belonging to the family of the wolf spiders, makes cylindrical holes in the earth, about one inch wide and three or four inches deep, in a perpendicular direction; when they have attained this depth they run further horizontally, and end in a three cornered room, from one to two inches broad, the floor of which is covered with the remnants of dead insects. The whole nest is lined within with a thick silken material, and has at its opening—closed by no door—an above-ground chimney-shaped extension, made of leaves, needles, moss, wood, &c., woven together with spider threads. These chimneys show various differences in their manner of building, and are intended chiefly, according to Moggridge, to prevent the sand blown about by the violent sea-winds from penetrating into the nests. During winter the opening is wholly and continuously woven over, and it is very well possible, or probable, that the process of reopening such a warm covering in the spring,[218] after this opening was three-quarters completed, and was large enough to let the spider pass out, may have long ago awaked in the brain of some species of spider the idea of making a permanent and moveable door. But from this to the practical construction of so perfect a door as we have learned to know, and even to the building of the exceedingly complicated nest of the N. Manderstjernæ, through all the gradations which we already know, and which doubtless exist in far greater number, is no great or impossible step.

Dr. Moschkau, of Gohlis, near Leipsic, writes as follows to the author, on August 28, 1876:—'In Oderwitz(?), where I lived in 1873 and 1874, I noticed one day in a half-dark corner of the anteroom a tolerably respectable spider's web, in which a well-fed cross-spider had made its home, and sat at the nest-opening early and late, watching for some flying or creeping food. I was accidentally several times a witness of the craft with which it caught its victim and rendered it harmless, and it soon became a regular duty to carry it flies several times during a day, which I laid down before its door with a pair of pincers. At first this feeding seemed to arouse small confidence, the pincers perhaps being in fault, for it let many of the flies escape again, or only seized them when it knew that they were within reach of its abode. After a while, however, the spider came each time and took the flies out of the pincers and spun them over. The latter business was sometimes done so superficially, when I gave flies very quickly one after the other, that[219] some of the already ensnared flies found time and opportunity to escape. This game was carried on by me for some weeks, as it seemed to me curious. But one day when the spider seemed very ravenous, and regularly flew at each fly offered to it, I began teasing it. As soon as it had got hold of the fly I pulled it back again with the pincers. It took this exceedingly ill. The first time, as I finally left the fly with it, it managed to forgive me, but when I later took a fly right away, our friendship was destroyed for ever. On the following day it treated my offered flies with contempt, and would not move, and on the third day it had disappeared.[87]

She next proceeded to fix one of her threads to the upper part of the glass which confined her, and carried it to the further end of the piece of grass, and in a short time had succeeded in raising it up and fixing it perpendicularly, working her threads from the sides of the glass to the top and sides of the piece of grass. Her motive in doing this was obvious. She not only rendered the object of her care more secure than it would have been had it remained flat on the marble, but she was probably aware that the cold from the marble would chill her eggs, and prevent their arriving at maturity: she therefore raised them from it in the manner I have described.[88]

Many of the spiders would escape by hanging suspended by a thread of silk from the branches, safe from the foes that swarmed both above and below.

I noticed that spiders generally were most intelligent in escaping, and did not, like the cockroaches and other insects, take shelter in the first hiding-place they found, only to be driven out again, or perhaps caught by the advancing army of ants. I have often seen large spiders making off many yards in advance, and apparently determined to put a good distance[220] between themselves and the foe. I once saw one of the false spiders, or harvest-men (Phalangidæ), standing in the midst of an army of ants, and with the greatest circumspection and coolness lifting, one after the other, its long legs, which supported its body above their reach. Sometimes as many as five out of its eight legs would be lifted at once, and whenever an ant approached one of those on which it stood, there was always a clear space within reach to put down another, so as to be able to hold up the threatened one out of danger.[89]

But a similar observation was made by Professor E. H. Weber, the famous anatomist and physiologist, and was published many years ago in Müller's Journal. A spider had stretched its web between two posts standing opposite each other, and had fastened it to a plant below for the third point. But as the attachment below was often broken by the garden work, by passers-by, and in other ways, the little animal extricated itself from the difficulty by spinning its web round a little stone, and fastened this to the lower part of its web, swinging freely, and so to draw the web down by its weight instead of fastening it in this direction by a connecting thread. Carus ('Vergl. Psycho.,' 1866, p. 76) also made a similar observation. But the most interesting observation on this head is related by J. G. Wood ('Glimpses into Petland'), and repeated by Watson (loc. cit., p. 455). One of my friends, says Wood, was accustomed to grant shelter to a number of garden spiders under a large verandah, and to watch their habits. One day a sharp storm broke out, and the wind raged so furiously through the garden that the spiders suffered damage from it, although sheltered by the verandah. The mainyards of one of these webs, as the sailors would call them, were broken, so that the web was blown hither and thither, like a slack sail in a storm. The spider made no fresh threads, but tried to help itself in another way. It let itself down to the ground by a thread, and crawled to a place where lay some splintered pieces of a wooden fence thrown down by the storm. It fastened a thread to one of the bits of wood, turned back with it, and hung it with a strong thread to the lower part of its nest, about five feet from the ground. The performance was a wonderful one, for the weight of the wood sufficed to keep the nest tolerably firm, while it was yet light enough to yield to the wind, and so prevent further injury. The piece of wood was about two and a half inches long, and as thick as a goose-quill. On the following day a careless servant knocked her head against the wood, and it fell down. But in the course of a few hours the spider had found it and brought it back to its place. When the storm ceased, the spider mended her web, broke the supporting thread in two, and let the wood fall to the ground!

A spider constructed its web in an angle of my garden, the sides of which were attached by long threads to shrubs at the height of nearly three feet from the gravel path beneath. Being much exposed to the wind, the equinoctial gales of this autumn destroyed the web several times.

The ingenious spider now adopted the contrivance here represented. It secured a conical fragment of gravel with its larger end upwards by two cords, one attached to each of its opposite sides, to the apex of its wedge-shaped web, and left it suspended as a moveable weight to be opposed to the effect of such gusts of air as had destroyed the webs previously occupying the same situation.

The spider must have descended to the gravel path for this special object, and having attached threads to a stone suited to its purpose, must have afterwards raised this by fixing itself upon the web, and pulling the weight up to a height of more than two feet from the ground, where it hung suspended by elastic cords. The excellence of the contrivance is too evident to require further comment.

I shall feel obliged if you will record in 'Nature' a fact with reference to the common black scorpion of Southern India, which was observed by me some years ago in Madras.

One morning a servant brought to me a large specimen of this scorpion, which, having stayed out too long in its nocturnal rambles, had apparently got bewildered at daybreak, and been unable to find its way home. To keep it safe the creature was at once put into a glazed entomological case. Having a few leisure minutes in the course of the forenoon I thought I would see how my prisoner was getting on, and to have a better view of it the case was placed in a window in the rays of the hot sun. The light and heat seemed to irritate it very much, and this recalled to my mind a story which I had read somewhere that a scorpion, on being surrounded with fire, had committed suicide. I hesitated about subjecting my pet to such a terrible ordeal, but taking a common botanical lens, I focussed the rays of the sun on its back. The moment this was done it began to run hurriedly about the case, hissing and spitting in a very fierce way. This experiment was repeated some four or five times with like results, but on trying it once again, the scorpion turned up its tail and plunged the sting, quick as lightning, into its own back. The infliction of the wound was followed by a sudden escape of fluid, and a friend standing by me called out, 'See, it has stung itself: it is dead;' and sure enough in less than half a minute life was quite extinct. I have written this brief note to show (1) that animals may commit suicide; (2) that the poison of certain animals may be destructive to themselves.

Doubts having been expressed at various times, even by learned naturalists, as to the reality of the suicide or self-destruction of the scorpion by means of its own poison, and these doubts having been again stated in 'Nature,' vol. xx., p. 553, by Mr. B. F. Hutchinson, of Peshawur, as the result of his own observations, I think it may be useful to give an articulate account of the phenomenon as it has been related to me by an eye-witness, which removes all possible doubt as to its occurrence under certain circumstances.

While residing many years ago, during the summer months, at the baths of Sulla in Italy, in a somewhat damp locality, my informant together with the rest of the family was much annoyed by the frequent intrusion of small black scorpions into[224] the house, and their being secreted among the bedclothes, in shoes, and other articles of dress. It thus became necessary to be constantly on the watch for these troublesome creatures, and to take means for their removal and destruction. Having been informed by the natives of the place that the scorpion would destroy itself if exposed to a sudden light, my informant and her friends soon became adepts in catching the scorpions and disposing of them in the manner suggested. This consisted in confining the animal under an inverted drinking-glass or tumbler, below which a card was inserted when the capture was made, and then, waiting till dark, suddenly bringing the light of a candle near to the glass in which the animal was confined. No sooner was this done than the scorpion invariably showed signs of great excitement, running round and round the interior of the tumbler with reckless velocity for a number of times. This state having lasted for a minute or more, the animal suddenly became quiet, and turning its tail on the hinder part of its body over its back, brought its recurved sting down upon the middle of the head, and piercing it forcibly, in a few seconds became quite motionless, and in fact quite dead. This observation was repeated very frequently; in truth, it was adopted as the best plan of getting rid of the animals. The young people were in the habit of handling the scorpions with impunity immediately after they were so killed, and of preserving many of them as curiosities.

In this narrative the following circumstances are worthy of attention:—

(1) The effect of light in producing the excitement amounting to despair, which causes the animal to commit self-destruction;

(2) The suddenness of the operation of the poison, which is probably inserted by the puncture of the head into the upper cerebral ganglion; and

(3) The completeness of the fatal symptoms at once induced.

I am aware that the phenomena now described have been observed by others, and they appear to have been familiarly known to the inhabitants of the district in which the animals are found. Sufficient confirmation of the facts is also to be found in the narratives of 'G. Biddie' and 'M. L.' contained in 'Nature,' vol. ix., pp. 29-47, and it will be observed that the circumstances leading the animal to self-destruction in these instances were somewhat similar to those narrated by my informant. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that the view taken[225] by Mr. Hutchinson, viz., that the 'popular idea regarding scorpionic suicide is a delusion based on an impossibility,' is wholly untenable; indeed, the recurved direction of the sting, which he refers to as creating the impossibility of the animal destroying itself, actually facilitates the operation of inflicting the wound. I suppose Mr. Hutchinson, arguing from the analogy of bees or wasps, imagined that the sting would be bent forwards upon the body, whereas the wound of the scorpion is invariably inflicted by a recurvation of the tail over the back of the animal.

The first of these anecdotes refers to a beetle (Ateuchus pilularius) which, having made for the reception of its eggs a pellet of dung too heavy for it to move, repaired to an adjoining heap, and soon returned with three of his companions. 'All four now applied their united strength to the pellet, and at length succeeded in pushing it out; which being done, the three assistant beetles left the spot and returned to their own quarters.' This observation rests on the authority of an anonymous German artist; and though we are assured that he was a 'man of strict veracity,' I am not aware that any similar fact has been recorded by any other observer.

I have attentively admired their industry, and their mutual assisting of each other in rolling these globular balls from the place where they made them, to that of their interment, which is usually a distance of some yards, more or less. This they perform back foremost, by raising their hind parts and pushing away the ball with their hind feet. Two or three of them are sometimes engaged in trundling one ball, which from meeting with impediments, on account of the unevenness of the ground, is sometimes deserted by them. It is, however, attempted by others with success, unless it happen to roll into some deep hollow or ditch, where they are accustomed to leave it; but[227] they continue their work by rolling off the next ball that comes in their way. None of them seem to know their own balls, but an equal care for the whole appears to affect all the community. They form these pellets while the dung remains moist, and leave them to harden in the sun before they attempt to roll them. In their rolling of them from place to place, both they and the balls may frequently be seen tumbling about over the little eminences that are in their way. They are not, however, easily discouraged, and by repeating their attempts usually surmount the difficulties.[90]

Last summer, in the month of July, I was one day in my field, and found there a mound of fresh earth like a molehill, on which a striped black and red beetle, with long legs, and about the size of a hornet, was busy taking away the earth from a hole that led like a pit into the mound, and levelling the place. After I had watched this beetle for some time, I noticed a second beetle of the same kind, which brought a little lump of earth from the interior to the opening of the hole, and then disappeared again in the mound; every four or five minutes a pellet came out of the hole, and was carried away by the first-named beetle. After I had watched these proceedings for about half an hour, the beetle which had been working underground came out and ran to its comrade. Both put their heads together, and clearly held a conversation, for immediately afterwards they changed work. The one which had been working outside went into the mound, the other took the outside labour, and all went on vigorously. I watched the affair still for a little longer, and went away with the notion that these insects could understand each other just like men. Klingelhöffer, of Darmstadt (in Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 86), says:—A golden running beetle came to a cockchafer lying on its back in the garden, intending to eat it, but was unable to master it; it ran to the next bush, and[228] returned with a friend, whereupon the two overpowered the cockchafer, and pulled it off to their hiding-place.

Several of them unite together to bury under the ground, as food and shelter for their young, some dead animal, such as a mouse, a toad, a mole, a bird, &c. The burial is performed because the corpse, if left above ground, would either dry up, or grow rotten, or be eaten by other animals. In all these cases the young would perish, whereas the dead body lying in the earth and withdrawn from the outer air lasts very well. The burying beetles go to work in a very well-considered fashion, for they scrape away the earth lying under the body, so that it sinks of itself deeper and deeper. When it is deep enough down, it is covered over from above. If the situation is stony, the beetles with united forces and great efforts drag the corpse to some place more suitable for burying. They work so diligently that a mouse, for instance, is buried within three hours. But they often work on for days, so as to bury the body as deeply as possible. From large carcasses, such as those of horses, sheep, &c., they only bury pieces as large as they can manage.[92]

Slingsby, the celebrated opera dancer, resided in the large house in Cross-deep, Twickenham, next to Sir Wathen Waller's, looking down the river. He was fond of the study of natural history, and particularly of insects, and he once tried to tame some house-flies, and preserve them in a state of activity through the winter. For this purpose, quite at the latter end of autumn, and when they were becoming almost helpless, he selected four from off his breakfast-table, put them upon a large handful of cotton, and placed it in one corner of the window nearest the fireplace. Not long afterwards the weather became so cold that all flies disappeared except these four, which constantly left their bed of cotton at his breakfast-time, came and fed at the table, and then returned to their home. This continued for a short time, when three of them became lifeless in their shelter, and only one came down. This one Slingsby had trained to feed upon his thumb-nail, by placing on it some moist, sugar mixed with a little butter. Although there had been at intervals several days of sharp frost, the fly never missed taking his daily meal in this way till after Christmas, when, his kind[231] preserver having invited a friend to dine and sleep at his house, the fly, the next morning, perched upon the thumb of the visitor, who, being ignorant that it was a pet of his host's, clapped his hand upon it, and thus put an end to Mr. Slingsby's experiment.[97]

In the tropics one becomes accustomed to watch the habits of various species of crabs, which there live so commonly an aërial life. The more I have seen of them, the more have I been astonished at their sagacity.

A rock crab (Grapsus stringosus) was very abundant, running about all over the rocks, and making off into clefts on one's approach. I was astonished at the keen and long sight of this crab. I noticed some made off at full speed to their hiding-places at the instant that my head showed above a rock fifty yards distant. . . . .

At Still Bay, on the sandy beach of which a heavy surf was breaking, I encountered a sand crab (Œcypoda ippeus), which was walking about, and got between it and its hole in the dry sand above the beach. The crab was a large one, at least three inches in breadth of its carapace. . . . . With its curious column-like eyes erect, the crab bolted down towards the surf as the only escape, and as it saw a great wave rushing up the shelving shore, dug itself tight into the sand, and held on to prevent the undertide from carrying it into the sea. As soon as the wave had retreated, it made off full speed for the shore. I gave chase, and whenever a wave approached, the crab repeated the manœuvre. I once touched it with my hand whilst it was buried and blinded by the sandy water, but the surf compelled me to retreat, and I could not snatch hold of it for fear of its powerful claws. At last I chased it, hard pressed, into the surf in a hurry, and being unable to get proper hold in time, it was washed into the sea. The crab evidently dreaded going into the sea. . . . . They soon die when kept a short time beneath the water.

A trustworthy naturalist, Mr. Gardner, whilst watching a shore-crab (Gelasimus) making its burrow, threw some shells towards the hole. One rolled in, and three other shells remained within a few inches of the mouth. In about five minutes the crab brought out the shell which had fallen in, and carried it away to the distance of a foot; it then saw the three other shells lying near, and evidently thinking that they might likewise roll in, carried them to the spot where it had laid the first. It would, I think, be difficult to distinguish this act from one performed by man by the aid of reason.

The devices of the ant-lion are still more extraordinary if possible. He forms, with astonishing labour and perseverance, a pit in the shape of a funnel, in a dry sandy soil, under some old wall or other spot protected from the wind. His pit being finished, he buries himself among the sand at the bottom, leaving only his horns visible, and thus waits patiently for his prey. When an ant or any other small insect happens to walk on the edge of the hollow, it forces down some of the particles of sand, which gives the ant-lion notice of its presence. He immediately throws up the sand which covers his head to overwhelm the ant, and with its returning force brings it to the bottom. This he continues to do till the insect is overcome and falls between his horns. Every endeavour to escape, when once the incautious ant has stepped within the verge of the pit, is vain, for in all its attempts to climb the side the deceptive sand slips from under its feet, and every struggle precipitates it still lower. When within reach its enemy plunges the points of its jaws into its body, and having sucked out all its juices, throws out the empty skin to some distance.

Comes to a stone of some moderate size, it does not desert the work on this account, but goes on, intending to remove that impediment the last. When the pit is finished, it crawls backward up the side of the place where the stone is; and, getting its tail under it, takes great pains and time to get it on a true poise, and then begins to crawl backward with it up the edge to the top of the pit, to get it out of the way. It is a common thing to see an ant-lion labouring in this manner at a stone four times as big as its own body; and as it can only move backwards, and the poise is difficult to keep, especially up a slope of such crumbling matter as sand, which moulders away from under its feet, and necessarily alters the position of its body, the stone very frequently rolls down, when near the verge, quite to the bottom. In this case the animal attacks it again[236] in the same way, and is often not discouraged by five or six miscarriages, but continues its struggle so long that it at length gets over the verge of the place. When it has done this, it does not leave it there, lest it should roll in again; but is always at the pains of pushing it further on, till it has removed it to a necessary distance from the edge of the pit.[99]

Many caterpillars of Pieris rapæ have, during this autumn, fed below my windows. On searching for suitable positions for passing into chrysalides, some eight or ten individuals, in their direct march upwards, encountered the plate-glass panes of my windows; on these they appeared to be unable to stand. Accordingly in every case they made silken ladders, some of them five feet long, each ladder being formed of a single continuous thread, woven in elegant loops from side to side. . . . . The reasoning, however, seems to be but narrow, for one ladder was constructed parallel to the window-frame for nearly three feet, on which secure footing could be had by simply diverting the track two inches.[100]

A caterpillar described by Bonnet, which, from being confined in a box, was unable to obtain a supply of the bark with which its ordinary instinct directs it to make its cocoon, substituted pieces of paper that were given to it, tied them together with silk, and constructed a very passable cocoon with them. In another instance the same naturalist having opened several cocoons of a moth (Noctura verbasci), which are composed of a mixture of grains of earth and silk, just after being finished, the larvæ did not repair the injury in the same manner. Some employed both earth and silk; others contented themselves with spinning a silken veil before the opening.[101]

It feeds upon the elm, using the leaves both as food and clothing. To do this it only eats the parenchyma of the leaf, preserving the upper and under epidermal membranes, between which it then insinuates itself as it progressively devours the parenchyma. It, however, carefully avoids separating these membranes where they unite at the extreme edge of the leaf, which is designed to form 'one of the seams of its coat.' The cavity when thus excavated between the two epidermal membranes is then lined with silk, made cylindrical in shape, cut off at the two ends and all along the side remote from the 'seam,' and then the two epidermal membranes sewn together along the side where they have had to be cut in order to separate them from the tree. The larva now has a coat exactly fitting its body, and open at each end. By the one opening it feeds, and by the other discharges its excrement, 'having on one side a nicely jointed seam—that which is commonly applied to its back—composed of the natural marginal junction of the membranes of the leaf.'

A species of Tasmanian caterpillar (Noctua Ewingii) swarms over the land in enormous companies, which regularly begin to march at four o'clock in the morning, and as regularly halt at midday. Liparis chrysorrhaca, a kind of caterpillar, spins for the winter a common web, in which several hundred individuals find a common shelter.[104]

The larva of the ichneumon, while feeding upon its caterpillar host, spares the walls of the intestines until it is time for it to escape, when, the life of the caterpillar being no longer necessary to its development, it perforates these walls.[105]

The larvæ Theda isocrates live in a group of seven or eight in the fruit of pomegranate. In consequence of their excavations within the fruit, the latter is apt to fall; and to prevent its doing so the larvæ throw out a thread of attachment wherewith to secure the fruit to the branch, so that if the stalk withers, this thread serves to suspend the fruit.[106]

The caterpillar of the Bombyx moth, which is a native of France, exhibits very wonderful instincts. The larva is gregarious in its habits, each society (family) consisting of perhaps[239] 600 or 800 individuals. When young they have no fixed habitation, but encamp sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another, under the shelter of their web; but when they have attained two-thirds of their growth, they weave for themselves a common tent. About sunset the regiment leaves its quarters. . . . . At their head is a chief, by whose movements their procession is regulated. When he stops all stop, and proceed when he proceeds; three or four of his immediate followers succeed in the same line, the head of the second touching the tail of the first; then comes an equal series of pairs, next of threes, and so on, as far as fifteen or twenty. The whole procession moves regularly on with an even pace, each file treading in the steps of those that precede it. If the leader, arriving at a particular point, pursues a different direction, all march to that point before they turn.[107]

The caterpillars, he observed, were Bombyces, and were seen crossing a road in single file, each so close to its predecessor that the line was quite continuous, 'moving like a living cord.' The number of caterpillars was 154, and the length of the line 27 feet. When Mr. Davis removed one from the line the caterpillar immediately in front suddenly stood still, then the next, and next, and so on to the leader. Similarly, those behind the point of interruption successively halted. After a pause of a few moments, the first caterpillar behind the break in the line endeavoured to fill up the vacant space, and so recover contact or communication, which after a time it succeeded in doing, when the information that the line was again closed was passed forward in some way from caterpillar to caterpillar till it reached the leader, when the whole fine was again put in motion. The individual which had been abstracted remained rolled up and motionless; but on being placed near the moving column it immediately unrolled, and made every attempt to get readmitted into the procession. After many endeavours it succeeded, the one below falling into the rear of the interloper. On repeating the experiment by removing a caterpillar fifty from the head of the procession, Mr. Davis found that it took just thirty seconds by his watch for information of the fact to reach the leader. All the same results followed as in the previous[240] case. It was observable that the animals were guided neither by sight nor smell while endeavouring to close up the interrupted line; for the caterpillar next behind the interruption, on whom the duty of closing up devolved, 'turned right and left, and often in a wrong direction, when within half an inch of the one immediately before him; when he at last touched the object of his search, the fact was communicated again by signal; and in thirty seconds the whole line was in rapid march.' This gentleman adds that the object of the march was the search for new pasture. The caterpillars feed on the Eucalyptus, and when they have completely stripped one tree of its leaves, they all congregate on the trunk, and proceed as described to another tree.

Agassiz remarks[111] that while examining the marine products of the Sargasso Sea, Mr. Mansfield picked up and brought to him a round mass of sargassum, about the size of the two[243] fists placed together. The whole consisted, to all appearance, of nothing but gulf-weed, the branches and leaves of which were, however, evidently knit together, and not merely balled into a roundish mass. The elastic threads which held the gulf-weed together were beaded at intervals, sometimes two or three beads being close together, or a branch of them hanging from the cluster of threads. This nest was full of eggs scattered throughout the mass, and not placed together in a cavity. It was evidently the work of the Chironectes. This rocking fish-cradle is carried along as an undying arbour, affording at the same time protection and afterwards food for its living freight. It is suggested that the fish must have used their peculiar pectoral fins when constructing this elaborate nest.

The well-known tinker or ten-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus pungitius) is one of our indigenous fish which constructs a nest. On May 1, 1864, a male[112] was placed in a well-established aquarium of moderate size, to which, after three days, two ripe females were added. Their presence at once roused him into activity, and he soon began to build a nest of bits of dirt and dead fibre, and of growing confervoid filaments, upon a jutting point of rock among some interlacing branches of Myriophyllum spicatum—all the time, however, frequently interrupting his labours to pay his addresses to the females. This was done in most vigorous fashion, he swimming, by a series of little jerks, near and about the female, even pushing against her with open mouth, but usually not biting. After a little coquetting she responds and follows him, swimming just above him as he leads the way to the nest. When there, the male commences to flirt—he seems unaware of its situation, will not swim to the right spot, and the female, after a few ineffectual attempts to find the proper passage into it, turns tail to swim away, but is then viciously pursued by the male. When he first courts the female, if she, not being ready, does not soon respond, he seems quickly to lose his temper, and, attacking her with great apparent fury, drives her to seek shelter in some crevice or dark corner. The coquetting of the male near the nest, which seems due to the fact that he really has not quite finished it, at length terminates by his pushing his head well into the entrance of the nest, while the female closely follows him, placing herself above him, and apparently much excited. As he withdraws she passes into the nest, and pushes quite through it, after a very brief delay, during which she deposits her ova. The male now fertilises the eggs, and drives the female[244] away to a safe distance; then, after patting down the nest, he proceeds in search of another female. The nest is built and the ova deposited in about twenty-four hours. The male continued to watch it day and night, and during the light hours he also continually added to the nest.

The marine fifteen-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus spinachia) affords another instance of nest-constructing fishes. The places selected for their nests are usually harbours, or some sheltered spots to where pure sea water reaches. The fish either find growing, or even collect some of the softer kinds of green or red seaweed, and join them with so much of the coralline tufts (Janiæ) growing on the rock as will serve the purpose of affording firmness to the structure, and constitute a pear-shaped mass five or six inches long, and about as stout as a man's fist. A thread, which is elastic and resembles silk, is employed for the purpose of binding the materials together: under a magnifier it appears to consist of several strands connected by a gluey substance, which hardens by exposure to the water.[113]

M. Carbonnier, who has studied the habits of the Chinese butterfly-fish (Macropodus) in his private aquarium in Paris, where he had some in confinement, observed that the male constructs a nest of froth of considerable size, 15 to 18 centimetres horizontal diameter, and 10 to 12 high. He prepares the bubbles in the air (which he sucks in and then expels), strengthening them with mucous matter from his mouth, and brings them into the nest. Sometimes the buccal secretion will fail him, whereupon he goes to the bottom in search of confervæ, which he sucks and bites for a little in order to stimulate the act of secretion. The nest prepared, the female is induced to enter. Not less curious is the way in which the male brings the eggs from the bottom into the nest. He appears unable to carry them up in his mouth; instead of this, he first swallows an abundant supply of air, then descending, he places himself beneath the eggs, and suddenly, by a violent contraction of the muscles in the interior of his mouth and pharynx, he exhales the air which he had accumulated by the gills. This air, finely divided by the lamellæ and fringes of the gills, escapes in the form of two jets of veritable gaseous powder, which envelopes the eggs and raises them to the surface. In this manœuvre the Macropodus entirely disappeared in a kind of air-mist, and when this had dissipated he reappeared with a[245] multitude of air-bubbles like little pearls clinging all over his body.[114]

It has been remarked that after the deposition of the eggs the nest was opened more to the action of the water, and the vibratory motion of the body of the male fish, hovering over its surface, caused a current of water to be propelled across the surface of the ova, which action was repeated almost continuously. After about ten days the nest was destroyed and the materials removed; and now were seen the minute fry fluttering upwards here and there, by a movement half swimming, half leaping, and then falling rapidly again upon or between the clear pebbles of the shingle bottom. This arose from their having the remainder of the yelk still attached to their body, which, acting as a weight, caused them to sink the moment the swimming effort had ceased. Around, across, and in every direction the male fish, as the guardian, continually moved. Now his labours became more arduous, and his vigilance was taxed to the utmost extreme, for the other fish (two tench and a gold carp), some twenty times larger than himself, as soon as they perceived the young fry in motion, continuously used their utmost endeavours to snap them up. The courage of the little stickleback was now put to its severest test; but, nothing daunted, he drove them all off, seizing their fins and striking with all his strength at their heads and at their eyes. His care of the young brood when encumbered with the yelk was very extraordinary; and as this was gradually absorbed and they gained strength, their attempts to swim carried them to a greater distance from the parent fish; his vigilance, however, seemed everywhere, and if they rose by the action of their fins above a certain height from the shingle bottom, or flitted beyond a given distance from the nest, they were immediately seized in his mouth, brought back, and gently puffed or jetted into their place again. The same care of the young, bringing them back to then nest up till about the sixth day after hatching, has been remarked by Dr. Ransom in the ten-spined stickleback (G. pungitius).[114]

M. Carbonnier has recorded how the male of the curiously grotesque telescope-fish, a variety of Carassius auratus (Linn.), acts as accoucheur to the female. Three males pursued one female which was heavy with spawn, and rolled her like a ball upon the ground for a distance of several metres, and continued this process without rest or relaxation for two days, until the exhausted female, who had been unable to recover her equilibrium for a moment, had at last evacuated all her ova.[117]

That adult fish are capable of feeling affection for one another would seem to be well established: thus Jesse relates how he once captured a female pike (Esox lucius) during the breeding season, and that nothing could drive away the male from the spot at which he had perceived his partner slowly disappear, and whom he had followed to the edge of the water.

Mr. Arderon[118] gave an account of how he tamed a dace, which would lie close to the glass watching its master; and subsequently how he kept two ruffs (Acerina cernua) in an aquarium, where they became very much attached to one another. He gave one away, when the other became so miserable that it would not eat, and this continued for nearly three weeks. Fearing his remaining fish might die, he sent for its former companion, and on the two meeting they became quite happy again. Jesse gives a similar account of two gold carp.[119]

The probability is, as suggested by Buchanan, that the ascent which was witnessed by Daldorff was accidental, and ought not to be regarded as the habit of the animal.[123]

They employ only three months in ascending to the sources of the Maragnon (a journey of 3,000 miles), the current of which is remarkably rapid, which is at the rate of nearly forty[250] miles a day; in a smooth stream or lake their progress would increase in a fourfold ratio. Their tail is a very powerful organ, and its muscles have wonderful energy; by placing it in their mouths they make of it a very elastic spring, for letting it go with violence they raise themselves in the air to the height of from twelve to fifteen feet, and so clear the cataract that impedes their course: if they fail in their first attempt, they continue their efforts till they have accomplished it.[124]

At the Andaman Islands fish are captured by the convicts by means of weirs fixed across the openings of creeks. After existing a week or so, it is observed that captures invariably cease; and it is believed that such is due to barnacles, &c., clustering on to the wood of which they are composed. It does not seem improbable that the fish have learned to avoid a locality out of terror at those which enter but do not again return.[125]

A morsel of food thrown into the tank fell directly in an angle formed by the glass front and the bottom. The skate, a large example, made several vain attempts to seize the food, owing to its mouth being on the underside of its head and the food being close to the glass. He lay quite still for a while as though thinking, then suddenly raised himself into a slanting posture, the head inclined upwards, and the under surface of the body towards the food, when he waved his broad expanse of fins, thus creating an upward current or wave in the water, which lifted the food from its position and carried it straight to his mouth.

Captain Arn, in a voyage to Memel in the Baltic, gives the following interesting narrative:—One morning during a calm, when near the Hebrides, all hands were called up at 2 A.M. to witness a battle between several of the fish called threshers or fox-sharks (Alopecias vulpes), and some sword-fish on one side, and an enormous whale on the other. It was in the middle of the summer; and the weather being clear, and the fish close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity of witnessing the contest. As soon as the whale's back appeared above the water, the[253] threshers springing several yards into the air descended with great violence upon the object of their rancour, and inflicted upon him the most severe slaps with their long tails, the sounds of which resembled the reports of muskets fired at a distance. The sword-fish in their turn attacked the distressed whale, stabbing from below: and thus beset on all sides and wounded, when the poor creature appeared, the water around him was dyed with blood. In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him for many hours, until we lost sight of him; and I have no doubt they in the end completed his destruction.

The master of a fishing-boat has recently observed that the thresher-shark serves out the whales, the sea sometimes being all blood. One whale, attacked by these fish, once took refuge under his vessel, where it lay an hour and a half without moving a fin. He also remarked having seen the threshers jump out of the water as high as the mast-head and down upon the whale, while the sword fish was wounding him from beneath, the two sorts of fish evidently acting in concert.

I used to open the gate in the railings round the pond, and call out 'Tommy' (the name I had given it), and the frog would jump out from the bushes, dive into the water, and swim across to me—get on my hand sometimes. When I called 'Tommy,' it would nearly always come, whatever the time of day, though it was only fed after breakfast; but it seemed quite tame.

Presently, when the whole of the vocalists had reached their highest notes, they became hushed in an instant. I was amazed at this, and began to wonder at the sudden termination of the concert. But, looking about, I observed a brown owl drop down, with the silence of death, on to the top of a low dyke close by the orchestra.[133]

The common guana (Lacerta iguana) is naturally extremely gentle and harmless. Its appearance, however, is much against[256] it, especially when agitated by fear or anger. Its eyes then seem on fire; it hisses like a serpent, swells out the pouch under its throat, lashes about its long tail, erects the scales on its back, and extending its wide jaws, holds its head, covered over with tubercles, in a menacing attitude. The male, during the spring of the year, exhibits great attachment towards the female. Throwing aside his usual gentleness of character, he defends her even with fury, attacking with undaunted courage every animal that seems inclined to injure her; and at this time, though his bite is by no means poisonous, he fastens so firmly, that it is necessary either to kill him or to beat him with great violence on the nose, in order to make him quit his hold.[134]

Great precautions are obliged to be taken to avoid disturbing the sensitive turtles, who, previous to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in great shoals off the sand-bank. The men during this time take care not to show themselves, and warn off any fisherman who wishes to pass near the place. Their fires are made in a deep hollow near the borders of the forest, so that the smoke may not be visible. The passage of a boat through the shallow waters where the animals are congregated, or the sight of a man or a fire on the sand-bank, would prevent the turtles from leaving the water that night to lay their eggs; and if the causes of alarm were repeated once or twice they would forsake the praia for some other quieter place. . . . . I rose from my hammock by daylight, shivering with cold—a praia, on account of the great radiation of heat in the night from the sand, being towards the dawn the coldest place that can be found in this climate. Cardozo and the men were already up watching the turtles. The sentinels had erected for this purpose a stage about fifty feet high, on a tall tree near their station, the ascent to which was by a roughly made ladder of woody lianas. They are enabled, by observing the turtles from this watch-tower, to ascertain[258] the date of successive deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandante in fixing the time for the general invitation to the Ega people. The turtles lay their eggs by night, leaving the water, when nothing disturbs them, in vast crowds, and crawling to the central and highest part of the praia. These places are, of course, the last to go under water when, in unusually wet seasons, the river rises before the eggs are hatched by the heat of the sand. One could almost believe, from this, that the animals used forethought in choosing a place; but it is simply one of those many instances in animals where unconscious habit has the same result as conscious prevision. The hours between midnight and dawn are the busiest. The turtles excavate with their broad webbed paws deep holes in the fine sand: the first comer, in each case, making a pit about three feet deep, laying its eggs (about 120 in number) and covering them with sand; the next making its deposit at the top of that of its predecessor, and so on until every pit is full. The whole body of turtles frequenting a praia does not finish laying in less than fourteen or fifteen days, even when there is no interruption. When all have done, the area (called by the Brazilians taboleiro) over which they have excavated is distinguishable from the rest of the praia only by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed.[135]

These little incidents show the timidity and cowardice (? prudence and caution) of the alligator. He never attacks man when his intended victim is on his guard; but he is cunning enough to know when this may be done with impunity. Of this we had proof a few days afterwards, &c.[136]

But a most singular instance of attachment between two animals, whose natures and habits were most opposite, was related to me by a person on whose veracity I can place the greatest reliance. He had resided for nine years in the American States, where he superintended the execution of some extensive works for the American Government. One of these works consisted in the erection of a beacon in a swamp in one of the rivers,[259] where he caught a young alligator. This animal he made so perfectly tame that it followed him about the house like a dog, scrambling up the stairs after him, and showing much affection and docility. Its great favourite, however, was a cat, and the friendship was mutual. When the cat was reposing herself before the fire (this was at New York), the alligator would lay himself down, place his head upon the cat, and in this attitude go to sleep. If the cat was absent the alligator was restless; but he always appeared happy when the cat was near him. The only instance in which he showed any ferocity was in attacking a fox, which was tied up in the yard. Probably, however, the fox resented some playful advances which the other had made, and thus called forth the anger of the alligator. In attacking the fox he did not make use of his mouth, but beat him with so much severity with his tail, that, had not the chain which confined the fox broken, he would probably have killed him. The alligator was fed on raw flesh, and sometimes with milk, for which he showed a great fondness. In cold weather he was shut up in a box, with wool in it; but, having been forgotten one frosty night, he was found dead in the morning. This is not, I believe, a solitary instance of amphibia becoming tame, and showing a fondness for those who have been kind to them. Blumenbach mentions that crocodiles have been tamed; and two instances have occurred under my own observation of toads knowing their benefactors, and coming to meet them with considerable alacrity.

I happen to know the gentleman and lady against whom a complaint has been made because of the snakes they keep, and I should like to give a short account of my first visit to them.

Mr. M., after we had talked for a little time, asked if I had any fear of snakes; and after a timid 'No, not very,' from me, he produced out of a cupboard a large boa-constrictor, a python, and several small snakes, which at once made themselves at home on the writing-table among pens, ink, and books. I was at first a good deal startled, especially when the two large snakes coiled round and round my friend, and began to notice me with their bright eyes and forked tongues; but soon finding how tame they were, I ceased to feel frightened. After a short time Mr. M. expressed a wish to call Mrs. M., and left me with the boa deposited on an arm-chair. I felt a little queer when the animal began gradually to come near, but the entrance of my host and hostess, followed by two charming little children, put me at my ease again. After the first interchange of civilities, she and the children went at once to the boa, and, calling it by the most endearing names, allowed it to twine itself most gracefully round about them. I sat talking for a long time, lost in wonder at the picture before me. Two beautiful little girls with their charming mother sat before me with a boa-constrictor (as thick round as a small tree) twining playfully round the lady's waist and neck, and forming a kind of turban round her[261] head, expecting to be petted and made much of like a kitten. The children over and over again took its head in their hands and kissed its mouth, pushing aside its forked tongue in doing so. The animal seemed much pleased, but kept turning its head continually towards me with a curious gaze, until I allowed it to nestle its head for a moment up my sleeve. Nothing could be prettier than to see this splendid serpent coiled all round Mrs. M. while she moved about the room, and when she stood to pour out our coffee. He seemed to adjust his weight so nicely, and every coil with its beautiful marking was relieved by the black velvet dress of the lady. It was long before I could make up my mind to end the visit, and I returned soon after with a friend (a distinguished M.P.[139]), to see my snake-taming acquaintance again. . . . .

These (the snakes) seemed very obedient, and remained in their cupboard when told to do so.

About a year ago Mr. and Mrs. M. were away for six weeks, and left the boa in charge of a keeper at the Zoo. The poor reptile moped, slept, and refused to be comforted, but when his master and mistress appeared he sprang upon them with delight, coiling himself round them, and showing every symptom of intense delight.[140]

I believe tortoises are able to establish a definite association between particular colours on a flat surface and food. Only the day before reading your article on animal intelligence I noticed the endeavours of a small tortoise to eat the yellow flowers of an inlaid writing-table, and I have often remarked the same recognition with regard to red.

I am well informed of a tame serpent in the East Indies, which belonged to the late Dr. Vigot, and was kept by him in the suburbs of Madras. This serpent was taken by the French, when they invested Madras in the late war, and was carried to Pondicherry in a close carriage. But from thence he found his way back again to his old quarters, which it seems he liked better, though Madras is distant from Pondicherry about one hundred miles. This information, he adds, I have from a lady who then was in India, and had seen the serpent often before his journey and after his return.

I once watched one which had thrust its head through a narrow aperture and swallowed one (i.e. a toad). With this encumbrance he could not withdraw himself. Finding this, he reluctantly disgorged the precious morsel, which began to move off. This was too much for snake philosophy to bear, and the toad was again seized; and again, after violent efforts to escape, was the snake compelled to part with it. This time, however, a lesson had been learnt, and the toad was seized by one leg, withdrawn, and then swallowed in triumph.

I have witnessed exactly a similar plan pursued by a large number of Ganges crocodiles, which had been lying or swimming about all day in front of my tent, at the mouth of a small stream which led from some large inland lakes to the Ganges. Towards dusk, at the same moment every one of them left the bank on which they were lying, or the deep water in which they were swimming, and formed a line across the stream, which was about twenty yards wide. They had to form a double line, as there was not room for all in a single line. They then swam slowly up the shallow stream, driving the fish before them, and I saw two or three fish caught before they disappeared.

Mr. Pennant says that this snake (rattle-snake) will frequently lie at the bottom of a tree on which a squirrel is seated. He fixes his eyes on the animal, and from that moment it cannot escape; it begins a doleful outcry, which is so well known that a passer-by, on hearing it, immediately knows that a snake is present. The squirrel runs up the tree a little way, comes down again, then goes up, and afterwards comes still lower. The snake continues at the bottom of the tree with its eyes fixed on the squirrel, and his attention is so entirely taken up, that a person accidentally approaching may make a considerable noise without so much as the snake turning about. The squirrel comes lower, and at last leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already distended for its reception. Le Vaillant confirms this fascinating terror by a scene he witnessed. He saw on the branch of a tree a species of shrike, trembling as if in convulsions, and at the distance of nearly four feet, on another branch, a large snake that was lying with outstretched neck and fiery eyes, gazing steadily at the poor animal. The agony of the bird was so great that it was deprived of the power of moving away; and when one of the party killed the snake, it (i.e. the bird) was found dead upon the spot—and that entirely from fear; for, on examination, it appeared not to have received the slightest wound. The same traveller adds that a short time afterwards[264] he observed a small mouse in similar agonising convulsions, about two yards from a snake, whose eyes were intently fixed upon it; and on frightening away the reptile, and taking up the mouse, it expired in his hand.[142]

On seeing the man it tried to escape, but he caught it by the tail and kept swinging it round until we reached the bungalow. He then made it dance, but before long it bit him above the knee. He immediately bandaged the leg above the bite and applied a snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He was in great pain for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling off just before he was relieved.[143]

In one family near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house. But this is not a solitary case of the kind. . . . . The snakes glide about the house, a terror to the thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates.[144]

When my parrot first came into my possession, several years ago, it was quite unlettered, and I therefore had an opportunity of observing the mode in which it acquired the accomplishment of speech. I was very much struck with its manner of learning, and the causes for its speaking on special occasions. The first seemed to resemble very much the method of children in learning their lessons, and the second to be due to some association or suggestion—the usual provocative for set speeches at all periods of human life. A parrot is well known to imitate sounds in a most perfect manner, even to the tone of the voice, besides having a compass which no human being can approach, ranging from the gravest to the most acute note. My bird, though possessing a good vocabulary of words and sentences, can only retain them for a few months unless kept constantly in practice by the suggestive recurrence of some circumstance which causes their continual utterance. If forgotten, however, they are soon revived in the memory by again repeating them a few times, and much more speedily than any new sentence can be acquired. In beginning to teach the parrot a sentence, it has to be repeated many times, the bird all the while listening most attentively by turning the opening of the ear as close as possible to the speaker. After a few hours it is heard attempting[268] to say the phrase, or, I should say, trying to learn it. It evidently has the phrase somewhere in store, for eventually this is uttered perfectly, but at first the attempts are very poor and ludicrous. If the sentence be composed of a few words, the first two or three are said over and over again, and then another and another word added, until the sentence is complete, the pronunciation at first being very imperfect, and then becoming gradually more complete, until the task is accomplished. Thus hour after hour will the bird be indefatigably working at the sentence, and not until some days have elapsed will it be perfect. The mode of acquiring it seems to me exactly what I have observed in a child learning a French phrase; two or three words are constantly repeated, and then others added, until the whole is known, the pronunciation becoming more perfect as the repetition goes on. I found also on whistling a popular air to my parrot that she picked it up in the same way, taking note by note until the whole twenty-five notes were complete. Then the mode of forgetting, or the way in which phrases and airs pass from its recollection, may be worth remarking. The last words or notes are first forgotten, so that soon the sentence remains unfinished or the air only half whistled through. The first words are the best fixed in the memory; these suggest others which stand next to them, and so on till the last, which have the least hold on the brain. These, however, as I have before mentioned, can be easily revived on repetition. This is also a very usual process in the human subject: for example, an Englishman speaking French will, in his own country, if no opportunity occur for conversation, apparently forget it; he no sooner, however, crosses the Channel and hears the language than it very soon comes back to him again. In trying to recall poems learned in childhood or in school days, although at that period hundreds of lines may have been known, it is found that in manhood we remember only the two or three first lines of the 'Iliad,' the 'Æneid,' or the 'Paradise Lost.'[146]

I had a grey parrot, three or four years old, which had been taken from its nest in West Africa by those through whom I received it. It stood ordinarily by the window, where it could equally hear the front and back door bells. In the yard, by the back door, was a collie dog, who naturally barked violently at nearly all the comers that way. The parrot took to imitating the[269] dog. After a time I was interested in observing the discriminative association between the back-door bell and the dog's bark in the parrot's mind. Even when the dog was not there, or for any other cause did not bark, the parrot would constantly bark when the back-door bell sounded, but never (that I could hear) when the front-door bell was heard.

This is but a trifle in the way of intelligence, but it struck me as an interesting analogous case to a law of association often noticed by writers on human psychology.

In this parrot the sense of association is very strongly developed. If one word picked up at a former home comes into its head, and is uttered by it, it immediately follows this word up with all the other words and phrases picked up at the same place and period.

Referring to the habits of the mandarin duck (a Chinese species) Mr. Bennett says that Mr. Beale's aviary afforded a singular corroboration of the fidelity of the birds in question. Of a pair in that gentleman's possession, the drake being one night purloined by some thieves, the unfortunate duck displayed the strongest marks of despair at her bereavement, retiring into a corner, and altogether neglecting food and drink, as well as the care of her person. In this condition she was courted by a drake who had lost his mate, but who met with no encouragement from the widow. On the stolen drake being subsequently recovered and restored to the aviary, the most extravagant demonstrations of joy were displayed by the fond couple; but this was not all, for, as if informed by his spouse of the gallant[271] proposals made to her shortly before his arrival, the drake attacked the luckless bird who would have supplanted him, beat out his eyes, and inflicted so many injuries as to cause his death.[147]

A pair of swans had been inseparable companions for three years, during which time they had reared three broods of cygnets; last autumn the male was killed, and since that time the female has separated herself from all society with her own species; and, though at the time I am writing (the end of March) the breeding season for swans has far advanced, she remains in the same state of seclusion, resisting the addresses of a male swan, who has been making advances towards forming an acquaintance with her, either driving him away, or flying from him whenever he comes near her. How long she will continue in this state of widowhood I know not, but at present it is quite evident that she has not forgotten her former partner.

This reminds me of a circumstance which lately happened at Chalk Farm, near Hampton. A man, set to watch a field of peas which had been much preyed upon by pigeons, shot an old cock pigeon which had long been an inhabitant of the farm. His mate, around whom he had for many a year cooed, whom he had nourished from his own crop, and had assisted in rearing numerous young ones, immediately settled on the ground by his side, and showed her grief in the most expressive manner. The labourer took up the dead bird, and tied it to a short stake, thinking that it would frighten away the other depredators. In this situation, however, the widow did not forsake her deceased husband, but continued, day after day, walking slowly round the stick. The kind-hearted wife of the bailiff of the farm at last heard of the circumstance, and immediately went to afford what relief she could to the poor bird. She told me that, on arriving at the spot, she found the hen bird much exhausted, and that she had made a circular beaten track round the dead pigeon, making now and then a little spring towards him. On the removal of the dead bird the hen returned to the dove-cote.[148]

I was once witness to a curious instance of the yearning for progeny in a diminutive bantam hen.

There was at this time a nest of the common hen in a secluded part of the garden, and the parent had been sitting on its eggs, till compelled by hunger she left them for a short time. This absence was fatal; for the bantam had in the meantime found its situation in a covered recess in the hedge, and I saw her creep into it with all the triumph of the discoverer of a treasure. The real mother now returned, and great was her agony at finding an intruder in her nest. The expression of her eye and the attitude of her head were emphatic of surprise at the impudence of the proceeding. But after many attempts to recover possession she was compelled to resign her rights, for the bantam was too resolute to be contended with; and though its body was not big enough to cover the whole of the eggs, and thus some of them were not hatched, yet in due season the pride of this audacious step-mother was gratified by strutting at the head of a company of robust chickens, which she passed off upon the feathered public as a brood of her own.[149]

My grandfather had a Swan River gander, which had been reared near the house, and had consequently attached himself to the members of the family; so much so that, on seeing any of them at a distance, he would run to meet them with all possible demonstrations of delight.

But 'Swanny' was quite an outcast from his own tribe; and as often as he made humble overtures to the other geese, so[273] often was he driven away with great contempt, and on such occasions he would frequently run to some of his human friends, and laying his head on their laps, seem to seek for sympathy. At last, however, he found a friend among his own species. An old grey goose, becoming blind, was also discarded by her more fortunate companions, and Swanny lost no opportunity of recognising this comrade in distress. He at once took her under his protection and led her about. When he considered it well for her to have a swim, he would gently take her neck in his bill, and thus lead her, sometimes a considerable distance, to the water's edge. Having fairly launched her, he kept close by her side, and guided her from dangerous places by arching his neck over hers, and so turning her in the right direction. After cruising about a sufficient time, he would guide her to a convenient landing-place, and taking her neck in his bill as before, lead her to terra firma again. When she had goslings, he would proudly convoy the whole party to the water-side; and if any ill-fated gosling got into difficulties in a hole or deep cart-rut, Swanny with ready skill would put his bill under its body, and carefully raise it to the level ground.

My grandfather had also another gander who attached himself to him, and would follow him for hours through fields and lanes, pausing when he stood still, and waddling gravely by his side as he proceeded. This gander was not, like the other, discarded by his kind, but would leave them any time to walk with his master, and was exceedingly jealous of any one else who tried to share this privilege, excepting only his mistress. On one occasion, a gentleman venturing to place his hand on my grandfather's arm, the gander flew at him, and beat him severely with his wings, and it was with great difficulty that he was induced to let go.

There is one trait in the character of the rook which is, I believe, peculiar to that bird, and which does him no little credit; it is the distress which is exhibited when one of his fellows has been killed or wounded by a gun while they have been feeding in a field or flying over it. Instead of being scared away by the report of the gun, leaving their wounded or dead companion to his fate, they show the greatest anxiety and sympathy for him, uttering cries of distress, and plainly proving[274] that they wish to render him assistance by hovering over him, or sometimes making a dart from the air close up to him, apparently to try and find out the reason why he did not follow them. . . . . I have seen one of my labourers pick up a rook which he had shot at for the purpose of putting him up as a scarecrow in a field of wheat, and while the poor wounded bird was still fluttering in his hand, I have observed one of his companions make a wheel round in the air, and suddenly dart past him so as almost to touch him, perhaps with the last hope that he might still afford assistance to his unfortunate mate or companion. Even when the dead bird has been hung, in terrorem, to a stake in the field, he has been visited by some of his former friends, but as soon as they found that the case was hopeless, they have generally abandoned that field altogether.

When one considers the instinctive care with which rooks avoid any one carrying a gun, and which is so evident that I have often heard country people remark that a rook can smell gunpowder, one can more justly estimate the force of their love or friendship in thus continuing to hover round a person who has just destroyed one of their companions with an instrument the dangerous nature of which they seem fully capable of appreciating.[151]

While matters were in this position I beheld, to my utter astonishment and surprise, two of the unwounded terns take[275] hold of their disabled comrade, one at each wing, lift him out of the water, and bear him out seawards. They were followed by two other birds. After being carried about six or seven yards, he was let gently down again, when he was taken up in a similar manner by the two who had been hitherto inactive. In this way they continued to carry him alternately, until they had conveyed him to a rock at a considerable distance, upon which they landed him in safety. Having recovered my self-possession, I made toward the rock, wishing to obtain the prize which had been so unceremoniously snatched from my grasp. I was observed, however, by the terns; and instead of four, I had in a short time a whole swarm about me. On my near approach to the rock I once more beheld two of them take hold of the wounded bird as they had done already, and bear him out to sea in triumph, far beyond my reach. This, had I been so inclined, I could no doubt have prevented. Under the circumstances, however, my feelings would not permit me; and I willingly allowed them to perform without molestation an act of mercy, and to exhibit an instance of affection which man himself need not be ashamed to imitate.[152]

I have known two parrots, said he, which had lived together four years, when the female became weak, and her legs swelled. These were symptoms of gout, a disease to which all birds of this family are very subject in England. It became impossible for her to descend from the perch, or to take her food as formerly, but the male was most assiduous in carrying it to her in his beak. He continued feeding her in this manner during four months, but the infirmities of his companion increased from day to day, so that at last she was unable to support herself on the perch. She remained cowering down in the bottom of the cage, making, from time to time, ineffectual efforts to regain the perch. The male was always near her, and with all his strength aided the feeble attempts of his dear better half. Seizing the poor invalid by the beak, or the upper part of the wing, he tried to raise her, and renewed his efforts several times.

His constancy, his gestures, and his continued solicitude, all showed in this affectionate bird the most ardent desire to relieve the sufferings and assist the weakness of his companion.

But the scene became still more interesting when the female was dying. Her unhappy spouse moved around her incessantly, his attention and tender cares redoubled. He even tried to open her beak to give some nourishment. He ran to her, then returned with a troubled and agitated look. At intervals he uttered the most plaintive cries; then, with his eyes fixed on her, kept a mournful silence. At length his companion breathed her last; from that moment he pined away, and died in the course of a few weeks.[154]

Sometimes when only two or three were in the room, at quiet occupations instead of talking, she would utter at short intervals a series of strong squalls or cries in an interjectional style, each more strange and grotesque than the previous one. My father on these occasions sometimes amused himself by imitating these cries as she uttered them, which seemed to excite her ingenuity in the production of them to the uttermost. As a last resource she always had recourse to a very peculiar one, which completely baffled him; upon which, with a loud ha! ha! ha! she made a somersault round her perch, swinging with her head downwards, sprung from one part of the cage to another, and tossed a bit of wood she used as a toy over her head in the most exulting triumph, repeating at intervals the inimitable cry, followed by peals of ha! ha! ha! to the great amusement of all present.

One day the cat and the parrot had a quarrel. I think the cat had upset Polly's food, or something of that kind; however, they seemed all right again. An hour or so after, Polly was standing on the edge of the table; she called out in a tone of extreme affection, 'Puss, puss, come then—come then, pussy.' Pussy went and looked up innocently enough. Polly with her beak seized a basin of milk standing by, and tipped the basin and all its contents over the cat; then chuckled diabolically, of course broke the basin, and half drowned the cat.

And in a neighbouring house was a nest, in which other storks, that annually resorted to the place, used to hatch their eggs. At this nest, one day in autumn, a young collegian fired a shot,[278] by which the stork that was sitting on it was probably wounded, for it did not fly out of the nest for some weeks afterwards. It was able, however, to take its departure at the usual time with the rest of the storks. But in the ensuing spring a strange stork was observed on the roof of the college, which, by clapping his wings and other gestures, seemed to invite the tame stork to come to him; but, as the tame one's wings were clipped, he was unable to accept the invitation. After some days the strange stork appeared again, and came down into the yard, when the tame one went out to meet him, clapping his wings as if to bid him welcome, but was suddenly attacked by the visitor with great fury. Some of the neighbours protected the tame bird, and drove off the assailant, but he returned several times afterwards, and incommoded the other through the whole summer. The next spring, instead of one stork only, four storks came together into the yard, and fell upon the tame one; when all the poultry present—cocks, hens, geese, and ducks—flocked at once to his assistance, and rescued him from his enemies. In consequence of this serious attack, the people of the house took precaution for the tame stork's security, and he was no more molested that year. But in the beginning of the third spring came upwards of twenty storks, which rushed at once into the yard and killed the tame stork before either man or any other animal could afford him protection.

A similar occurrence took place on the premises of a farmer near Hamburg, who kept a tame stork, and, having caught another, thought to make it a companion for the one in his possession. But the two were no sooner brought together than the tame one fell upon the other, and beat him so severely that he made his escape from the place. About four months afterwards, however, the defeated stork returned with three others, who all made a combined attack upon the tame one and killed him.[155]

The extraordinary bower-like structure, alluded to in my remarks on the genus, first came under my notice in the Sydney Museum, to which an example had been presented by Charles Cox, Esq. . . . . On visiting the cedar bushes of the Liverpool range, I discovered several of these bowers or playing-houses on the ground, under the shelter of the branches of the overhanging trees, in the most retired part of the forest; they differed considerably in size, some being a third larger than others. The base consists of an extensive and rather convex platform of sticks firmly interwoven, on the centre of which the bower itself is built. This, like the platform on which it is placed, and with which it is interwoven, is formed of sticks and twigs, but of a more slender and flexible description, the tips of the twigs being so arranged as to curve inwards and nearly meet at the top; in the interior the materials are so placed that the forks of the twigs are always presented outwards, by which arrangement not the slightest obstruction is offered to the passage of the birds. The interest of this curious bower is much enhanced by the manner in which it is decorated with the most gaily coloured articles that can be collected, such as the blue tail-feathers of the Rose-hill and Pennantian parakeets, bleached bones and shells of snails, &c.; some of the feathers are inserted among the twigs, while others with the bones and shells are strewed near the entrances. The propensity of these birds to fly off with any attractive object is so well known to the natives that they always search the runs for any small missing article that may have been accidentally dropped in the bush. I myself found at the entrance of one of them a small neatly worked stone tomahawk of an inch and a half in length, together with some slips of blue cotton rag, which the birds had doubtless picked up at a deserted encampment of the natives.

My aviary is now tenanted by a pair of satin-birds, which for the last two months have been constantly engaged in constructing bowers. Both sexes assist in their erection, but the male is the principal workman. At times the male will chase the female all over the aviary, then go to the bower, pick up a gay feather or a large leaf, utter a curious kind of note, set all his feathers erect, run round the bower, and become so excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his head, and he continues opening first one wing and then another, uttering a low whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking up something from the ground, until at last the female goes gently towards him, when after two turns round her, he suddenly makes a dash, and the scene ends.[157]

During spring and summer, the white-headed eagle, to procure sustenance, follows a different course, and one much less suited to a bird apparently so well able to supply itself without interfering with other plunderers. No sooner does the first hawk make its appearance along the Atlantic shore, or around the numerous and large rivers, than the eagle follows it, and, like a selfish oppressor, robs it of the hard-earned fruits of its labour. Perched on some tall summit, in view of the ocean or of some watercourse, he watches every motion of the osprey while on the wing. When the latter rises from the water, with a fish in its grasp, forth rushes the eagle in pursuit. He mounts above the fish-hawk, and threatens it by actions well understood; when the latter, fearing perhaps that its life is in danger, drops its prey. In an instant the eagle, accurately estimating the rapid descent of the fish, closes its wings, follows it with the swiftness of thought, and the next moment grasps it. The prize is carried off in silence to the woods, and assists in feeding the ever-hungry brood of the eagle.

The ant-eating woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), a common Californian species, has the curious and peculiar habit of laying up provision against the inclement season. Small round holes are dug in the bark of the pine and oak, into each of which is inserted an acorn, and so tightly is it fitted or driven in, that it is with difficulty extricated. The bark of the pine trees, when thus filled, presents at a short distance the appearance of being studded with nails.

It is the nature of this bird (guillemot), as well as of most of those birds which habitually dive to take their prey, to perform all their evolutions under water with the aid of their wings; but instead of dashing at once into the midst of the terrified group of small prey, by which only a few would be captured, it passes round and round them, and so drives them into a heap; and thus has an opportunity of snatching here one and there another as it finds it convenient to swallow them; and if any one pushes out to escape, it falls the first prey of the devourer. The manner in which this bird removes the egg of a gull or hen to some secure place to be devoured, when compared with that in which a like conveyance is made by the parent for the safety of its future progeny, affords a striking manifestation of the difference between appetite and affection. When influenced by affection, the brittle treasure is removed without flaw or fracture, and is replaced with tender care; but the plunderer at once plunges his bill into its substance, and carries it off on its point.[161]

When the lapwing wants to procure food, it seeks for a worm's cast, and stamps the ground by the side of it with its feet. After doing this for a short time, the bird waits for the[286] issue of the worm from its hole, which, alarmed at the shaking of the ground, endeavours to make its escape, when it is immediately seized, and becomes the prey of the ingenious bird. The lapwing also frequents the haunts of moles, which, when in pursuit of worms on which they feed, frighten them, and the worm, in attempting to escape, comes to the surface of the ground, when it is seized by the lapwing.[162]

A lady of Dr. E. Darwin's acquaintance saw a little bird repeatedly hop on a poppy stem, and shake the head with his bill, till many seeds were scattered, when it settled on the ground and picked up the seeds.[163]

Last spring I had a pair of canaries, in an ordinary breeding cage (with two small boxes for nests in a compartment at one end). In due course the first egg was laid, which I inspected through the little door made for that purpose. The next day I looked again; still only one egg, and so for four or five days. It being evident, from the appearance of the hen, that there were more eggs coming, and as she seemed in good health, I supposed she might have broken some; and I took out the box, and examined it carefully for the shells (but without pulling the nest to pieces), and found nothing, until towards the beginning of another week I went to take the one egg away, as the hen seemed preparing to sit upon it. There were two eggs! The next morning, to my surprise, she was sitting upon six eggs! She must therefore have buried four of them in the four corners of the box, and so deep that I had been unable to find them. At first I thought that she had done so merely from dislike at their being looked at, but on reflection it has occurred to me that she did it that all might be hatched at the same time (as they subsequently were); for she was perfectly tame, and would almost suffer herself to be handled when on her nest. Wild birds never seem to conceal their eggs before sitting; but then (having more amusements than cage birds) they do not revisit their eggs after laying, until they have laid their number, whereas a caged bird, having nothing to divert her attention from her nest, often sits on it the greater part of the day.

I can give no information as to the more recondite question why the egg was removed, or the fastidious preference of the one box over the other, or the inventive faculty that suggested the neck as a makeshift hand; but from the despatch with which she effected the removal of the egg in the case I saw, I have no doubt that this hen was the one which had performed the feat so often before.

Many birds will carefully remove the meetings of the young from the neighbourhood of their nests, in order not to attract the attention of enemies; for while we find that birds which make no secret of their nesting-places are careless in such matters, the woodpecker and the marsh tit in particular are at pains to remove even the chips which are made in excavating the cavities where the nests are placed, and which might lead an observer to the sacred spot.

The excrement of the young of many birds who build their nests without any pretensions to concealment, such as the swallow, crow, &c., may at all times be observed about or under the nest; while that of some of those birds whose nests are more industriously concealed is conveyed away in the mouths of the parent birds, who generally drop it at a distance of twenty or thirty yards from the nest. Were it not for this precaution, the excrement itself, from its accumulation, and commonly from its very colour, would point out the place where the young were concealed. When the young birds are ready to fly, or nearly so, the old birds do not consider it any longer necessary to remove the excrement.

That this work may not, while it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast; but by building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch seems a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful workmen, when they build mud walls (informed at first perhaps by these little birds), raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest the work should become top-heavy, and ruined by its own weight. By this method, in about ten or twelve days is formed a hemispheric nest, with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact,[293] and warm, and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended.

The natives assert that the male bird carries fire-flies to the nest, and fastens them to its sides by particles of soft mud. Mr. Layard assures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire-fly, the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the perch.

At night each of the habitations is lighted up by a fire-fly stuck on the top with a bit of clay. The nest consists of two rooms; sometimes there are three or four fire-flies, and their blaze in the little cells dazzles the eyes of the bats, which often kill the young of these birds.

I have been informed on safe authority that the Indian bottle-bird protects his nest at night by sticking several of these glow-beetles around the entrance by means of clay; and only a few days back an intimate friend of my own was watching three rats on a roof rafter of his bungalow when a glow-fly lodged very close to them; the rats immediately scampered off.

Among the most important of the ornithological novelties which the exploration of Western and Southern Australia has[295] unfolded to us, and this from the circumstance of its not hatching its own eggs, which, instead of being incubated in the usual way, are deposited in mounds of mixed sand and herbage, and there left for the heating of the mass to develop the young, which, when accomplished, force their way through the sides of the mound, and commence an active life from the moment they see the light of day.[168]

The sociable grosbeak of Africa is one of the few instances of birds living in community and uniting in constructing one[296] huge nest for the whole society. L. Valiant's account has been fully confirmed by other travellers. He says: 'I observed on the way a tree with an enormous nest of these birds, which I have called republicans; and as soon as I arrived at my camp I despatched a few men with a waggon to bring it to me, that I might open and examine the hive. When it arrived, I cut it in pieces with a hatchet, and saw that the chief portion of the structure consisted of a mass of Boshman's grass, without any mixture, but so compact and firmly basketed together as to be impenetrable to the rain. This is the commencement of the structure, and each bird builds its particular nest under this canopy. But the nests are formed only beneath the eaves, the upper surface remaining void, without, however, being useless; for as it has a projecting rim, and is a little inclined, it serves to let the water run off, and preserves each little dwelling from the rain. Figure to yourself a huge irregular sloping roof, all the eaves of which are covered with nests, crowded one against another, and you will have a tolerably accurate idea of these singular edifices. Each individual nest is three or four inches in diameter, which is sufficient for the bird; but, as they are all in contact with one another around the eaves, they appear to the eye to form but one building, and are distinguishable from each other only by a little external aperture which serves as an entrance to the nest; and even this is sometimes common to three different nests, one of which is situated at the bottom and the other two at the sides. This large nest, which was one of the most considerable I had anywhere seen in the course of my journey, contained 320 inhabited cells, which, supposing a male and female to each, would form a society of 640 individuals; but as these birds are polygamous, such a calculation would not be exact.'

Mr. Waterton says there is a peculiarity in the nidification of the domestic swan too singular to be passed over without notice. At the time it lays its first egg the nest which it has prepared is of very moderate size; but as incubation proceeds we see it increase vastly in height and breadth. Every soft material, such as pieces of grass and fragments of sedges, is laid hold of by the sitting swan as they float within her reach, and are added to the nest. This work of accumulation is performed by her during the entire period of incubation, be the weather wet or dry, settled or unsettled; and it is perfectly astonishing to see with what assiduity she plies her work of aggrandisement[297] to a nest already sufficient in strength and size to answer every end. My swans generally form their nest on an island quite above the reach of a flood; and still the sitting bird never appears satisfied with the quantity of materials which are provided for her nest. I once gave her two huge bundles of oaten straw, and she performed her work of apparent supererogation by applying the whole of it to her nest, already very large, and not exposed to destruction had the weather become ever so rainy.

It is probable that this disposition to accumulation, in its general bearing, has reference to heat rather than the flood; but that the wild swan has a foresight regarding danger, and a quick perception as to the means of securing safety, appears from an instance mentioned by Captain Parry, in his Northern voyage. When everything was deeply involved in ice, the voyagers were obliged to pay much attention to discern whether they were travelling over water or land; but some birds, which formed their nest at no great distance from the ships, were under no mistake in so important a matter; and when the thaw took place it was seen that the nest was situated on an island in the lake.

This swan was eighteen or nineteen years old, had brought up many broods, and was highly valued by the neighbours. She exhibited, some eight or nine years past, one of the most remarkable powers of instinct ever recorded. She was sitting on four or five eggs, and was observed to be very busy in collecting weeds, grasses, &c., to raise her nest; a farming man was ordered to take down half a load of haulm, with which she most industriously raised her nest and the eggs two feet and a half; that very night there came down a tremendous fall of rain, which flooded all the malt-shops and did great damage. Man made no preparation, the bird did; instinct prevailed over reason. Her eggs were above, and only just above, the water.

During the early part of the summer of 1835, a pair of water-hens built their nest by the margin of the ornamental pond at Bell's Hill, a piece of water of considerable extent, and ordinarily fed by a spring from the height above, but into which the contents of another large pond can occasionally be admitted. This was done while the female was sitting; and as the nest had been built when the water level stood low, the sudden influx[298] of this large body of water from the second pond caused a rise of several inches, so as to threaten the speedy immersion and consequent destruction of the eggs. This the birds seem to have been aware of, and immediately took precautions against so imminent a danger; for when the gardener, upon whose veracity I can safely rely, seeing the sudden rise of the water, went to look after the nest, expecting to find it covered and the eggs destroyed, or at least forsaken by the hen, he observed, whilst at a distance, both birds busily engaged about the brink where the nest was placed; and when near enough he clearly perceived that they were adding, with all possible despatch, fresh materials to raise the fabric beyond the level of the increased contents of the pond; and that the eggs had by some means been removed from the nest by the birds, and were then deposited upon the grass about a foot or more from the margin of the water. He watched them for some time, and saw the nest rapidly increase in height; but I regret to add that he did not remain long enough, fearing he might create alarm, to witness the interesting act of replacing the eggs which must have been effected shortly after; for, upon his return in less than an hour, he found the hen quietly sitting upon them in the newly raised nest. In a few days afterwards the young were hatched, and, as usual, soon quitted the nest and took to the water with their parents. The nest was shown to me in situ shortly after, and I could then plainly discern the formation of the new with the older part of the fabric.

Many facts have already been given which show that birds do adapt their nests to the situations in which they place them; and the adoption of eaves, chimneys, and boxes by swallows, wrens, and many other birds, shows that they are always ready to take advantage of changed conditions. It is probable, therefore, that a permanent change of climate would cause many birds to modify the form or materials of their abode, so as better to protect their young.[172]

The cuckoo makes choice of the nests of a great variety of small birds. I have known its eggs entrusted to the care of the hedge-sparrow, water-wagtail, titlark, yellowhammer, green linnet, and winchat. Among these it generally selects the three former, but shows a much greater partiality to the hedge-sparrow than to any of the rest; therefore, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, this bird only, in the following account, will be considered as the foster-parent of the cuckoo, except in instances which are particularly specified.

When the hedge-sparrow has sat her usual time, and disengaged the young cuckoo and some of her own offspring from the shell,[174] her own young ones, and any of her eggs that remain unhatched, are soon turned out, the young cuckoo remaining[302] possessor of the nest, and sole object of her future care. The young birds are not previously killed, nor are the eggs demolished, but all are left to perish together, either entangled about the bush which contains the nest, or lying on the ground under it.

On June 18, 1787, I examined the nest of a hedge-sparrow, which then contained a cuckoo's and three hedge-sparrow's eggs. On inspecting it the day following, I found the bird had hatched, but that the nest now contained a young cuckoo and only one young hedge-sparrow. The nest was placed so near the extremity of a hedge, that I could distinctly see what was going forward in it; and, to my astonishment, saw the young cuckoo, though so newly hatched, in the act of turning out the young hedge-sparrow.

The mode of accomplishing this was very curious. The little animal, with the assistance of its rump and wings, contrived to get the bird upon its back, and making a lodgment for the burden by elevating its elbows, clambered backward with it up the side of the nest till it reached the top, when, resting for a moment, it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. It remained in this situation a short time, feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced whether this business was properly executed, and then dropped into the nest again. With these (the extremities of its wings) I have often seen it examine, as it were, an egg and nestling before it began its operations; and the sensibility which these parts appeared to possess seemed sufficiently to compensate the want of sight, which as yet it was destitute of. I afterwards put in an egg, and this by a similar process was conveyed to the edge of the nest and thrown out. These experiments I have since repeated several times in different nests, and have always found the young cuckoo disposed to act in the same manner. In climbing up the nest it sometimes drops its burden, and thus is foiled in its endeavours; but after a little respite the work is resumed, and goes on almost incessantly till it is effected. It is wonderful to see the extraordinary exertions of the young cuckoo, when it is two or three days old, if a bird be put into the nest with it that is too weighty for it to lift out. In this state it seems ever restless and uneasy. But this disposition for turning out its companions begins to decline from the time it is two or three till it is about twelve days old, when, as far as I have hitherto seen, it ceases. Indeed, the disposition for throwing out the egg appears to cease a few days sooner; for I have frequently seen the young cuckoo, after it had been hatched[303] nine or ten days, remove a nestling that had been placed in the nest with it, when it suffered an egg, put there at the same time, to remain unmolested. The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, different from other newly hatched birds, its back from the scapulæ downwards is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature for the design of giving a more secure lodgment to the egg of the hedge-sparrow, or its young one, when the young cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old this cavity is quite filled up, and then the back assumes the shape of nestling birds in general. . . . . The circumstance of the young cuckoo being destined by nature to throw out the young hedge-sparrows seems to account for the parent cuckoo dropping her egg in the nests of birds so small as those I have particularised. If she were to do this in the nest of a bird which produced a large egg, and consequently a large nestling, the young cuckoo would probably find an insurmountable difficulty in solely possessing the nest, as its exertions would be unequal to the labour of turning out the young birds. (I have known a case in which a hedge-sparrow sat upon a cuckoo's egg and one of her own. Her own egg was hatched five days before the cuckoo's, when the young hedge-sparrow had gained such a superiority in size that the young cuckoo had not powers sufficient to lift it out of the nest till it was two days old, by which time it had grown very considerably. This egg was probably laid by the cuckoo several days after the hedge-sparrow had begun to sit; and even in this case it appears that its presence had created the disturbance before alluded to, as all the hedge-sparrow's eggs had gone except one.) . . . . June 27, 1787.—Two cuckoos and a hedge-sparrow were hatched in the same nest this morning; one hedge sparrow's egg remained unhatched. In a few hours after, a contest began between the cuckoos for the possession of the nest, which continued undetermined till the next afternoon; when one of them, which was somewhat superior in size, turned out the other, together with the young hedge-sparrow and the unhatched egg. This contest was very remarkable. The combatants alternately appeared to have the advantage, as each carried the other several times nearly to the top of the nest, and then sunk down again oppressed with the weight of its burden; till at length, after various efforts, the strongest prevailed, and was afterwards brought up by the hedge-sparrows.

To what cause, then, may we attribute the singularities of[304] the cuckoo? May they not be owing to the following circumstances,—the short residence this bird is allowed to make in the country where it is destined to propagate its species, and the call that nature has upon it, during that short residence, to produce a numerous progeny? The cuckoo's first appearance here is about the middle of April, commonly on the 17th. Its egg is not ready for incubation till some weeks after its arrival, seldom before the middle of May. A fortnight is taken up by the sitting bird in hatching the egg. The young bird generally continues three weeks in the nest before it flies, and the foster-parents feed it more than five weeks after this period; so that, if a cuckoo should be ready with an egg much sooner than the time pointed out, not a single nestling, even one of the earliest, would be fit to provide for itself before its parent would be instinctively directed to seek a new residence, and be thus compelled to abandon its young one; for old cuckoos take their final leave of this country the first week in July.

Had nature allowed the cuckoo to have stayed here as long as some other migrating birds, which produce a single set of young ones (as the swift or nightingale, for example), and had allowed her to have reared as large a number as any bird is capable of bringing up at one time, there might not have been sufficient to have answered her purpose; but by sending the cuckoo from one nest to another, she is reduced to the same state as the bird whose nest we daily rob of an egg, in which case the stimulus for incubation is suspended.

But what struck me most was this: the cuckoo was perfectly naked, without a vestige of a feather or even a hint of future feathers; its eyes were not yet opened, and its neck seemed too weak to support the weight of its head. The pipits (in whose nest the young cuckoo was parasitic) had well-developed quills on the wings and back, and had bright eyes partially open; yet they seemed quite helpless under the manipulations of the cuckoo, which looked a much less developed[305] creature. The cuckoo's legs, however, seemed very muscular, and it appeared to feel about with its wings, which were absolutely featherless, as with hands—the 'spurious wing' (unusually large in proportion) looking like a spread-out thumb. The most singular thing of all was the direct purpose with which the blind little monster made for the open side of the nest, the only part where it could throw its burden down the bank. [The latter remark has reference to the position of the nest below a heather bush, on the declivity of a low abrupt bank, where the only chance of dislodging the young birds was to eject them over the side of the nest remote from its support upon the bank.] As the young cuckoo was blind, it must have known the part of the nest to choose by feeling from the inside that that part was unsupported.

Now let us suppose that the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo had the habits of the American cuckoo, and that[306] she occasionally laid her egg in another bird's nest. If the old bird profited by this occasional habit through being able to migrate earlier, or through any other cause; or if the young were made more vigorous by advantage being taken of the mistaken instinct of another species than when reared by their own mother, encumbered as she could hardly fail to be by having eggs and young at the same time;[175] then the old birds or the fostered young would gain an advantage.[176]

Having said this much, and believing as I do the Doctor to be partly justified in the carefully worded enunciation of what he calls a 'law of nature,' I must now declare that it is only 'approximately,' and by no means universally true that the cuckoo's egg is coloured like those of the victims of her imposition, &c.

Only one explanation of the process can, to my mind, be offered. Every person who has studied the habits of birds with sufficient attention will be conversant with the tendency which certain of those habits have to become hereditary. It is, I am sure, no violent hypothesis to suppose that there is a very reasonable probability of each cuckoo most commonly placing[308] her eggs in the nest of the same bird, and of this habit being transmitted to her posterity.

Now it will be seen that it requires but only an application to this case of the principle of 'natural selection,' or 'survival of the fittest,' to show that if my argument be sound, nothing can be more likely than that, in the course of time, that principle should operate so as to produce the facts asserted, the eggs which best imitated those of particular foster-parents having the best chance of duping the latter, and so of being hatched out.

Some species of Melothrus, a widely distinct genus of American birds, allied to our starlings, have parasitic habits like those of the cuckoo; and the species present an interesting gradation in the perfection of their instincts. The sexes of Melothrus cadius are stated by an excellent observer, Mr. Hudson, sometimes to live promiscuously together in flocks and sometimes to pair. They either build a nest of their own, or seize on one belonging to some other bird, occasionally throwing out the nestlings of the stranger. They either lay their eggs in the nest thus appropriated, or oddly enough build one for themselves on the top of it. They usually sit on their own eggs and rear their own young; but Mr. Hudson says it is probable that they are occasionally parasitic, for he has seen the young of this species feeding old birds of a distinct kind and clamouring to be fed by them. The parasitic habits of another species of Melothrus, the M. Canariensis, are much more highly developed than those of the last, but are still far from perfect. This bird, as far as it is known, invariably lays its eggs in the nests of strangers, but it is remarkable that several together sometimes commence to build an irregular untidy nest of their own, placed in singularly ill-adapted situations, as on the leaves of a large thistle. They must, however, as far as Mr. Hudson has ascertained, complete a nest for themselves. They often lay so many eggs, from fifteen to twenty, in the same foster-nest, that few or none can possibly be hatched. They have, moreover, the extraordinary habit of pecking holes in the eggs, whether of their own species or of their foster-parents, which they find in the appropriated nests. They drop also many eggs on the bare[310] ground, which are thus wasted. A third species, the M. precius of North America, has acquired instincts as perfect as those of the cuckoo, for it never lays more than an egg in a foster-nest, so that the young bird is securely reared. Mr. Hudson is a strong disbeliever in evolution, but he appears to have been so much struck by the imperfect instincts of the Melothrus Canariensis that he quotes my words, and asks, 'Must we consider these habits not as especially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law, namely transition?'[177]

The following is a curious instance of discrimination which I have observed in my bullfinch. He is in the habit of coming out of his cage in my room in the morning. In this room there is a mirror with a marble slab before it, and also a very cleverly executed water-colour drawing of a hen bullfinch, life size. The first thing that my bullfinch does on leaving his cage is to fly to the picture (perching on a vase just below it) and pipe his tune in the most insinuating manner, accompanied with much bowing to the portrait of the hen bullfinch. After having duly paid his addresses to it, he generally spends some time on the marble slab in front of the looking-glass, but without showing the slightest emotion at the sight of his own reflection, or courting it with a song. Whether this perfect coolness is due to the fact of the reflection being that of a cock bird, or whether (since he shows no desire to fight the reflected image) he is perfectly well aware that he only sees himself, it is difficult to say.

Some years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited in this country the wonderful performances of his birds. These were goldfinches, linnets, and canary birds. One appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting any signs of life. A second stood on its head, with its claws in the air, &c., &c.[180]

About twelve years ago I was residing on the coast of county Antrim, at the time the telegraph wires were set up along that charming road which skirts the sea between Larne and Cushendall. During the winter months large flocks of starlings always migrated over from Scotland, arriving in the early morning. The first winter after the wires were stretched along the coast I frequently found numbers of starlings lying dead or wounded on the road-side, they having evidently in their flight in the dusky morn struck against the telegraph wires, not[313] blown against them, as these accidents often occurred when there was but little wind. I found that the peasantry had come to the conclusion that these unusual deaths were due to the flash of the telegraph messages killing any starlings that happened to be perched on the wires when working. Strange to say that throughout the following and succeeding winters hardly a death occurred among the starlings on their arrival. It would thus appear that the birds were deeply impressed, and understood the cause of the fatal accidents among their fellow-travellers the previous year, and hence carefully avoided the telegraph wires; not only so, but the young birds must also have acquired this knowledge and perpetuated it, a knowledge which they could not have acquired by experience or even instinct, unless the instinct was really inherited memory derived from the parents whose brains were first impressed by it.[181]

The following account of the patience with which a golden eagle submitted to surgical treatment, and the care which it showed in the gradual use of the healing limb, must suggest the idea that something very near to prudence and reason existed in the bird. This eagle was caught in a fox-trap set in the forest of Fontainebleau, and its claw had been terribly torn. An operation was performed on the limb by the conservators of the Zoological Gardens at Paris, which the noble bird bore with a rational patience. Though his head was left loose, he made no attempts to interfere with the agonising extraction of the[314] splinters, or to disturb the arrangements of the annoying bandages. He seemed really to understand the nature of the services rendered, and that they were for his good.[183]

They assemble in great numbers in the villages about the end of the wet season, and are then ravenous with hunger. My cook could not leave the open kitchen at the back of the house for a moment whilst the dinner was cooking, on account of their thievish propensities. Some of them were always loitering about, watching their opportunity, and the instant the kitchen was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched in and lifted the lids of the saucepans with their beaks to rob them of their contents. The boys of the village lie in wait, and shoot them with bow and arrow; and vultures have consequently acquired such a dread of these weapons, that they may be often kept off by hanging a bow from the rafters of the kitchen.[184]

Mrs. Lee, in her 'Anecdotes', says that one day her gardener was struck by the strange conduct of a robin, which the man had often fed. The bird fluttered about him in so strange a manner—now coming close, then hurrying away, always in the same direction—that the gardener followed its retreating movements. The robin stopped near a flower-pot, and fluttered over it in great agitation. It was soon found that a nest had been formed in the pot, and contained several young. Close by was a snake, intent, doubtless, upon making a meal of the brood.

About thirty years ago the small market town in which I reside was skirted by an open common, upon which a number of geese were kept by cottagers. The number of the birds was very great. . . . . Our corn market at that time was held in the street in front of the principal inn, and on the market day a good deal of corn was scattered from sample bags by millers. Somehow the geese found out about the spilling of corn, and they appear to have held a consultation upon the subject. . . . .[315] From this time they never missed their opportunity, and the entry of the geese was always looked for and invariably took place. On the morning after the market, early, and always on the proper morning, fortnightly, in they came cackling and gobbling in merry mood, and they never came on the wrong day. The corn, of course, was the attraction, but in what manner did they mark the time? One might have supposed that their perceptions were awakened on the market day by the smell of corn, or perhaps by the noise of the market traffic; but my story is not yet finished, and its sequel is against this view. It happened one year that a day of national humiliation was kept, and the day appointed was that on which our market should have been held. The market was postponed, and the geese for once were baffled. There was no corn to tickle their olfactory organs from afar, no traffic to appeal to their sense of hearing. I think our little town was as still as it usually is on Sundays. . . . . The geese should have stopped away; but they knew their day, and came as usual. . . . . I do not pretend to remember under what precise circumstances the habit of coming into the street was acquired. It may have been formed by degrees, and continued from year to year; but how the old birds, who must have led the way, marked the time so as to come in regularly and fortnightly, on a particular day of the week, I am at a loss to conceive.

At Ardglass, co. Down, Ireland, is a long tract of turf coming to the edge of the rocks overhanging the sea, where cattle and geese feed; at a barn on this tract there was a low enclosure, with a door fastening by a hook and staple to the side-post: when the hook was out of the staple, the door fell open by its own weight. I one day saw a goose with a large troop of goslings coming off the turf to this door, which was secured by the hook being in the staple. The goose waited for a minute or two, as if for the door to be opened, and then turned round as if to go away, but what she did was to make a rush at the door, and making a dart with her beak at the point of the hook nearly threw it out of the staple; she repeated this manœuvre, and succeeded at the third attempt, the door fell open, and the goose led her troop in with a sound of triumphant chuckling. How had the goose learned that the force of the rush was needful to give the hook a sufficient toss?

I generally made a practice of filling a large basin which stands under the trees every morning for Jack's bath. A few days ago I forgot this duty, and was reminded of the fact in a very singular manner. Another of my daily occupations is to open my dressing-room shutters about eleven o'clock of a morning. Now these said shutters open almost on to the trees where Jack lives. The day I forgot his bath, when I opened the shutters I found my little friend waiting just outside them, as though he knew that he should see me there; and when he did he placed himself immediately in front of me, and then shook himself and spread out his wings just as he always does in his bath. The action was so suggestive and so unmistakable, that I spoke just as I would have done to a child—'Oh yes, Jack, of course you shall have some water.'

The Central Prison at Agra is the roosting-place of great numbers of the common blue pigeon; they fly out to the neighbouring country for food every morning, and return in the evening, when they drink at a tank just outside the prison walls. In this tank are a large number of fresh-water turtles, which lie in wait for the pigeons just under the surface of the water and at the edge of it. Any bird alighting to drink near one of these turtles has a good chance of having its head bitten off and eaten; and the headless bodies of pigeons have been picked up near the water, showing the fate which has sometimes befallen the birds. The pigeons, however, are aware of the danger, and have hit on the following plan to escape it. A pigeon comes in from its long flight, and, as it nears the tank, instead of flying down at once to the water's edge, will cross the tank at about twenty feet above its surface, and then fly back to the side from which it came, apparently selecting for alighting a safe spot which it had remarked as it flew over the bank; but even when such a spot has been selected the bird will not alight at the edge of the water, but on the bank about a yard from the water, and will then run down quickly to the water, take two or three hurried gulps of it, and then fly off to repeat the same process at another part of the tank till its thirst is satisfied. I had often watched the birds doing this, and could not account for their strange mode of drinking till told by my friend the superintendent of the prison, of the turtles which lay in ambush for the pigeons.

A number of them (pouters) were feeding on a few oats that had been accidentally let fall while fixing the nose-bag on a horse standing at bait. Having finished all the grain at hand, a large 'pouter' rose, and flapping its wings furiously, flew directly at the horse's eyes, causing the animal to toss his head, and in doing so, of course shake out more corn. I saw this several times repeated—in fact, whenever the supply on hand had been exhausted. . . . . Was not this something more than instinct?

Two swallows were building a nest in the verandah of a house in Victoria, but as their nest was resting partly on a bell-wire, it was by this means twice pulled down. They then began afresh, making a tunnel through the lower part of the nest, through which the wire was able to act without doing damage.

Swallows seem to entertain the recollection of injury, and to resent it when an opportunity offers. A pair of swallows built their nest under the ledge of a house at Hampton Court. It was no sooner completed than a couple of sparrows drove them from it, notwithstanding the swallows kept up a good resistance, and even brought others to assist them. The intruders were left in peaceable possession of the nest, till the two old birds were obliged to quit it to provide food for their young. They had no sooner departed than several swallows came and broke down the nest; and I saw the young sparrows lying dead on the ground. As soon as the nest was demolished, the swallows began to rebuild it.[185]

A pair of swallows built their nest against one of the first-floor windows of an uninhabited house in Merrion Square, Dublin. A sparrow, however, took possession of it, and the swallows were repeatedly seen clinging to the nest, and endeavouring to gain an entrance to the abode they had erected with so much labour. All their efforts, however, were defeated by the sparrow, who never once quitted the nest. The perseverance of the swallows was at length exhausted: they took flight, but shortly afterwards returned, accompanied by a number of their congeners, each of them having a piece of dirt in its bill. By this means they succeeded in stopping up the hole, and the intruder was immured in total darkness. Soon afterwards the nest was taken down and exhibited to several persons, with the dead sparrow in it. In this case there appears to have been not only a reasoning faculty, but the birds must have been possessed of the power of communicating their resentment and their wishes to their friends, without whose aid they could not thus have avenged the injury they had sustained.[186]

I have constantly seen a flock of pelicans, when on the feed, form a line across a lake, and drive the fish before them up its whole length, just as fishermen would with a net.[187]

One of these ingenious marauders, after vainly attitudinising in front of a chained watch-dog, that was lazily gnawing a bone, and after fruitlessly endeavouring to divert his attention by dancing before him, with head awry and eye askance, at length flew away for a moment, and returned bringing a companion which perched itself on a branch a few yards in the rear. The crow's grimaces were now actively renewed, but with no better success, till its confederate, poising itself on its wings, descended with the utmost velocity, striking the dog upon the spine with all the force of its strong beak. The ruse was successful; the dog started with surprise and pain, but not quickly enough to seize his assailant, whilst the bone he had been gnawing was snatched away by the first crow the[320] instant his head was turned. Two well-authenticated instances of the recurrence of this device came within my knowledge at Colombo, and attest the sagacity and powers of communication and combination possessed by these astute and courageous birds.

In the inn garden I saw a dog eating a piece of carrion in the presence of several of these covetous birds. They evidently said a great deal to each other on the subject, and now and then, one or two of them tried to pull the meat away from him, which he resented. At last a big strong crow succeeded in tearing off a piece, with which he returned to the pine where the others were congregated, and after much earnest speech they all surrounded the dog, and the leading bird dexterously dropped the small piece of meat within reach of his mouth, when he immediately snapped at it, letting go the big piece unwisely for a second, on which two of the crows flew away with it to the pine, and with much fluttering and hilarity they all ate, or rather gorged it, the deceived dog looking vacant and bewildered for a moment, after which he sat under the tree and barked at them inanely. A gentleman told me that he saw a dog holding a piece of meat in like manner in the presence of three crows, which also vainly tried to tear it from him, and after a consultation they separated, two going as near as they dared to the meat, while the third gave the tail a bite sharp enough to make the dog turn round with a squeak, on which the other villains seized the meat, and the three fed triumphantly upon it on the top of a wall.[188]

A pheasant used to come very boldly and run off with large pieces of food, which he could only divide by shaking, and he was closely watched by the rooks for the pieces that flew out of his reach. He learned to run off into the shrubs, followed by the rooks, who pulled his tail to make him drop his food.

Having got fairly settled down in my pebbly observatory, I turned my undivided attention to the birds before me. They were boldly pushing at the fish with their bills, and then with their breasts. Their endeavours, however, were in vain: the object remained immovable. On this they both went round to the opposite side, and began to scrape away the sand from beneath the fish. After removing a considerable quantity, they again came back to the spot which they had left, and went once more to work with their bills and breasts, but with as little apparent success as formerly. Nothing daunted, however, they ran round a second time to the other side, and recommenced their trenching operations with a seeming determination not to be baffled in their object, which evidently was to undermine the dead animal before them, in order that it might be the more easily overturned.

While they were thus employed, and after they had laboured in this manner at both sides alternately for nearly half an hour, they were joined by another of their own species, which came flying with rapidity from the neighbouring rocks. Its timely arrival was hailed with evident signs of joy. I was led to this conclusion from the gestures which they exhibited, and from a low but pleasant murmuring noise to which they gave utterance so soon as the new-comer made his appearance. Of their feelings he seemed to be perfectly aware, and he made his reply to them in a similar strain. Their mutual congratulations being over, they all three set to work; and after labouring[322] vigorously for a few minutes in removing the sand, they came round to the other side, and putting their breasts simultaneously to the fish, they succeeded in raising it some inches from the sand, but were unable to turn it over. It went down again into its sandy bed, to the manifest disappointment of the three. Resting, however, for a space, and without leaving their respective positions, which were a little apart the one from the other, they resolved, it appears, to give the work another trial. Lowering themselves, with their breasts pressed close to the sand, they managed to push their bills underneath the fish, which they made to rise about the same height as before. Afterwards, withdrawing their bills, but without losing the advantage which they had gained, they applied their breasts to the object. This they did with such force, and to such purpose, that at length it went over, and rolled several yards down a slight declivity. It was followed to some distance by the birds themselves before they could recover their bearing.[189]

It often happens that the young couple have made choice of a place too near the mansion of an older pair, who do not choose to be incommoded by such troublesome neighbours; a quarrel, therefore, instantly ensues, in which the old ones are always victorious. The young couple, thus expelled, are obliged again to go through their fatigues—deliberating, examining, and choosing; and, having taken care to keep their due distance, the nest begins again, and their industry deserves commendation. But their activity is often too great in the beginning; they soon grow weary of bringing the materials of their nests from distant places, and they very early perceive that sticks may be provided nearer home, with less honesty indeed, but some degree of address. Away they go, therefore, to pilfer as fast as they can, and, whenever they see a nest unguarded, they[323] take care to rob it of the very choicest sticks of which it is composed. But these thefts never go unpunished, and probably, upon complaint being made, there is a general punishment inflicted. I have seen eight or ten rooks come upon such occasions, and, setting upon the new nest of the young couple, all at once tear it to pieces in a moment.

At length, however, the young pair find the necessity of going more regularly to work. While one flies to fetch the materials, the other sits upon the tree to guard it; and thus in the space of three or four days, with a skirmish now and then between, the pair have filled up a commodious nest, composed of sticks without, and of fibrous roots and long grass within. From the instant the female begins to lay, all hostilities are at an end; not one of the whole grove, that a little before treated her so rudely, will now venture to molest her, so that she brings forth her brood with perfect tranquillity. Such is the severity with which even native rooks are treated by each other; but if a foreign rook should attempt to make himself a denizen of their society, he would meet with no favour, the whole grove would at once be up in arms against him, and expel him without mercy.

The wrong-doers being discovered, the punishment is appropriate to the offence; by the destruction of their dishonest work they are taught that they who build must find their own bricks or sticks, and not their neighbours', and that if they wish to live in the enjoyment of the advantages of the social condition, they must endeavour to conform their actions to the principles of the rookery of which they have been made members.

It is not known what enormities led to the institution of another tribunal of the same kind, called the Crow Court, but according to Dr. Edmonson, in his 'View of the Shetland Islands,' its proceedings are as authoritative and regular, and it is remarkable as occurring in a species (Corvus Cornice) so near akin to the rook. The Crow Court is a sort of general assembling of birds who, in their usual habits, are accustomed to live in pairs, scattered at great distances from each other; when they visit the south or west of England, as they do in severe winters, they are commonly solitary. In their summer haunts in the Shetland Islands, numbers meet together from different points on a particular hill or field; and on these occasions the assembly is not complete, and does not begin its business for a day or two, till, all the deputies having arrived, a general clamour[324] or croaking ensues, and the whole of the court, judges, barristers, ushers, audience, and all, fall upon the two or three prisoners at the bar, and beat them till they kill them. When this is accomplished the court breaks up and quietly disperses.

In the northern parts of Scotland (says Dr. Edmonson), and in the Faroe Islands, extraordinary meetings of crows are occasionally known to occur. They collect in great numbers, as if they had all been summoned for the occasion; a few of the flock sit with drooping heads, and others seem as grave as judges, while others again are exceedingly active and noisy; in the course of about one hour they disperse, and it is not uncommon, after they have flown away, to find one or two left dead on the spot. These meetings will sometimes continue for a day or two before the object, whatever it may be, is completed. Crows continue to arrive from all quarters during the session. As soon as they have all arrived, a very general noise ensues; and, shortly after, the whole fall upon one or two individuals, and put them to death. When the execution has been performed, they quietly disperse.

I have seen also a jackdaw in the midst of a congregation of rooks, apparently being tried for some misdemeanour. First Jack made a speech, which was answered by a general cawing of the rooks; this subsiding, Jack again took up his parable, and the rooks in their turn replied in chorus. After a time the business, whatever it was, appeared to be settled satisfactorily: if Jack was on his trial, as he seemed to be, he was honourably acquitted by acclamation; for he went to his home in the towers of Ely Cathedral, and the rooks also went their way.

Soon a gathering of crows from all quarters took place, until the roof of the guard-house was blackened by them. Thereupon a prodigious clatter ensued; it was plain that a 'palaver' was going forward. Some of its members, more eager than others, skipping about, I became much interested, and narrowly watched the proceedings, all within a dozen yards of me. After much cawing and clamour, the whole group suddenly rose into the air,[325] and kept circling round half a dozen of their fellows, one of whom had been clearly told off for punishment, for the five repeatedly attacked it in quick succession, allowing no opportunity for their victim to escape, which he was trying to do, until they had cast him fluttering on the ground about thirty yards from my chair. Unfortunately I rushed forward to pick up the bird, prostrate but fluttering on the grass which was like a lawn before the building. I succeeded only in touching it, for it wriggled away from my grasp, and flew greatly crippled and close to the ground into the neighbouring bushes, where I lost sight of it. All the others, after circling round me and chattering, angrily as I thought, flew away, on my resuming my seat, in the direction taken by their victim.

[Since going to press I have seen, through the kindness of Mr. Seebohm, some specimens of cuckoo's eggs coloured in imitation of those belonging to the birds in the nests of which they are laid. There can be no question about the imitation, and I add this note to mitigate the criticism which I have passed upon Professor Newton's theory of the cause. For Mr. Seebohm has pointed out to me that the theory becomes more probable if we consider that a cuckoo reared in the nest of any particular bird is likely afterwards to choose a similar nest for the deposition of its own eggs. Whether or not the memory of a bird would thus act could only, of course, be certainly proved by experiment; but in view of the possibility that it may, Professor Newton's theory becomes more probable than it is if the selection of the appropriate nest is supposed to depend only on inheritance.

I most also add that Dr. Sclater has been kind enough to draw my attention to a remarkable description of a species of Bower-bird, published by Dr. Beccari in the Gardener's Chronicle for March 16, 1879. This species is called the Gardener Bower-bird (Amblyornis niornata), and inhabits New Guinea. The animal is about the size of a turtle-dove, and its bower—or rather hut—is built round the stem of a tree in the shape of a cone, with a space between the stem of the tree and the walls of the hut. The latter are composed of stems of an orchid with their leaves on—this particular plant being chosen by the birds apparently because its leaves remain long fresh. But the most extraordinary structure is the garden, which is thus described by Dr. Beccari:—'Before the cottage there is a meadow of moss. This is brought to the spot and left free from grass, stones, or anything which would offend the eye. On this green turf flowers and fruits of pretty colour are placed, so as to form an elegant little garden. The greater part of the decoration is collected round the entrance to the nest, and it would appear that the husband offers these his daily gifts to his wife. The objects are very various, but always of a vivid colour. There were some fruits of a Garcinia like a small-sized apple. Others were the fruits of Gardencias of a deep yellow colour in the interior. I saw also small rosy fruits, probably of a Scitamineous plant, and beautiful rosy flowers of a new Vaccinium. There were also fungi and mottled insects placed on the turf. As soon as the objects are faded they are moved to the back of the hut.' There is a fine-coloured plate of this bird in its garden, published in the Birds of New Guinea, by Mr. Gould Part ix., 1879.]

A gentleman who had resided for several years in New South Wales related the following circumstance, which he assured me he had frequently witnessed while hunting the kangaroo: it furnishes a strong proof of the affection of that animal for her young, even when her own life has been placed in the[327] most imminent danger. He informed me that, when a female kangaroo has been hard pressed by dogs, he has seen her, while she has been making her bounds, put her fore-paws into her pouch, take a young one from it, and then throw it as far on one side as she possibly could out of the way of the dogs. But for this manœuvre her own life and that of her young one would have been sacrificed. By getting rid of the latter she has frequently effected her escape, and probably returned afterwards to seek for her offspring.

In 1811, says Mr. Scoresby, one of my harpooners struck a sucker, with the hope of leading to the capture of the mother. Presently she arose close to the 'fast boat,' and seizing the young one, dragged about 600 feet of line out of the boat with remarkable force and velocity. Again she rose to the surface, darted furiously to and fro, frequently stopped short or suddenly changed her direction, and gave every possible intimation of extreme agony. For a length of time she continued thus to act, though pursued closely by the boats; and, inspired with courage and resolution by her concern for her young, seemed regardless of the danger's which surrounded her. At length one of the boats approached so near that a harpoon was hove at her; it hit, but did not attach itself. A second harpoon was struck, but this also failed to penetrate; but a third was more successful, and held. Still she did not attempt to escape, but allowed other boats to approach; so that in a few minutes three more harpoons were fastened, and in the course of an hour afterwards she was killed.[190]

The keeper in charge of these interesting animals is now in the habit of summoning them to their meals by the call of a whistle; his approaching footsteps, even, cause great excitement in their movements. . . . . The curiosity attributed to these creatures, as illustrated by the experiences of Mr. Matthew Williams, receives ample confirmation from their habits and confinement. A new arrival is at once subjected to the most importunate attention, and, advancing from familiarity to contempt[328] if disapproved of, soon becomes the object of attack and persecution. A few dog-fish (Acanthias and Mastelus), three or four feet long, now fell victims to their tyranny, the porpoises seizing them by their tails, and swimming off with and shaking them in a manner scarcely conducive to their comfort or dignified appearance, reminding the spectator of a large dog worrying a rat. . . . . On one occasion I witnessed the two Cetacea acting evidently in concert against one of these unwieldy fish (skates), the latter swimming close to the top of the water, and seeking momentary respite from its relentless enemies by lifting its unfortunate caudal appendage high above its surface—the peculiar tail of the skate being the object of sport to the porpoises, which seized it in their mouths as a convenient handle whereby to pull the animal about, and worry it incessantly.

Several years ago a herd of porpoises was scattered by a net which I had got made to enclose some of them. . . . . The whole 'sculle' was much alarmed, and two were secured. I conclude that their companions retained a vivid remembrance of the sea-fight, as these Cetacea, although frequent visitants in this harbour (Falmouth) previously, and often watched for, were not seen in it again for two years or more.

I want to tell you of an instance of long memory in a horse. I have just driven my pony down from London here, and though she has not been here for eight years, she remembered her way quite well, and made a bolt for the stables where I used to keep her.

The following instance of animal intelligence is sent to us by Dr. John Rae, F.R.S., who states that the Mr. William Sinclair mentioned is respectable and trustworthy. The anecdote is taken from the 'Orkney Herald' of May 11:—"A well-authenticated and extraordinary case of the sagacity of the Shetland pony has just come under our notice. A year or two ago Mr. William Sinclair, pupil-teacher, Holm, imported one of these little animals from Shetland on which to ride to and from school, his residence being at a considerable distance from the school buildings. Up to that time the animal had been unshod, but some time afterwards Mr. Sinclair had it shod by Mr. Pratt, the parish blacksmith. The other day Mr. Pratt, whose smithy is a long distance from Mr. Sinclair's house, saw the pony, without halter or anything upon it, walking up to where he was working. Thinking the animal had strayed from home, he drove it off, throwing stones after the beast to make it run homewards. This had the desired effect for a short time; but Mr. Pratt had only got fairly at work once more in the smithy when the pony's head again made its appearance at the door. On proceeding a second time outside to drive the pony away, Mr. Pratt, with a blacksmith's instinct, took a look at the pony's feet, when he observed that one of its shoes had been lost. Having made a shoe he put it on, and then waited to see what the animal would do. For a moment it looked at the blacksmith as if asking whether he was done, then pawed once or twice to see if the newly-shod foot was comfortable, and finally gave a pleased neigh, erected its head, and started homewards at a brisk trot. The owner was also exceedingly surprised to find the animal at home completely shod the same evening, and it was only on calling at the smithy some days afterwards that he learned the full extent of his pony's sagacity."

A friend of mine is employed on a farm near Toronto, Ontario, where a horse, belonging to the wife of the farmer, is[332] never required to work, but is allowed to live the life of a gentleman, for the following reason. Some years ago the lady above mentioned fell off a plank bridge into a stream when the water was deep. The horse, which was feeding in a field close by, ran to the spot, and held her up with his teeth till assistance arrived, thus probably saving her life. Was this reason or instinct?

A mare here had her first foal when she was ten or twelve years old. She was blind of one eye. The result was, she frequently trod upon the foal or knocked it over when it happened to be on the blind side of her, in consequence of which the foal died when it was three or four months old. The next year she had another foal, and we fully expected the result would be the same. But no; from the day it was born she never moved in the stall without looking round to see where the foal was, and she never trod upon it or injured it in any way. You see that reason did not teach her that she was killing her first foal; her care for the second was the result of memory, imagination, and thought after the foal was dead, and before the next one was born. The only difference that I can see between the reasoning power of men and animals is that the latter is applied only to the very limited space of providing for their bodily wants, whereas that of men embraces a vast amount of other objects besides this.

We had a Welsh cob pony or Galloway about 14 hands high, who was occasionally kept in a shed (in a farmyard),[333] partly closed at the front by a gate which was secured by a bolt inside and a drop latch outside. The pony (who was able to put his head and neck over the gate, but could not reach the outside latch) was constantly found loose in the yard, which was considered quite a mystery until it was solved one day by my observing the pony first pushing back the inside bolt, and then neighing until a donkey, who had the run of the yard and an adjoining paddock, came and pushed up the outside latch with his nose, thus letting the pony at liberty, when the two marched off together.

A friend of mine living at Iowa City had a mule, whose ingenuity in getting into mischief was more than ordinarily remarkable. This animal had a great liking for the company of an oat-bin, and lost no opportunity, when the yard gate and barn door were open, to secure a mouthful of oats. Finally the mule was found in the barn in the morning, and for a long time it was found impossible to discover how he had come there. This went on for some time, until the animal was 'caught in the act.' It was found that he had learned how to open the gate, reaching over the fence to lift the latch, and that he then effectually mystified his masters by turning round and backing against it until it was latched. He then proceeded to the barn door, and pulling out the pin which held the door, it swung open of its own accord. From the intelligence which this animal displayed on many occasions, I am of the opinion that had not discovery of his trick prevented, it would soon have occurred to him to retrace his steps before daylight, in order to avoid the clubbing which the stable boys gave him in the morning. It may be added that this animal had enjoyed no unusual educational advantages, and his owners found it to their interest to discourage his intellectual efforts as much as possible.[192]

The animal witnessing the process of killing, flaying, &c., repeated on one after another of its fellows, gets to comprehend to the full extent the dreadful ordeal, and as it mentally grasps the meaning of it all, the increasing horror depicted in its condition can be clearly seen. Of course some portray it much more vividly than others; the varying intelligence manifested in this respect is only another link which knits them in oneness with the human family.

The sagacity with which the bisons defend themselves against the attack of wolves is admirable. When they scent the approach of a drove of these ravenous creatures, the herd throws itself into the form of a circle, having the weakest and the calves in the middle, and the strongest ranged on the outside; thus presenting an impenetrable front of horns.[193]

The temper of the wild buffalo is morose and uncertain; and such is its strength and courage, that in the Hindu epic of the 'Ramayana' its onslaught is compared with that of the tiger. It is never quite safe to approach them if disturbed in their pasture, or alarmed from their repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line, draw up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance; and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they clank them together in their rapid evolutions, they prepare for attack: but generally, after a menacing display, the herd betake themselves to flight; then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before, elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to take a defiant survey of the intruders.[194]

A bell is attached to its neck, and a box or basket with one side open is securely strapped on its back. This at night is lighted with flambeaux of wax, and the buffalo bearing it is slowly driven into the jungle. The huntsmen with their fowling-pieces keep close under the darkened side, and as it moves slowly onwards, the wild animals, startled by the sound and bewildered by the light, steal cautiously towards it in stupefied fascination. Even the snake, I am assured, will be attracted by this extraordinary object; and the leopard, too, falls a victim to curiosity.[195]

It is curious to observe the intelligence of game; in districts where they are much annoyed by fire-arms they keep out on the most open spots of country they can find, in order to have a widely extended range of vision, and a man armed is carefully shunned. . . . . But here, where they are killed by the arrows of the Balonda, they select for safety the densest forest, where the arrow cannot be easily shot.[197]

I have been much delighted with watching the manner in which some of the old bucks in Bushey Park continue to get the berries from the fine thorn trees there. They will raise themselves on their hind legs, give a spring, entangle their horns in the lower branches of the tree, give them one or two shakes, and they will then quietly pick them up.[198]

Few things, indeed, can show more forcibly the powerful instinct which is implanted in animals for their self-preservation than the means which they take to avoid danger. I saw an instance of this lately in a stag. It had been turned out before a pack of hounds, and, when somewhat pressed by them, I observed it twice to go amongst a flock of sheep, and in both cases to double back, evidently, I should imagine, with the intention of baffling the pursuit of the dogs. It would thus seem that the animal was aware of its being followed by the scent, and not by sight. If this be the case, it affords another proof that animals are possessed of something more than common instinct.[199]

A goat and her kids frequented a square in which I once lived, and were often fed by myself and servants—a circumstance which would have made no impression, had I not heard a thumping at the hall door, which arose from the buttings of the goat when the food was not forthcoming, and whose example was followed by the two little things. After a time this remained unheeded, and, to our great astonishment, one day the area bell used by the tradespeople, the wire of which passed by the side of one of the railings, was sounded. The cook answered it, but no one was there save the goat and kids, with their heads bent down towards the kitchen window. It was thought that some boy had rung for them; but they were watched, and the old goat was seen to hook one of her horns into the wire and pull it. This is too much like reason to be ascribed to mere instinct.

A rather tame bull, bred of a milch cow, used to puzzle me by being found inside a paddock used for cultivation, and enclosed by a two-railed fence, of which the lower rail was unusually high. At last I saw the animal lie down close to the fence, and roll over on his back, with four legs in the air, by which proceeding he was inside the paddock. I never knew another beast perform this feat; and although it must have been often done in the presence of a number of cows, not one of them ever imitated it, though they would all have unquestionably followed the bull through an opening in the fence, or by the slip-rails.

My method was this: I would fell or cut down a maple tree, the top of which they are very partial to; and as the ground was invariably covered with snow to the depth of 12 inches, food was scarce, and the deer would come and browse, probably from hearing the tree fall. I would place a loaded gun 20 feet from the top of the tree at which it was pointing; I would attach a line the size of an ordinary fish-line to a lever that pressed against the trigger; the other end of the line I would fasten to the tree-top. By this means the deer could not pass between the tree and the gun without getting shot, or at least shot at; but I never succeeded in killing one when my line was as large as a fish-line, i.e. about one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness. Commencing at the body of the tree on one side, the deer would eat all the tops to within 12 inches of the line, and then go around the gun and eat all on the other side, never touching[339] the line. I tried this at least sixty times, always with the same result. Then I took a black linen thread, and had no difficulty in killing them, as it was so small and black that they could not distinguish it.

Wild swine associate in herds and defend themselves in common. Green relates that in the wilds of Vermont a person fell in with a large herd in a state of extraordinary restlessness; they had formed a circle with their heads outwards, and the young ones placed in the middle. A wolf was using every artifice to snap one, and on his return he found the herd scattered, but the wolf was dead and completely ripped up. Schmarda recounts an almost similar encounter between a herd of tame swine and a wolf, which he witnessed on the military positions of Croatia. He says that the swine, seeing two wolves, formed themselves into a wedge, and approached the wolves slowly, grunting and erecting their bristles. One wolf fled, but the other leaped on to the trunk of a tree. As soon as the swine reached it they surrounded it with one accord, when, suddenly and instantaneously, as the wolf attempted to leap over them, they got him down and destroyed him in a moment.[202]

On the 15th ult. (Nov. 1879) I saw an intelligent sow pig about twelve months old, running in an orchard, going to a young apple tree and shaking it, pricking up her ears at the same time, as if to listen to hear the apples fall. She then picked the apples up and ate them. After they were all down she shook the tree again and listened, but as there were no more to fall she went away.

A washed sow in the hot season of our temperate climate, and in almost every season of such a climate as that of Palestine, 'returns to her wallowing in the mire' simply because she feels scorched, and blistered, and sickened under the ardent[341] sunshine; and hence, when she receives from man the aid which is due to her as a domesticated animal, she demands not dirt all the year through, nor any day at all, but shade in summer, shelter in winter, and a clean, dry bed in every season.

From the time of the first arrivals in May up to the 1st of June, as late as the middle of this month if the weather be clear, is an interval in which everything seems quiet; very few seals are added to the pioneers. By the 1st of June, however, or thereabouts, the foggy, humid weather of summer sets in, and with it the bull-seals come up by hundreds and thousands, and locate themselves in advantageous positions for the reception of the females, which are from three weeks to a month later, as a rule. The labour of locating and maintaining a position in the rookery is really a serious business for those bulls which come in last, and for those that occupy the water-line, frequently resulting in death from severe wounds in combat sustained. It appears to be a well understood principle among the able-bodied bulls that each one shall remain undisturbed on his ground, which is usually about ten feet square, provided he is strong enough to hold it against all comers; for the crowding in of fresh bulls often causes the removal of those who, though equally able-bodied at first, have exhausted themselves by fighting earlier, and are driven by the fresher animals back further and higher up on the rookery. Some of these bulls show wonderful strength and courage. I have marked one veteran, who was among the first to take up his position, and that one on the water-line, when at least fifty or sixty desperate battles were fought victoriously by him with nearly as many different seals who coveted his position; and when the fighting season was over (after the cows have mostly all hauled up) I saw him covered with scars and gashes, raw and bloody, an eye gouged out, but holding it bravely over his harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on the same spot he had first chosen. The fighting is mostly or entirely done with the mouth, the opponents seizing each other with the teeth and clenching the jaws; nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, and that effort almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp canines tearing out deep gutters in the skin and blubber, or shredding the flippers into ribbon-strips. They usually approach each other with averted heads and a great many false passes before either one or the other takes the initiative by gripping; the heads are darted out and back as quick as flash, their hoarse roaring and shrill piping whistle never ceases, while their fat[343] bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage, fur flying in air and blood streaming down—all combined make a picture fierce and savage enough, and, from its great novelty, exceedingly strange at first sight. In these battles the parties are always distinct, the offensive and the defensive; if the latter proves the weaker he withdraws from the position occupied, and is never followed by his conqueror, who complacently throws up one of his hind flippers, fans himself, as it were, to cool himself from the heat of the conflict, uttering a peculiar chuckle of satisfaction and contempt, with a sharp eye open for the next covetous bull or 'sea-catch' (native name for the bulls on the rookeries, especially those which are able to maintain their position).

All the bulls, from the very first, that have been able to hold their positions have not left them for an instant, night or day; nor do they do so until the end of the rutting season, which subsides entirely between the 1st and 10th of August, beginning shortly after the coming of the cows in June. Of necessity, therefore, this causes them to fast, to abstain entirely from food of any kind, or water for at least three months; and a few of them stay four months before going into the water for the first time after hauling up in May. This alone is remarkable enough, but it is simply wonderful when we come to associate the condition with unceasing activity, restlessness, and duty devolved upon the bulls as heads and fathers of large families. They do not stagnate like bears in caves; it is evidently accomplished or due to the absorption of their own fat, with which they are so literally supplied when they take their positions on the breeding-ground, and which gradually diminishes while they remain on it.

They are noticed and received by the bulls on the water-line station with much attention; they are alternately coaxed and urged up on the rocks, and are immediately under the most jealous supervision; but owing to the covetous and ambitious nature of the bulls which occupy the stations reaching some way back from the water-line, the little cows have a rough-and-tumble time of it when they begin to arrive in small numbers at first; for no sooner is the pretty animal fairly established on the station of bull No. 1 who has installed her there, than he perhaps sees another one of her style down in the water from which she has just come, and in obedience to his polygamous feeling, he devotes himself anew to coaxing the later arrival in the same winning manner so successful in her case, when bull[344] No. 2, seeing bull No. 1 off his guard, reaches out his long strong neck, and picks the unhappy but passive creature up by the scruff of hers, just as a cat does a kitten, and deposits her on his seraglio-ground; then bulls Nos. 3, 4, 5, and so on in the vicinity, seeing this high-handed operation, all assail one another, and especially bull No. 2, and have a tremendous fight perhaps for half a minute or so; and during this commotion the cow is generally moved or moves farther back from the water two or three stations more, where, when all gets quiet, she usually remains in peace. Her late lord and master, not having the exposure to such diverting temptation as had her first, gives her such care that she not only is unable to leave did she wish, but no other bull can seize upon her. This is only one instance of the many different trials and tribulations which both parties on the rookery subject themselves to before the harems are filled. Far back, fifteen or twenty stations deep from the water-line sometimes, but generally not more than, on an average, ten or fifteen, the cows crowd in at the close of the season for arriving, July 10 to 14, and then they are able to go about pretty much as they please, for the bulls have become greatly enfeebled by this constant fighting and excitement during the past two months, and are quite content with even only one or two partners.

I have found it difficult to ascertain the average number of cows to one bull on the rookery, but I think it will be nearly correct to assign to each male from twelve to fifteen females occupying the stations nearest the water, those back in the rear from five to nine. I have counted forty-five cows all under the charge of one bull, which had them penned up on a flat table-rock near Kestaire Point; the bull was enabled to do this quite easily, as there was but one way to go to or come from this seraglio, and on this path the old Turk took his stand and guarded it well. At the rear of all these rookeries there is always a large number of able-bodied bulls, who wait patiently, but in vain, for families, most of them having had to fight as desperately for the privilege of being there as any of their more fortunately located neighbours, who are nearer the water than themselves; but the cows do not like to be in any outside position, when they are not in close company lying most quiet and content in the largest harems; and these large families pack the surface of the ground so thickly that there is hardly moving or turning room until the females cease to come up from the sea; but the inaction on the part of the bulls in the rear during the[345] rutting season only serves to qualify them to move into the places vacated by those males who are obliged to leave from exhaustion, or to take the position of fearless and jealous protectors for the young pups in the fall. The courage with which the fur-seal holds his position as the head and guardian of a family is of the very highest order compared with that of other animals. I have repeatedly tried to drive them when they have fairly established themselves, and have almost always failed, using every stone at my command, making all the noise I could, and finally, to put their courage to the full test, I walked up to within twenty feet of a bull at the rear and extreme end of Tolstoi Rookery, who had four cows in charge, and commenced with my double-barrelled breech-loading shot-gun to pepper him all over with mustard-seed or dust-shot. His bearing in spite of the noise, smell of powder, and pain, did not change in the least from the usual attitude of determined defence which nearly all the bulls assume when attacked with showers of stones and noise; he would dart out right and left and catch the cows which timidly attempted to run after each report, fling and drag them back to their places; then, stretching up to his full height, look me directly and defiantly in the face, roaring and spitting most vehemently. The cows, however, soon got away from him, but he still stood his ground, making little charges on me of ten or fifteen feet in a succession of gallops or lunges, spitting furiously and then retreating to the old position, back of which he would not go, fully resolved to hold his own or die in the attempt.

This courage is all the more noteworthy from the fact that, in regard to man, it is invariably of a defensive character. The seal, if it makes you turn when you attack it, never follows you much farther than the boundary of its station, and no aggravation will compel it to become offensive, as far as I have been able to observe.

The apathy with which the young are treated by the old on the breeding-grounds is somewhat strange. I have never seen a cow caress or fondle her offspring, and should it stray but a short distance from the harem, it can be picked up and killed before the mother's eyes, without causing her to show the slightest concern. The same indifference is exhibited by the bull to all that takes place outside of the boundary of his seraglio. While the pups are, however, within the limits of his harem-ground he is a jealous and fearless protector; but if the little animals pass beyond this boundary, then they may be[346] carried off without the slightest attention in their behalf from their guardian.

Early in August (8th) the pups that are nearest the water on the rookeries essay swimming, but make slow and clumsy progress, floundering about, when over head in depth, in the most awkward manner, thrashing the water with their fore-flippers, not using the hinder ones. In a few seconds, or a minute at the most, the youngest is so wary that he crawls out upon the rocks or beach, and immediately takes a recuperative nap, repeating the lesson as quick as he awakes and is rested. They soon get familiar with the water and delight in it, swimming in endless evolutions, twisting, turning, diving; and when exhausted, they draw up on the beach again, shake themselves as young dogs do, either going to sleep on the spot, or having a lazy frolic among themselves.

In this matter of learning to swim, I have not seen any 'driving' of the young pups into the water by the old in order to teach them this process, as has been affirmed by writers on the subject of seal life.

The narratives of most travellers in America tell wonderful stories of the glutton or wolverine, but I do not know that any of my experiences of this extremely acute animal indicate what I call reasoning powers. They are very suspicious, and can seldom or never be taken with poisoned bait, trap, or gun. The poisoned baits are usually found broken up, but not eaten by them; traps are destroyed or entered, but not where the trapper desired; and guns, except when concealed after the Eskimo fashion by a covering of snow, are avoided.

In 1853, on the Arctic coast, when about to change our domicile from a tent to the warmer snow hut, my man had carried over about 100 lbs. or more of fine venison steaks to the snow houses about a quarter of a mile from our tents; and as there were at the time no traces either of foxes, wolves, or wolverines about, the meat was placed overnight in one of the huts, and the door left open. During the night two wolverines came, but, evidently dreading some trap or danger in the open door, would not enter that way, but cut a hole for themselves through the wall of the snow hut, and carried off all our fine steaks, a considerable quantity of which was picked up close to our house when the thaw took place in the spring, it having been hid in the snow, but completely spoilt for use, by a well-known filthy habit.

To the trapper the wolverines are equally annoying. When they have discovered a line of marten traps they will never abandon the road, and must be killed before the trapping can be successfully carried on. Beginning at one end, they proceed from trap to trap along the whole line, pulling them successively to pieces, and taking out the baits from behind. When they can eat no more, they continue to steal the baits and câche[349] them. If hungry they may devour two or three of the martens they find captured, the remainder being carried off and hidden in the snow at a considerable distance. The work of demolition goes on as fast as the traps can be renewed.

The propensity to steal and hide things is one of the strongest traits of the wolverine. To such an extent is it developed that the animal will often secrete articles of no possible use to itself. Besides the wanton destruction of marten traps, it will carry off the sticks and hide them at a distance, apparently in sheer malice. Mr. Ross, in the article above quoted, has given an amusing instance of the extreme of this propensity. The desire for accumulating property seems so deeply implanted in this animal, that, like tame ravens, it does not appear to care much what it steals so that it can exercise its favourite propensity to commit mischief. An instance occurred within my own knowledge, in which a hunter and his family having left their lodge unguarded during their absence, on their return found it completely gutted—the walls were there, but nothing else. Blankets, guns, kettles, axes, cans, knives, and all the other paraphernalia of a trapper's tent had vanished, and the tracks left by the beast showed who had been the thief. The family set to work, and by carefully following up all his paths recovered, with some trifling exceptions, the whole of the lost property.

At Peel's River, on one occasion, a very old carcajou discovered my marten road, on which I had nearly a hundred and fifty traps. I was in the habit of visiting the line about once a fortnight, but the beast fell into the way of coming oftener than I did, to my great annoyance and vexation. I determined to put a stop to his thieving and his life together, cost what it might. So I made six strong traps at as many different points, and also set three steel traps. For three weeks I tried my best to catch the beast without success; and my worst enemy would allow that I am no green hand in these matters. The animal carefully avoided the traps set for his own benefit, and seemed to be taking more delight than ever in demolishing my marten traps and eating the martens, scattering the poles in every direction, and câching what baits or martens he did not devour on the spot. As we had no poison in those days, I next set a gun on the bank of a little lake. The gun was concealed in some low bushes, but the bait was so placed that the carcajou must see it on his way up the bank. I blockaded my path to the gun with a small pine tree, which completely hid[350] it. On my first visit afterwards I found that the beast had gone up to the bait and smelled it, but had left it untouched. He had next pulled up the pine tree that blocked the path, and gone around the gun and cut the line which connected the bait with the trigger, just behind the muzzle. Then he had gone back and pulled the bait away, and carried it out on the lake, where he lay down and devoured it at his leisure. There I found my string. I could scarcely believe that all this had been done designedly, for it seemed that faculties fully on a par with human reason would be required for such an exploit if done intentionally. I therefore rearranged things, tying the string where it had been bitten. But the result was exactly the same for three successive occasions, as I could plainly see by the footprints; and what is most singular of all, each time the brute was careful to cut the line a little back of where it had been tied before, as if actually reasoning with himself that even the knots might be some new device of mine, and therefore a source of hidden danger he would prudently avoid. I came to the conclusion that that carcajou ought to live, as he must be something at least human, if not worse. I gave it up, and abandoned the road for a period.

With so much for the tricks and the manners of the beast behind our backs, roaming at will in his vast solitudes, what of his actions in the presence of man? It is said that if one only stands still, even in full view of an approaching carcajou, he will come within fifty or sixty yards, provided he be to windward, before he takes the alarm. Even then, if he be not warned by sense of smell, he seems in doubt, and will gaze earnestly several times before he finally concludes to take himself off. On these and similar occasions he has a singular habit—one not shared, so far as I am aware, by any other beast whatever. He sits on his haunches and shades his eyes with one of his fore-paws, just as a human being would do in scrutinising a dim or distant object. The carcajou, then, in addition to his other and varied accomplishments, is a perfect sceptic—to use this word in its original signification. A sceptic, with the Greeks, was simply one who would shade his eyes to see more clearly.

The animal with two cubs was being pursued by a party of sailors over an ice-field. She urged her young to an increase of speed by running before them, turning round, and manifesting, by a peculiar action and voice, her anxiety for their progress; but finding that her pursuers were gaining upon them, she carried, or pushed, or pitched them alternately forward, until she effected their escape. In throwing them before her, the little creatures placed themselves across her path to receive the impulse; and when projected some yards in advance, they ran onwards until she overtook them, when they alternately adjusted themselves for a second throw.

One Sunday, at the 'Zoo,' some one threw a bun to the bears, but it fell in the water in that quadrant-shaped pond you will[352] remember. The bun fell just at the angle, and the bear seemed disinclined to enter the water, but stood on the edge of the pond, and commenced stirring the water with its paw, so that it established a sort of rotatory current, which eventually brought the bun within reach. When one leg got tired it used the other, but in the same direction. I watched the whole performance with the greatest interest myself.

I have occasion just now to keep over thirty Himalayan rabbits in an outhouse. A short time ago it was observed that some of these rabbits had been attacked and slightly bitten by rats. Next day the person who feeds the rabbits observed, upon entering the outhouse, that nearly all the inmates were congregated in one corner; and upon going to ascertain the cause, found one rat dead, and another so much injured that it could scarcely run. Both rats were of an unusually large size, and their bodies were much mangled by the rabbits' teeth.

I never before knew that domestic rabbits would fight with any carnivorous antagonist. That wild rabbits never do so I infer from having several times seen ferrets turn out from the most crowded burrow in a warren young stoats and weasels not more than four inches long.

[356]

It is evident that the show-fight instinct cannot have been developed in Himalayan rabbits by means of natural selection, but it is no less evident that if it ever arose in wild rabbits it would be preserved and intensified by such means.

It is especially conscious of the scent left by its feet, and of the danger which threatens it in consequence; a reflection which implies as much knowledge of the habits of its enemies as of its own. When about to enter its seat for the purpose of rest, it leaps in various directions, and crosses and recrosses its path with repeated springs; and at last, by a leap of greater energy than it has yet used, it effects a lodgment in the selected spot, which is chosen rather to disarm suspicion than to protect it from injury. In the 'Manuel du Chasseur' some instances are quoted from an ancient volume on hunting by Jaques du Fouillouse. A hare intending to mislead its pursuers has been seen spontaneously to quit its seat and to proceed to a pond at the distance of nearly a mile, and having washed itself, push off again through a quantity of rushes. It has, too, been known, when pursued to fatigue by dogs, to thrust another hare from its seat and squat itself down in its place. This author has seen hares swim successively through two or three ponds, of which the smallest was eighty paces round. He has known it, after a long chase, to creep under the door of a sheep-house and rest among the cattle, and when the hounds were in pursuit, it would get into the middle of a flock of sheep and accompany them in all their motions round the field, refusing by any means to quit the shelter they afforded. The stratagem of its passing[358] forward on one side of a hedge and returning by the other, with only the breadth of the hedge between itself and its enemies, is of frequent occurrence, and it has even been known to select its seat close to the walls of a dog-kennel. This latter circumstance, however, is illustrative of the principles of reflection and reasoning; for the fox, weasel, and polecat are to the hare more dangerous enemies than the hound; and the situations chosen were such as those ferocious creatures were not likely to approach. A gentleman was engaged in the amusement of coursing, when a hare, closely pressed, passed under a gate, while the dogs followed by leaping over it. The delay caused to her pursuers by this manœuvre seems to have taught a sudden and useful lesson to the persecuted creature; for as soon as the dogs had cleared the gate and overtaken her, she doubled and returned under the gate as before, the dogs again following and passing over it. And this flirtation continued backwards and forwards until the dogs were fairly tired of the amusement; when the hare, taking advantage of their fatigue, quietly stole away.

A harbour of great extent on our northern coast has an island near the middle of considerable size, the nearest point of which is a mile distant from the mainland at high water, and with which point there is frequent communication by a ferry. Early one morning in spring two hares were observed to come down from the hills of the mainland towards the sea-side; one of which from time to time left its companion, and proceeding to the very edge of the water, stopped there a minute or two, and then returned to its mate. The tide was rising, and after waiting some time, one of them, exactly at high water, took to the sea, and swam rapidly over, in a straight line, to the opposite projecting point of land. The observer on this occasion, who was near the spot, but remained unperceived by the hares, had no doubt they were of different sexes, and that it was the male (like another Leander) which swam across the water, as he had probably done many times before. It was remarkable that the hares had remained on the shore nearly half an hour; one of them occasionally examining, as it would seem, the state of the current, and ultimately taking to the sea at that precise period of the tide called slackwater, when the passage across could be effected without being carried by the force of the stream[359] either above or below the desired point of landing. The other hare then cantered back to the hills. (Loudoun's 'Magazine of Natural History,' vol. v., p. 99.)

When followed by dogs, it will not run through a gate, though this is obviously the most ready passage; nor in crossing a hedge will it prefer a smooth and even part, but the roughest, where thorns and briars abound; and when it mounts an eminence it proceeds obliquely, and not straightforward. And whether we suppose these actions to proceed from a desire to avoid those places where traps may probably have been laid, or from knowing that his pursuers will exactly follow his footsteps, and he has resolved to lead them through as many obstacles as possible, in either case an estimation of causes and consequences is to be discovered.

Puss was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows, . . . . and by constant care, &c., restored him to perfect health. No creature could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery, a sentiment which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it unsaluted;[360] a ceremony which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden. . . . . I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty before he began to be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such expression as it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his teeth and pull it with all his force. He seemed to be happier in human society than when shut up with his natural companions.

As to oil, rats have been known to get oil out of a narrow-necked bottle in the following way:—One of them would place himself, on some convenient support, by the side of the bottle, and then, dipping his tail into the oil, would give it to another to lick. In this act there is something more than what we call instinct; there is reason and understanding.[216]

A box containing some bottles of Florence oil was placed in a store-room which was seldom opened; the box had no lid to it. On going to the room one day for one of the bottles, the owner found that the pieces of bladder and cotton at the mouth of each bottle had disappeared, and that much of the contents of the bottles had been consumed. The circumstance having excited suspicion, a few bottles were refilled with oil, and the mouths of them secured as before. Next morning the coverings of the bottles had been removed, and some of the oil was gone. However, upon watching the room, which was done through a little window, some rats were seen to get into the box, and insert their tails into the necks of the bottles, and then withdrawing them, they licked off the oil which adhered to them.[217]

It is, I believe, pretty generally supposed that rats and mice use their tails for feeding purposes when the food to be eaten is contained in vessels too narrow to admit the entire body of the animal. I am not aware, however, that the truth of this supposition has ever been actually tested by any trustworthy person, and so think the following simple experiments are worth publishing. Having obtained a couple of tall-shaped preserve bottles with rather short and narrow necks, I filled them to within three inches of the top with red currant jelly which had only half stiffened. I covered the bottles with bladder in the ordinary way, and then stood them in a place infested by rats. Next morning the bladder covering each of the bottles had a small hole gnawed through it, and the level of the jelly was reduced in both bottles to the same extent. Now, as this extent corresponded to about the length of a rat's tail if inserted at the hole in the bladder, and as this hole was not much more than just large enough to admit the root of this organ, I do not see that any further evidence is required to prove the manner in which the rats obtained the jelly, viz., by repeatedly introducing their tails into the viscid matter, and as repeatedly licking them clean. However, to put the question beyond doubt, I refilled the bottles to the extent of half an inch above the jelly level left by the rats, and having placed a circle of moist paper upon each of the jelly surfaces, covered the bottles with bladder as before. I now left the bottles in a place where there were no rats or mice, until a good crop of mould had grown upon one of the moistened pieces of paper. The bottle containing this crop of mould I then transferred to the place where the rats were numerous. Next morning the bladder had again been eaten through at one edge, and upon the mould there were numerous and distinct tracings of the rats' tails, resembling marks made with the top of a pen-holder. These tracings were evidently caused by the animals sweeping their tails about in a fruitless endeavour to find a hole in the circle of paper which covered the jelly.

One of their nests I procured this autumn, most artificially plaited and composed of blades of wheat, perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball, with the aperture so ingeniously closed that there was no discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As the nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with the young ones, which, moreover, would be daily increasing in size. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat field, suspended on the head of a thistle.

The life of the harvester rat is divided between eating and fighting. It seems to have no other passion than that of rage, which induces it to attack every animal that comes in its way, without in the least attending to the superior strength of its enemy. Ignorant of the art of saving itself by flight, rather[366] than yield, it will allow itself to be beaten to pieces with a stick. If it seizes a man's hand, it must be killed before it will quit its hold. The magnitude of the horse terrifies it as little as the address of the dog, which last is fond of hunting it. When a harvester perceives a dog at a distance, it begins by emptying its cheek-pouches, if they happen to be filled with grain; it then blows them up so prodigiously, that the size of the head and neck greatly exceeds that of the rest of the body. It rears itself upon its hind legs, and thus darts upon the enemy. If it catches hold, it never quits it but with the loss of its life; but the dog generally seizes it behind, and strangles it. This ferocious disposition prevents it from being at peace with any animal whatever. It even makes war against its own species. When two harvesters meet, they never fail to attack each other, and the stronger always devours the weaker. A combat between a male and a female commonly lasts longer than between two males. They begin by pursuing and biting each other, then each of them retires aside, as if to take breath. After a short interval they renew the combat, and continue to fight till one of them falls. The vanquished uniformly serves as a repast to the conqueror.

These are made with great skill, and in the most artistic manner. One is straight, or as nearly so as possible, with its floor, which is of course under water, an inclined plane, rising gradually from the bottom of the pond into the chamber; while the other is abrupt in its descent, and often sinuous in its course. The first we shall call the 'wood entrance,' from its evident design to facilitate the admission into the chamber of their wood cuttings, upon which they subsist during the season of winter. These cuttings, as will elsewhere be shown, are of such size and length that such an entrance is absolutely necessary for their free admission into the lodge. The other, which we shall call the 'beaver entrance,' is the ordinary run-way for their exit and return. It is usually abrupt, and often winding. In the lodge under consideration, the wood entrance descended from the outer run of the chamber entrance about ten feet to the bottom of the pond in a straight line, and upon an inclined plane; while the other, emerging from the line of the chamber at the side, descended quite abruptly to the bottom of the moat or trench, through which the beavers must pass, in open water, out into the pond. Both entrances were rudely arched, with a roof of interlaced sticks filled in with mud intermixed with vegetable fibre, and were extended to the bottom[369] of the pond or trench, with the exception of the opening at their ends. At the places where they were constructed through the floor they were finished with neatness and precision; the upper parts and sides forming an arch more or less regular, while the bottom and floor edges were formed with firm and compacted earth, in which small sticks were embedded. It is difficult to realise the artistic appearance of some of these entrances without actual inspection.

One is situated upon the bank of the stream or pond, a few feet back from its edge, and entered by an underground passage from the bed of the stream, excavated through the natural earth up into the chamber. The other is situated upon the edge of the bank, a portion of it projecting over and resting upon the bed of the channel, so as to have the floor of the chamber rest upon the bank as upon solid ground, while the external wall on the pond side projects beyond it, and is built up from the bottom of the pond.

The beaver is a burrowing animal. Indulging this propensity, he excavates chambers underground, and constructs artificial lodges upon its surface, both of which are indispensable to his security and happiness. The lodge is but a burrow above ground, covered with an artificial roof, and possesses some advantages over the latter as a place for rearing young.

There are reasons for believing that the burrow is the normal residence of the beavers, and that the lodge grew out of it, in the progress of their experience, by a process of natural suggestion. . . . . In addition to the lodge, the same beavers who inhabit it have burrows in the banks surrounding the pond. They never risk their personal safety upon their lodge alone, which, being conspicuous to their enemies, is liable to attack. . . . . As the entrances are always below the surface level of the pond, there are no external indications to mark the site of the burrow,

It is but a step from such a surface-pile of sticks to a lodge, with its chamber above ground, and the previous burrow as its entrance from the pond. A burrow accidentally broken through at its upper end, and repaired with a covering of sticks and earth, would lead to a lodge above ground, and thus inaugurate a beaver lodge out of a broken burrow.

The severity of the climate in these high northern latitudes lays upon them the necessity of so locating their lodges as to be assured of water deep enough in their entrances, and also so protected in other respects, as not to freeze to the bottom;[222] otherwise they would perish with hunger, locked up in ice-bound habitations. To guard against this danger, the dam, also, must be sufficiently stable through the winter to maintain the water at a constant level; and this level, again, must be so adjusted with reference to the floor of the lodge as to enable them, at all times, to take in their cuttings from without as they are needed for food. When they leave their normal mode of life in the banks of the rivers, and undertake to live in dependence upon artificial ponds of their own formation, they are compelled to prevent the consequences of their acts at the peril of their lives.

In moving cuttings of this description they are quite ingenious. They shove and roll them with their hips, using also their legs and tails as levers, moving sideways in the act. In this way they move the larger pieces from the more or less[373] elevated ground on which the deciduous trees are found, over the uneven but generally descending surface to the pond. . . . . After one of these cuttings has been transported to the water, a beaver, placing one end of it under his throat, pushes it before him to the place where it is to be sunk.

As the dam is not an absolute necessity to the beaver for the maintenance of his life—his normal habitation being rather natural ponds and rivers, and the burrows in their banks—it is,[374] in itself considered, a remarkable fact that he should have voluntarily transferred himself, by means of dams and ponds of his own construction, from a natural to an artificial mode of life.

Some of the dams in this region are not less remarkable for their prodigious length, a statement of which, in fact, would scarcely be credited unless verified by actual measurement. The largest one yet mentioned measures 260 feet, but there are dams 400 and even 500 feet long.

There is a dam in two sections, situated upon a tributary of the main branch of the Esconauba River, about a mile and a half north-west of the Washington Main. One section measures 110 and the other 400 feet, with an interval of natural bank, worked here and there, of 1,000 feet. A solid-bank dam, 20 feet in length, was first constructed across the channel of the stream, from bank to bank, with the usual opening for the surplus water, five feet wide. As the water rose and overflowed the bank on the left side, the dam was extended for 90 feet, until it reached ground high enough to confine the pond. This natural bank extended up the stream, and nearly parallel with it, for 1,000 feet, where the ground again subsided, and allowed the water in the upper part of the pond to flow out and around into the channel of the stream below the dam. To meet this emergency a second dam, 420 feet long, was constructed. For the greater part of its length it is low, but in some places it is two and a half and three feet high, and constructed of stick-work on the land, and with an earth embankment on its outer face. In effect, therefore, it is one structure 1,530 feet in length, of which 530 feet in two sections is artificial, and the remainder natural bank, but worked here and there where depressions in the ground required raising by artificial means.

A dam at this point is apparently of no conceivable use to improve the lake for beaver occupation. It has one feature, also, in which it differs from other dams except those upon lake outlets, and that consists in its elevation, at all points, of about two feet above the level of the lake at ordinary stages of the water. In all other dams, except those upon lake outlets, and in most of the latter, the water stands quite near their crests, while in the one under consideration it stood about two feet below it. This fact suggests at least the inference, although it may have but little of probability to sustain it, that it was constructed with special reference to sudden rises of the lake in times of freshet, and that it was designed to hold this surplus water until it could be gradually discharged through the dam into the great space below. It would at least subserve this purpose very efficiently, and thus protect the dam below it from the effects of freshets. To ascribe the origin of this dam to such motives of intelligence is to invest this animal with a higher degree of sagacity than we have probable reason to[379] concede to him, and yet it is proper to mention the relation in which these dams stand to each other—whether that relation is regarded as accidental or intentional.

Remarkable as the dam may still be considered, from its structure and objects, it scarcely surpasses, if it may be said to equal, these water-ways, here called canals, which are excavated through the low lands bordering their ponds for the purpose of reaching the hard wood, and for affording a channel for its transportation to their lodges. To conceive and execute such a design presupposes a more complicated and extended process of reasoning than that required for the construction of a dam, and, although a much simpler work to perform when the thought was fully developed, it was far less to have been expected from a mute animal.

Where the pond fails to accomplish this fully, and also where the banks are defined and mark the limits of the pond, the deficiency is supplied by the canals in question. On descending surfaces, as has elsewhere been stated, beavers roll and drag their short cuttings down into the ponds. But where the ground is low it is generally so uneven and rough as to render it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the beavers to move them for any considerable distance by physical force. Hence the canal for floating them across the intervening level ground to the pond. The necessity for it is so apparent as to diminish our astonishment at its construction; and yet that the beaver should devise a canal to surmount this difficulty is not the less remarkable.

The crests of these dams where they cross the canals are depressed, or worn down, in the centre, by the constant passage of beavers over them while going to and fro and dragging their cuttings. This canal with its adjuncts of dams and its manifest objects is a remarkable work, transcending very much the ordinary estimates of the intelligence of the beaver. It served to bring the occupants of the pond into easy connection by water with the trees that supplied them with food, as well as to relieve them from the tedious and perhaps impossible task of transporting their cuttings 500 feet over uneven ground unassisted by any descent.

After the rising ground, and with it the hard wood trees, were reached at the point where it branches, there was no very urgent necessity for the branches. But their construction along the base of the high ground gave them a frontage upon the canal of 215 feet of hard-wood lands, thus affording to them, along this extended line, the great advantages of water transportation for their cuttings.

On one occasion two elephant-drivers, each with his elephant, the one remarkably large and strong, and the other comparatively small and weak, were at the well together; the small elephant had been provided by his master with a bucket for the occasion, which he carried on the end of his proboscis, but the larger animal, being destitute of this necessary vessel, either spontaneously, or by the desire of his keeper, seized the bucket, and easily wrested it from his less powerful fellow-servant; the latter was too sensible of his inferiority openly to resent the insult, though it is obvious that he felt it; but great squabbling and abuse ensued between the keepers. At length the weaker animal, watching the opportunity when the other was standing with his side to the well, retired backwards a few paces in a very quiet and unsuspicious manner, and then, rushing forward with all his might, drove his head against the side of the other, and fairly pushed him into the well.

Some years ago an elephant which had been wounded by a native, near Hambangtotte, pursued the man into the town, followed him along the street, trampled him to death in the bazaar before a crowd of terrified spectators, and succeeded in making good its retreat to the jungle.

The devotion and loyalty which the herd evince to their leader are very remarkable. This is more readily seen in the case of a tusker than any other, because in a herd he is generally the object of the keenest pursuit by the hunters. On such occasions the others do their utmost to protect him from danger: when driven to extremity they place their leader in the centre[390] and crowd so eagerly in front of him that the sportsmen have to shoot a number which they might otherwise have spared. In one instance a tusker, which was badly wounded by Major Rogers, was promptly surrounded by his companions, who supported him between their shoulders, and actually succeeded in covering his retreat to the forest.

In July 1810, the largest elephant ever seen in England was advertised as 'just arrived.' As soon as Henry Harris, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, heard of it, he determined, if possible, to obtain it; for it struck him that if it were to be introduced into the new pantomime of 'Harlequin Padmenaba,' which he was about to produce at great cost, it would add greatly to its attraction. Under this impression, and before the proprietor of Exeter Change had seen it, he purchased it for the sum of 900 guineas. Mrs. Henry Johnston was to ride it, and Miss Parker, the columbine, was to play up to it. Young happened to be one morning at the box-office adjoining Covent Garden Theatre, when his ears were assailed by a strange and unusual uproar within the walls. On asking one of the carpenters the cause of it, he was told 'it was something going wrong with the elephant; he could not exactly tell what.' I am not aware what the usage may be nowadays, but then, whenever a new piece had been announced for presentation on a given night, and there was but scant time for its preparation, a rehearsal would take place after the night's regular performance was over, and the audience had been dismissed. One such there had been the night before my father's curiosity had been roused. As it had been arranged that Mrs. Henry Johnston, seated in[391] a howdah on the elephant's back, should pass over a bridge in the centre of a numerous group of followers, it was thought expedient that the unwieldy monster's tractability should be tested. On stepping up to the bridge, which was slight and temporary, the sagacious brute drew back his fore-feet and refused to budge. It is well known as a fact in natural history that the elephant, aware of his unusual bulk, will never trust its weight on any object which is unequal to its support. The stage-manager, seeing how resolutely the animal resisted every attempt made to compel or induce it to go over the bridge in question, proposed that they should stay proceedings till next day, when he might be in a better mood. It was during the repetition of the experiment that my father, having heard the extraordinary sounds, determined to go upon the stage, and see if he could ascertain the cause of them. The first sight that met his eyes kindled his indignation. There stood the high animal, with downcast eyes and flapping ears, meekly submitting to blow after blow from a sharp iron goad, which his keeper was driving ferociously into the fleshy part of his neck, at the root of the ear. The floor on which he stood was converted into a pool of blood. One of the proprietors, impatient at what he regarded as senseless obstinacy, kept urging the driver to proceed to still severer extremities, when Charles Young, who was a great lover of animals, expostulated with him, went up to the poor patient sufferer, and patted and caressed him; and when the driver was about to wield his instrument again, with even still more vigour, he caught him by the wrist as in a vice, and stayed his hand from further violence. While an angry altercation was going on between Young and the man of colour, who was the driver, Captain Hay, of the Ashel, who had brought over 'Chuny' in his ship, and had petted him greatly on the voyage, came in and begged to know what was the matter. Before a word of explanation could be given, the much-wronged creature spoke for himself; for, as soon as he perceived the entrance of his patron, he waddled up to him, and, with a look of gentle appeal, caught hold of his hand with his proboscis, plunged it into his bleeding wound, and then thrust it before his eyes. The gesture seemed to say, as plainly as if it had been enforced by speech, 'See how these cruel men treat Chuny. Can you approve of it?' The hearts of the hardest present were sensibly touched by what they saw, and among them that of the gentleman who had been so energetic in promoting its harsh treatment. It was under a far better impulse that he ran out into the street, purchased a few apples at[392] a stall, and offered them to him. Chuny eyed him askance, took them, threw them beneath his feet, and when he had crushed them to pulp, spurned them from him. Young, who had gone into Covent Garden on the same errand as the gentleman who had preceded him, shortly after re-entered, and also held out to him some fruit, when, to the astonishment of the bystanders, the elephant ate every morsel, and after he had done so, twined his trunk with studied gentleness around Young's waist, marking by his action that, though he had resented a wrong, he did not forget a kindness.

It was in the year 1814 that Harris parted with Chuny to Cross, the proprietor of the menagerie at Exeter Change. One of the purchaser's first acts was to send Charles Young a life ticket of admission to his exhibition; and it was one of his little innocent vanities, when passing through the Strand with any friend, to drop in on Chuny, pay him a visit in his den, and show the intimate relations which existed between them. Some years after, when the elephant's theatrical career was run, and he was reduced to play the part of captive in one of the cages of Exeter Change, a thoughtless dandy one day amused himself by teasing him with the repeated offer of lettuces—a vegetable for which he was known to have an antipathy. At last he presented him with an apple, but, at the moment of his taking it, drove a large pin into his trunk, and then sprang out of big reach. The keeper seeing that the poor creature was getting angry, warned the silly fellow off, lest he should become dangerous. With a contemptuous shrug of the shoulder, he trudged off to the other end of the gallery, and there displayed his cruel ingenuity on other humbler beasts, till, after the absence of half-an-hour, he once more approached one of the cages opposite the elephant's. By this time he had forgotten his pranks with Chuny, but Chuny had not forgotten him; and as he was standing with his back towards him, he thrust his proboscis through the bars of his prison, twitched off the offender's hat, dragged it in to him, tore it to shreds, then threw it into the face of the offending gaby, consummating his revenge with a loud guffaw of exultation. All present proclaimed their approbation of this act of retributive justice, and the discomfited coxcomb had to retreat from the scene in confusion, jump into a hackney coach, and betake himself to the hatter's in quest of a new tile for his unroofed skull. The tragic end of poor Chuny must be within the recollection of many of my readers. From some cause unknown he went mad, and after poison had been tried in vain it took 152 shots, discharged by a detachment of the Guards, to despatch him.[237]

If by any accident an elephant becomes hopelessly separated from his own herd, he is not permitted to attach himself to any other. He may browse in the vicinity, or frequent the same place to drink and to bathe; but the intercourse is only on a distant and conventional footing, and no familiarity or intimate association is under any circumstances permitted. To such a height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own party in the mêlée and confusion, has been driven into the enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted to insinuate himself within the circle which they had formed for common security. There can be no reasonable doubt that this jealous and exclusive policy not only contributes to produce, but mainly serves to perpetuate, the class of solitary elephants which are known by the term goondahs in India, and which from their vicious propensities and predatory habits are called Hora, or Rogues, in Ceylon.[239]

We had, says the writer, calculated to come up with the brute where it had been seen half an hour before; but no sooner had one of our men, who was walking foremost, seen the animal at the distance of some fifteen or twenty fathoms, than he exclaimed, 'There! there!' and immediately took to his heels, and we all followed his example. The elephant did not see us until we had run some fifteen or twenty paces from the spot where we turned, when he gave us chase, screaming frightfully as he came on. The Englishman managed to climb a tree, and the rest of my companions did the same; as for myself, I could not, although I made one or two superhuman efforts. But there was no time to be lost. The elephant was running at me with his trunk bent down in a curve towards the ground. At this critical moment Mr. Lindsay held out his foot to me, with the help of which and then of the branches of the tree, which were three or four feet above my head, I managed to scramble up to a branch. The elephant came directly to the tree and attempted to force it down, which he could not. He first coiled his trunk round the stem, and pulled it with all his might, but with no effect. He then applied his head to the tree, and pushed for several minutes, but with no better success. He then trampled with his feet all the projecting roots, moving, as he did so, several times round and round the tree. Lastly, failing in all this, and seeing a pile of timber, which I had lately cut, at a short distance from us, he removed it all (thirty-six pieces) one at a time to the root of the tree, and piled them up in a regular business-like manner; then placing his hind feet on this pile, he raised the fore part of his body, and reached out his trunk, but still he could not touch us, as we were too far above him. The Englishman then fired, and the ball took effect somewhere on the elephant's head, but did not kill him. It made him only the more furious. The next shot, however, levelled him to the ground. I afterwards brought the skull of the animal to Colombo, and it is still to be seen at the house of Mr. Armitage.[240]

Amongst the last of the elephants noosed was the rogue. Though far more savage than the others, he joined in none of their charges and assaults on the fences, as they uniformly drove him off, and would not permit him to enter their circle. When dragged past another of his companions in misfortune, who was lying exhausted on the ground, he flew upon him and attempted to fasten his teeth in his head; this was the only instance of viciousness which occurred during the progress of the corral. When tied up and overpowered, he was at first noisy and violent, but soon lay down peacefully, a sign, according to the hunters, that his death was at hand. Their prognostication was correct; he continued for about twelve hours to cover himself with dust like the others, and to moisten it with water from his trunk; but at length he lay exhausted, and died so calmly, that having been moving but a few moments before, his death was only perceived by the myriads of black flies by which his body was almost instantly covered, although not one was visible a moment before.[241]

In the process of taming, the presence of the tame ones can generally be dispensed with after two months, and the captive may then be ridden by the driver alone; and after three or four months he may be entrusted with labour, so far as regards docility; but it is undesirable, and even involves the risk of life, to work an elephant too soon; it has frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believed to be 'broken heart,' certainly without any cause inferable from injury or previous disease.[243]

This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders, and belonged to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty; his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the attendant decoys. He on one occasion escaped, but was recaptured in the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such was his terror on approaching the fort, that on coaxing him to enter the gate he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to, and died on the spot.

He looked up, shook his head, and when forced by his driver, roared piteously. There can be no question, in my opinion, but that this sagacious animal was competent instinctively to judge of the practicability of the artificial flight of steps thus constructed; for the moment some little alteration had been made, he seemed willing to approach. He then commenced his examination and scrutiny by pressing with his trunk the trees that had been thrown across; and after this he put his fore-leg on with great caution. . . . . The next step for him to ascend by was a projecting rock, which he could not remove. Here the same sagacious examination took place, the elephant keeping his flat side close to the side of the trunk, and leaning against it. The next step was against a tree, but this, on the first pressure of his trunk, he did not like. Here the driver made use of the most endearing epithets, such as 'Wonderful,' 'My life,' 'Well done, my dear,' 'My dove,' 'My son,' 'My wife;' but all these endearing appellations, of which elephants are so fond, would not induce him to try again. Force was at length resorted to, and the elephant roared terrifically, but would not move.

On reaching the top his delight was visible in a most eminent degree; he caressed his keepers, and threw dirt about in a most playful manner. Another elephant, a much younger animal,[398] had now to follow. He had watched the ascent of the other with the utmost interest, making motions all the while as though he was assisting him by shouldering him up the acclivity, in such gestures as I have seen some men make when spectators of gymnastic exercises. When he saw his comrade up, he evinced his pleasure by giving a salute something like the sound of a trumpet. When called upon to take his turn, however, he seemed much alarmed, and would not act at all without force.

I have seen, as I dare say have others, that when a small object is thrown on the ground beyond the reach of one of the elephants at the Zoological Gardens, he blows through his trunk on the ground beyond the object, so that the current reflected on all sides may drive the object within his reach.[246]

Of the elephant's sense and judgment the following instance is given as a well-known fact in a letter of Dr. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, to his son in England, printed in a Life of the bishop, published a few years ago. An elephant belonging to an Engineer officer in his diocese had a disease in his eyes, and had for three days been completely blind. His owner asked Dr. Webb, a physician intimate with the bishop, if he could do anything for the relief of the animal. Dr. Webb replied that he was willing to try, on one of the eyes, the effect of nitrate of silver, which was a remedy commonly used for similar diseases in the human eye. The animal was accordingly made to lie down, and when the nitrate of silver was applied, uttered a terrific roar at the acute pain which it occasioned. But the effect of the application was wonderful, for the eye was in a great degree restored, and the elephant could partially see. The doctor was in consequence ready to operate similarly on the other eye on the following day; and the animal, when he was brought out and heard the doctor's voice, lay down of himself, placed his head quietly on one side, curled up his trunk, drew in his breath like a human being about to endure a painful operation, gave a sigh of relief when it was over, and then, by motions of his trunk and other gestures, gave evident signs of wishing to express his gratitude. Here we plainly see in the elephant memory, understanding, and reasoning from one thing to another. The animal remembered the benefit that he had felt from the application to one eye, and when he was brought to the same place on the following day and heard the operator's voice, he concluded that a like service was to be done to his other eye.

In the last war in India a young elephant received a violent wound in its head, the pain of which rendered it so frantic and ungovernable that it was found impossible to persuade the animal to have the part dressed. Whenever any one approached[400] it ran off with fury, and would suffer no person to come within several yards of it. The man who had care of it at length hit upon a contrivance for securing it. By a few words and signs he gave the mother of the animal sufficient intelligence of what was wanted; the sensible creature immediately seized her young one with her trunk, and held it firmly down, though groaning with agony, while the surgeon completely dressed the wound; and she continued to perform this service every day till the animal was perfectly recovered.[250]

Nothing can more strongly exhibit the impulse to obedience in the elephant than the patience with which, at the order of his keeper, he swallows the nauseous medicines of the native elephant-doctors; and it is impossible to witness the fortitude with which (without shrinking) he submits to excruciating surgical operations for the removal of tumours and ulcers to which he is subject, without conceiving a vivid impression of his gentleness and intelligence. Dr. Davy when in Ceylon was consulted about an elephant in the Government stud, which was suffering from a deep, burrowing sore in the back, just over the back-bone, which had long resisted the treatment ordinarily employed. He recommended the use of the knife, that issue might be given to the accumulated matter, but no one of the attendants was competent to undertake the operation. 'Being assured,' he continues, 'that the creature would behave well, I undertook it myself. The elephant was not bound, but was made to kneel down at his keeper's command; and with an amputating knife, using all my force, I made the incision required through the tough integuments. The elephant did not flinch, but rather inclined towards me when using the knife; and merely uttered a low, and as it were suppressed groan. In short, he behaved as like a human being as possible, as if conscious (as I believe he was) that the operation was for his good, and the pain unavoidable.'

What I particularly wish to observe is that there are good reasons for supposing that elephants possess abstract ideas; for instance, I think it is impossible to doubt that they acquire through their own experience notions of hardness and weight, and the grounds on which I am led to think this are as follows.[402] A captured elephant after he has been taught his ordinary duty, say about three months after he is taken, is taught to pick up things from the ground and give them to his mahout sitting on his shoulders. Now for the first few months it is dangerous to require him to pick up anything but soft articles, such as clothes, because the things are often handed up with considerable force. After a time, longer with some elephants than others, they appear to take in a knowledge of the nature of the things they are required to lift, and the bundle of clothes will be thrown up sharply as before, but heavy things, such as a crowbar or piece of iron chain, will be handed up in a gentle manner; a sharp knife will be picked up by its handle and placed on the elephant's head, so that the mahout can also take it by the handle. I have purposely given elephants things to lift which they could never have seen before, and they were all handled in such a manner as to convince me that they recognised such qualities as hardness, sharpness, and weight. You are quite at liberty to make any use of these remarks you please if they are of service.

One was of prodigious age, having been in the service of the Dutch and English Governments in succession for upwards of a century. The other, called by her keeper 'Siribeddi,' was about fifty years old, and distinguished for gentleness and docility. She was a most accomplished decoy, and evinced the utmost relish for the sport. Having entered the corral noiselessly, carrying a mahout on her shoulders with the headman of[403] the noosers seated behind him, she moved slowly along with a sly composure and an assumed air of easy indifference; sauntering leisurely in the direction of the captives, and halting now and then to pluck a bunch of grass or a few leaves as she passed. As she approached the herd they put themselves in motion to meet her, and the leader, having advanced in front and passed his trunk gently over her head, turned and paced slowly back to his dejected companions. Siribeddi followed with the same listless step, and drew herself up close behind him, thus affording the nooser an opportunity to stoop under her and slip the noose over the hind foot of the wild one. The latter instantly perceived his danger, shook off the rope, and turned to attack the man. He would have suffered for his temerity had not Siribeddi protected him by raising her trunk and driving the assailant into the midst of the herd, when the old man, being slightly wounded, was helped out of the corral, and his son, Ranghanie, took his place.

The herd again collected in a circle, with their heads towards the centre. The largest male was singled out, and two tame ones pushed boldly in, one on either side of him, till the three stood nearly abreast. He made no resistance, but betrayed his uneasiness by shifting restlessly from foot to foot. Ranghanie now crept up, and holding the rope open with both hands (its other extremity being made fast to Siribeddi's collar), and watching the instant when the wild elephant lifted its hind foot, succeeded in passing the noose over its leg, drew it close, and fled to the rear. The two tame elephants instantly fell back, Siribeddi stretched the rope to its full length, and whilst she dragged out the captive, her companion placed himself between her and the herd to prevent any interference.

In order to tie him to a tree he had to be drawn backwards some twenty or thirty yards, making furious resistance, bellowing in terror, plunging on all sides, and crushing the smaller timber, which bent like reeds beneath his clumsy struggles. Siribeddi drew him steadily after her, and wound the rope round the proper tree, holding it all the time at its full tension, and stepping cautiously across it when, in order to give it a second turn, it was necessary to pass between the tree and the elephant. With a coil round the stem, however, it was beyond her strength to haul the prisoner close up, which was, nevertheless, necessary in order to make him perfectly fast; but the second tame one, perceiving the difficulty, returned from the herd, confronted the struggling prisoner,[404] pushed him shoulder to shoulder, and head to head, forcing him backwards, whilst at every step Siribeddi hauled in the slackened rope till she brought him fairly up to the foot of the tree, where he was made fast by the cooroowe people. A second noose was then passed over the other hind-leg, and secured like the first, both legs being afterwards hobbled together by ropes made from the fibre of the kitool or jaggery palm, which, being more flexible than that of the cocoa-nut, occasions less formidable ulcerations. The two decoys then ranged themselves, as before, abreast of the prisoner on either side, thus enabling Ranghanie to stoop under them and noose the two fore-feet as he had already done the hind; and these ropes being made fast to the tree in front, the capture was complete, and the tame elephants and keepers withdrew to repeat the operation on another of the herd.

The second victim singled out from the herd was secured in the same manner as the first. It was a female. The tame ones forced themselves in on either side as before, cutting her off from her companions, whilst Ranghanie stooped under them and attached the fatal noose, and Siribeddi dragged her out amidst unavailing struggles, when she was made fast by each leg to the nearest group of strong trees. When the noose was placed upon her fore-foot, she seized it with her trunk, and succeeded in carrying it to her mouth, where she would speedily have severed it had not a tame elephant interfered, and placing his foot on the rope pressed it downwards out of her jaws. . . . . The conduct of the tame ones during all these proceedings was truly wonderful. They displayed the most perfect conception of every movement, both of the object to be attained and of the means to accomplish it. They manifested the utmost enjoyment in what was going on. There was no ill-humour, no malignity in the spirit displayed, in what was otherwise a heartless proceeding, but they set about it in a way that showed a thorough relish for it, as an agreeable pastime. Their caution was as remarkable as their sagacity; there was no hurrying, no confusion, they never ran foul of the ropes, were never in the way of the animals already noosed; and amidst the most violent struggles, when the tame ones had frequently to step across the captives, they in no instance trampled on them, or occasioned the slightest accident or annoyance. So far from this, they saw intuitively a difficulty or a danger, and addressed themselves unbidden to remove it. In tying up one of the larger elephants, he contrived, before he could be hauled close up to the tree, to walk once or twice round it, carrying the[405] rope with him; the decoy, perceiving the advantage he had thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord, and pushed him backwards with her head, till she made him unwind himself again; upon which the rope was hauled tight and made fast. More than once, when a wild one was extending his trunk, and would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg, Siribeddi, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed his aside, and prevented him; and on one occasion, when successive efforts had failed to put the noose over the fore-leg of an elephant which was already secured by one foot, but which wisely put the other to the ground as often as it was attempted to pass the noose under it, I saw the decoy watch her opportunity, and when his foot was again raised, suddenly push in her own leg beneath it, and hold it up till the noose was attached and drawn tight.

One could almost fancy there was a display of dry humour in the manner in which the decoys thus played with the fears of the wild herd, and made light of their efforts at resistance. When reluctant they shoved them forward, when violent they drove them back; when the wild ones threw themselves down, the tame ones butted them with head and shoulders, and forced them up again. And when it was necessary to keep them down, they knelt upon them, and prevented them from rising, till the ropes were secured.

At every moment of leisure they fanned themselves with a bunch of leaves, and the graceful ease with which an elephant uses his trunk on such occasions is very striking. It is doubtless owing to the combination of a circular with a horizontal movement in that flexible limb; but it is impossible to see an elephant fanning himself without being struck by the singular elegance of motion which he displays. The tame ones, too, indulged in the luxury of dusting themselves with sand, by flinging it from their trunks; but it was a curious illustration of their delicate sagacity, that so long as the mahout was on their necks, they confined themselves to flinging the dust along their sides and stomach, as if aware that to throw it over their heads and back would cause annoyance to their riders.[254]

It has been asserted that in their occupations 'elephants are to a surprising extent the creatures of habit,' that their movements are altogether mechanical, and that 'they are annoyed by any deviation from their accustomed practice, and resent any constrained departure from the regularity of their course.' So far as my own observation goes, this is incorrect; and I am assured by officers of experience, that in regard to changing his treatment, his hours or his occupation, an elephant evinces no more consideration than a horse, but exhibits the same pliancy and facility.

At one point, however, the utility of the elephant stops short. Such is the intelligence and earnestness he displays in work, which he seems to conduct almost without supervision, that it has been assumed that he would continue his labour, and accomplish his given task, as well in the absence of his keeper as during his presence. But here his innate love of ease displays itself, and if the eye of his attendant be withdrawn, the moment he has finished the thing immediately in hand, he will stroll away lazily, to browse or enjoy the luxury of fanning himself and blowing dust over his back.

The means of punishing so powerful an animal is a question of difficulty to his attendants. Force being almost inapplicable, they try to work on his passions and feelings, by such expedients as altering the nature of his food or withholding it altogether for a time. On such occasions the demeanour of the creature will sometimes evince a sense of humiliation as well as of discontent. In some parts of India it is customary, in dealing with offenders, to stop their allowance of sugar canes or of jaggery; or to restrain them from eating their own share of fodder and leaves till their companions shall have finished;[407] and in such cases the consciousness of degradation betrayed by the looks and attitudes of the culprit is quite sufficient to identify him, and to excite a feeling of sympathy and pity.

The elephant's obedience to his keeper is the result of affection, as well as of fear; and although his attachment becomes so strong that an elephant in Ceylon has been known to remain out all night, without food, rather than abandon his mahout, lying intoxicated in the jungle, yet he manifests little difficulty in yielding the same submission to a new driver in the event of a change of attendants.[255]

One evening, whilst riding in the vicinity of Candy, towards the scene of the massacre of Major Dabies' party in 1803, my horse evinced some excitement at a noise which approached us in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repetition of the ejaculation urmph! urmph! in a hoarse and dissatisfied tone. A turn in the forest explained the mystery, by bringing us face to face with a tame elephant, unaccompanied by any attendant. He was labouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber, which he balanced across his tusks, but, the pathway being narrow, he was forced to bend his head to one side to permit it to pass endways; and the exertion and this inconvenience combined led him to utter the dissatisfied sounds which disturbed the composure of my horse. On seeing us halt, the elephant raised his head, reconnoitred us for a moment, then flung down the timber, and voluntarily forced himself backwards among the brushwood so as to leave a passage, of which he expected us to avail ourselves. My horse hesitated: the elephant observed it, and impatiently thrust himself deeper into the jungle, repeating his cry of urmph! but in a voice evidently meant to encourage us to advance. Still the horse trembled; and, anxious to observe the instinct of the two sagacious animals, I forebore any interference: again the elephant of his own accord wedged himself further in amongst the trees, and manifested some impatience that we did not pass him. At length the horse moved forward; and when we were fairly past, I saw the wise creature stoop and take up its heavy burden, trim and balance it on its tusks, and resume its route as before, hoarsely snorting its discontented remonstrance.

In Central Park one very hot day my attention was drawn to the conduct of an elephant which had been placed in an enclosure in the open air. On the ground was a large heap of newly-mown grass, which the sagacious animal was taking up by the trunkful, and laying carefully upon his sun-heated back. He continued the operation until his back was completely thatched, when he remained quiet, apparently enjoying the result of his ingenuity.

Since the publication of my former letter (as above), I have received additional data bearing on the subject from Mr. W. A. Conklin, the superintendent of the Central Park Menagerie. I am informed by him that he has frequently observed elephants, when out of doors in the hot sunshine, thatch their backs with hay or grass; that they do so to a certain extent when under cover in the summer time, and when the flies which then attack the animals, often so fiercely as to draw blood, are particularly numerous; but that they never attempt to thatch their backs in winter. This seems to prove that they act intelligently for the attainment of a definite end. It would be interesting to learn whether elephants in their wild state are in the habit of so thatching their backs. It seems more probable to suppose that in their native wilds they would avail themselves of the natural shade afforded by the jungle, and that the habit is one which has been developed in consequence of their changed surroundings in captivity.

One evening, soon after my arrival in Eastern Assam, and while the five elephants were as usual being fed opposite the bungalow, I observed a young and lately caught one step up to a bamboo-stake fence, and quietly pull one of the stakes up.[409] Placing it under foot, it broke a piece off with the trunk, and after lifting it to its mouth threw it away. It repeated this twice or thrice, and then drew another stake and began again. Seeing that the bamboo was old and dry I asked the reason of this, and was told to wait and see what it would do. At last it seemed to get a piece that suited, and holding it in the trunk firmly, and stepping the left fore-leg well forward, passed the piece of bamboo under the armpit, so to speak, and began to scratch with some force. My surprise reached its climax when I saw a large elephant leech fall on the ground, quite six inches long and thick as one's finger, and which, from its position, could not easily be detached without this scraper or scratcher which was deliberately made by the elephant. I subsequently found that it was a common occurrence. Such scrapers are used by every elephant daily.

On another occasion, when travelling at a time of the year when the large flies are so tormenting to an elephant, I noticed that the one I rode had no fan or wisp to beat them off with. The mahout, at my order, slackened pace and allowed her to go to the side of the road, when for some moments she moved along rummaging the smaller jungle on the bank; at last she came to a cluster of young shoots well branched, and after feeling among them and selecting one, raised her trunk and neatly stripped down the stem, taking off all the lower branches and leaving a fine bunch on top. She deliberately cleaned it down several times, and then laying hold at the lower end broke off a beautiful fan or switch about five feet long, handle included. With this she kept the flies at bay as we went along, flapping them off on each side.

Say what we may, these are both really bonâ fide implements, each intelligently made for a definite purpose.

An elephant was chained to a tree in the compound opposite Mr. Townsend's house. Its driver made an oven at a short distance, in which he put his rice-cakes to bake, and then covered them with stones and grass and went away. When he was gone, the elephant with his trunk unfastened the chain round his foot, went to the oven and uncovered it, took out and ate the cakes, re-covered the oven with the stones and grass as before, and went back to his place. He could not[410] fasten the chain again round his own foot, so he twisted it round and round it, in order to look the same, and when the driver returned the elephant was standing with his back to the oven. The driver went to his cakes, discovered the theft, and, looking round, caught the elephant's eye as he looked back over his shoulder out of the corner of it. Instantly he detected the culprit, and condign punishment followed. The whole occurrence was witnessed from the windows by the family.

And no coaxing could persuade it to do so unless it felt so inclined. The same cat also, whenever it wanted to go out, would come into the sitting-room, and make a peculiar noise to attract[415] attention: failing that mode being successful, it would pull one's dress with its claw and then having succeeded in attracting the desired attention, it would walk to the street door and stop there, making the same cry until let out.

In 1877 I was absent from Madras for two months, and left in my quarters three cats, one of which, an English tabby, was a very gentle and affectionate creature. During my absence the quarters were occupied by two young gentlemen, who delighted in teasing and frightening the cats. About a week before my return the English cat had kittens, which she carefully concealed behind bookshelves in the library. On the morning of my return I saw the cat, and patted her as usual, and then left the house for about an hour. On returning to dress I found that the kittens were located in a corner of my dressing-room, where previous broods had been deposited and nursed. On questioning the servant as to how they came there, he at once replied, 'Sir, the old cat taking one by one in her mouth, brought them here.' In other words, the mother had carried them one by one in her mouth from the library to the dressing-room, where they lay quite exposed. I do not think I have heard of a more remarkable instance of reasoning and affectionate confidence in an animal, and I need hardly say that the latter manifestation gave me great pleasure. The train of reasoning seems to have been as follows: 'Now that my master has returned there is no risk of the kittens being injured by the two young savages in the house, so I will take them out for my protector to see and admire, and keep them in the corner in which all my former pets have been nursed in safety.'

He had fixed upright on his table a small looking-glass, from which he used to draw objects from nature, reversed on wood. The cat seeing her image in this glass made several attempts to investigate it, striking at it, &c. Then coming apparently to the conclusion that there was something between her and the other animal, she very slily and cautiously approached it, keeping her eye on it all the while, and struck her paw around behind the mirror, becoming seemingly much surprised at finding nothing there. This was done repeatedly, until she was at last convinced that it was beyond her comprehension, or she lost interest in the matter.

One evening there was no one in the kitchen. Cook had gone upstairs, and left a bowl full of dough to rise by the fire. Shortly after, the cat rushed up after her, mewing, and making what signs she could for her to go down; then she jumped up and seized her apron, and tried to drag her down. As she was in such a state of excitement cook went, and found 'Polly' shrieking, calling out, flapping her wings and struggling violently, 'up to her knees' in dough, and stuck quite fast.

No doubt if she had not been rescued she would have sunk in the morass and been smothered.

Looking out on the garden in front of my residence, I observed a robin alight on a small tree: it was midwinter, the ground covered with about a foot of light snow. A cat came stealthily along, with difficulty making her way through the snow until within about three feet of the tree where the bird was; the robin was sluggishly resting on a twig distant three feet from the ground or surface of snow; the cat could not well, owing to the softness of the snow, venture to make a spring. She crouched down and at first gently stirred herself, evidently with the purpose of causing the bird to move. The first attempt failed. She again more actively stirred herself by a shaking motion. She again failed, when she stirred herself vigorously again and started the bird, which flew about fifty feet away, and alighted on a small low bush on the northern side of a close-boarded fence. The cat keenly watched the flight and the alighting of the bird; as quickly as she could cross through the snow, she then took a circuit of about one hundred feet, watching the place where the bird was all the while, and covering her march by making available every bush to hide her. When out of range of vision of the bird she more actively made for the fence, leaped over it, came up on the southern side of it, and jumped on it, calculating her distance so accurately that she came within a foot of the bush where the bird was, and at once sprung. She missed her prey, but I thought she proved herself a cunning hunter. If this case is worth relating you may use the name[418] of Judge Stevens, of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, as a witness to the same.

Our servants have been accustomed during the late frost to throw the crumbs remaining from the breakfast-table to the birds, and I have several times noticed that our cat used to wait there in ambush in the expectation of obtaining a hearty meal from one or two of the assembled birds. Now, so far, this circumstance in itself is not an 'example of abstract reasoning.' But to continue. For the last few days this practice of feeding the birds has been left off. The cat, however, with an almost incredible amount of forethought, was observed by myself, together with two other members of the household, to scatter crumbs on the grass with the obvious intention of enticing the birds.[256]

A case somewhat similar to that mentioned by Dr. Frost, of a cat scattering crumbs, occurred here within my own knowledge. During the recent severe winter a friend was in the habit of throwing crumbs outside his bedroom window. The family have a fine black cat, which, seeing that the crumbs brought birds, would occasionally hide herself behind some shrubs, and when the birds came for their breakfast, would pounce out upon them with varying success. The crumbs had been laid out as usual one afternoon, but left untouched, and during the night a slight fall of snow occurred. On looking out next morning my friend observed puss busily engaged scratching away the snow. Curious to learn what she sought, he waited, and saw her take the crumbs up from the cleared space and lay them one by one after another on the snow. After doing this she retired behind the shrubs to wait further developments. This was repeated on two other occasions.[257]

I was sitting in one of the rooms, the first evening there, and hearing a loud knock at the front door was told not to heed it, as it was only this kitten asking admittance. Not believing it, I watched for myself, and very soon saw the kitten jump onto the door, hang on by one leg, and put the other fore-paw right through the knocker and rap twice.

At Parara, the residence of Parker Bowman, Esq., a full-grown cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room without any other outlet than a small window, moving on hinges, and kept shut by means of a swivel. Not long afterwards the window was found open and the cat gone. This having happened several times, it was at last found that the cat jumped upon the window-sill, placed her fore-paws as high as she could reach against the side, deliberately reached with one over to the swivel, moved it from its horizontal to a perpendicular position, and then, leaning with her whole weight against the window, swung it open and escaped.

When living in Ross-shire I went out one morning in July, before daybreak, to endeavour to shoot a stag, which had been complained of very much by an adjoining farmer, as having done great damage to his crops. Just after it was daylight I saw a large fox coming quietly along the edge of the plantation[427] in which I was concealed; he looked with great care over the turf wall into the field, and seemed to long to get hold of some hares that were feeding in it, but apparently knew that he had no chance of catching one by dint of running; after considering a short time he seemed to have formed his plans, and having examined the different gaps in the wall by which the hares might be supposed to go in and out, he fixed upon the one that seemed the most frequented, and laid himself down close to it in an attitude like a cat watching a mouse. Cunning as he was, he was too intent on his own hunting to be aware that I was within twenty yards of him with a loaded rifle, and able to watch every movement that he made. I was much amazed to see the fellow so completely outwitted, and kept my rifle ready to shoot him if he found me out and attempted to escape. In the meantime I watched all his plans. He first with great silence and care scraped a small hollow in the ground, throwing up the sand as a kind of screen between his hiding-place and the hares' mews; every now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and sometimes to take a most cautious look into the field; when he had done this he laid himself down in a convenient position for springing upon his prey, and remained perfectly motionless with the exception of an occasional reconnoitre of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they came one by one from the field to the cover of the plantation; three had already come in without passing by his ambush; one of them came within twenty yards of him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more closely to the ground. Presently two came directly towards him; though he did not venture to look up, I saw by an involuntary motion of his ears that those quick organs had already warned him of their approach: the two hares came through the gap together, and the fox, springing with the quickness of lightning, caught one and killed her immediately; he then lifted up his booty and was carrying it off like a retriever, when my rifle-ball stopped his course by passing through his back-bone, and I went up and despatched him.

Whenever a cat is tempted by the bait, and caught in a fox-trap, Reynard is at hand to devour the bait and the cat too, and fearlessly approaches an instrument which the fox must know cannot then do it any harm. Let us compare with this boldness the incredible caution with which the animal proceeds when tempted by the bait in a set trap. Dietrich aus dem Winkell had once the good fortune of observing, on a winter evening, a fox which for many preceding days had been allured with loop baits, and as often as it ate one it sat comfortably down, wagging its brush. The nearer it approached the trap, the longer did it hesitate to take the baits, and the oftener did it make the tour round the catching-place. When arrived near the trap it squatted down, and eyed the bait for ten minutes at least; whereupon it ran three or four times round the trap, then it stretched out one of its fore-paws after the bait, but did not touch it; again a pause, during which the fox stared immovably at the bait. At last, as if in despair, the animal made a rush and was caught by the neck. (Mag. Nat. Hist., N. S., vol. i., p. 512.)

Some years since, while hunting in Northern Michigan, I tried with the aid of a professional trapper to entrap a fox who made nightly visits to a spot where the entrails of a deer had been thrown. Although we tried every expedient that suggested itself to us we were unsuccessful, and, what seemed very[429] singular, we always found the trap sprung. My companion insisted that the animal dug beneath it, and putting his paw beneath the jaw, pushed down the pan with safety to himself; but though the appearance seemed to confirm it, I could hardly credit his explanation. This year, in another locality of the same region, an old and experienced trapper assured me of its correctness, and said in confirmation that he had several times caught them, after they had made two or three successful attempts to spring the trap, by the simple expedient of setting it upside down, when of course the act of undermining and touching the pan would bring the paw within the grasp of the jaws.

Desiring to obtain some Arctic foxes, Dr. Rae set various kinds of traps; but as the foxes knew these traps from previous experience, he was unsuccessful. Accordingly he set a kind of trap with which the foxes in that part of the country were not acquainted. This consisted of a loaded gun set upon a stand pointing at the bait. A string connected the trigger of the gun with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the gun was separated from the bait by a distance of about 30 yards, and the string which connected the trigger with the bait was concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow. The gun-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, but never in killing a second; for the foxes afterwards adopted either of two devices whereby to secure the bait without injuring themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device was to burrow up to the bait through the snow at right angles to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they escaped with perhaps only a pellet or two in the nose. Now both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I have carefully interrogated Dr. Rae on all the circumstances of the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings; so that there can have been no special association in the foxes' minds between strings and traps. Moreover, after the death of fox No. 1, the track on[430] the snow showed that fox No. 2, notwithstanding the temptation offered by the bait, had expended a great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to sever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire, Dr. Rae justly deemed this so extraordinary a circumstance, that he repeated the experiment a number of times, in order to satisfy himself that the direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed to thought, and not to chance.[260]

I may also mention what I have been told, although I have never had an opportunity of seeing it, that wolves watch the fishermen who set lines in deep water for trout, through holes in the ice on Lake Superior, and very soon after the man has left, the wolf goes up to the place, takes hold of the stick which is placed across the hole and attached to the line, trots off with it along the ice until the bait is brought to the surface, then returns and eats the bait and the fish, if any happens to be on the hook. The trout of Lake Superior are very large, and the baits are of a size in proportion.

I once, at the Devil's Glen, Wicklow, found a fox fast in a trap by the foot. We did not like to touch him, but got sticks and poked at the trap till we got it open. The process took ten minutes or a quarter-hour. When first we came up the fox strained to get free, and looked frightfully savage; but we had not poked at the trap more than a very short time before the whole expression of his face changed, he lay perfectly quiet (though we must at times have hurt him); and when at last we had got the trap completely off his foot, he still lay quiet,[432] and looked calmly at us, as if he knew we were friends. In fact, we had some little difficulty in getting him to move away, which he did readily enough when he chose. Was not this a case of reason and good sense overpowering natural instinct?

At dusk, and after nightfall, a pack of jackals, having watched a hare or a small deer take refuge in one of these retreats, immediately surrounded it on all sides; and having stationed a few to watch the path by which the game entered, the leader commences the attack by raising the cry peculiar to their race, and which resembles the sound 'okkay' loudly and rapidly repeated. The whole party then rush into the jungle and drive out the victim, which generally falls into the ambush previously laid to entrap it.

A native gentleman, who had favourable opportunities of observing the movements of these animals, informed me that when a jackal has brought down his game and killed it, his first impulse is to hide it in the nearest jungle, whence he issues with an air of easy indifference to observe whether anything more powerful than himself may be at hand, from which he might encounter the risk of being despoiled of his capture. If the coast be clear he returns to the concealed carcass and carries it away, followed by his companions. But if a man be in sight, or any other animal to be avoided, my informant has seen the jackal seize a cocoa-nut husk in his mouth, or any similar substance, and fly at full speed, as if eager to carry off his pretended[433] prize, returning for the real booty at some more convenient season.[262]

Part of this rocky ground was on the side of a very high hill, which was not accessible for a sportsman, and from which both hares and foxes took their way in the evening to the plain below. There were two channels or gullies made by the rains, leading from these rocks to the lower ground. Near one of these channels, the sportsman in question, and his attendant, stationed themselves one evening in hopes of being able to shoot some hares. They had not been there long, when they observed a fox coming down the gully, and followed by another. After playing together for a little time, one of the foxes concealed himself under a large stone or rock, which was at the bottom of the channel, and the other returned to the rocks. He soon, however, came back, chasing a hare before him. As the hare was passing the stone where the first fox had concealed himself, he tried to seize her by a sudden spring, but missed his aim. The chasing fox then came up, and finding that his expected prey had escaped, through the want of skill in his associate, he fell upon him, and they both fought with so much animosity, that the parties who had been watching their proceedings came up and destroyed them both.

He saw two wolves standing together, and shortly after noticing them was surprised to see one of them lie down in a ditch, and the other walk away over the open plain. He watched the latter, which deliberately went to the far side of a herd of antelopes standing in the plain, and drove them, as a sheep-dog would a flock of sheep, to the very spot where his companion lay in ambush. As the antelopes crossed the ditch, the concealed wolf jumped up as in the former case, seized a doe, and was joined by his colleague.

In response to the appeal which closes Mr. Buck's interesting letter ('Nature,' vol. viii., p. 302), the following instance of 'collective instinct' exhibited by an animal closely allied to the wolf, viz., the Indian jackal, deserves to be recorded. It was communicated to me by a gentleman (since deceased) on whose veracity I can depend. This gentleman was waiting in a tree to shoot tigers as they came to drink at a large lake (I forget the district), skirted by a dense jungle, when about midnight a large axis deer emerged from the latter and went to the water's edge. Then it stopped and sniffed the air in the direction of the jungle, as if suspecting the presence of an enemy; apparently satisfied, however, it began to drink, and continued to do so for a most inordinate length of time. When literally swollen with water it turned to go into the jungle, but was met on its extreme margin by a jackal, which, with a sharp yelp, turned it again into the open. The deer seemed much startled, and ran along the shore for some distance, when it again attempted to enter the jungle, but was again met and driven back in the same manner. The night being calm, my friend could hear this process being repeated time after time—the yelps becoming successively fainter and fainter in the distance, until they became wholly inaudible. The stratagem thus employed was sufficiently evident. The lake having a long narrow shore intervening between it and the jungle, the jackals formed themselves in line along it while concealed within the extreme edge of the cover, and waited until the deer was waterlogged. Their prey, being thus rendered heavy and short-winded, would fall an easy victim if induced to run sufficiently far, i.e., if prevented from entering the jungle. It was, of course, impossible to estimate the number of jackals engaged in this hunt, for it is not impossible that as soon as one had done duty at one place, it outran the deer to await it in another.

A native servant who accompanied my friend told him that this was a stratagem habitually employed by the jackals in that place, and that they hunted in sufficient numbers 'to leave nothing but the bones.' As it is a stratagem which could only be effectual under the peculiar local conditions described, it[435] must appear that this example of collective instinct is due to 'separate expression,' and not to 'inherited habit.'

Cases of collective instinct are not of unfrequent occurrence among dogs. For the accuracy of the two following I can vouch. A small Skye and a large mongrel were in the habit of hunting hares and rabbits upon their own account, the small dog having a good nose, and the larger one great fleetness. These qualities they combined in the most advantageous manner, the terrier driving the cover towards his fleet-footed companion which was waiting for it outside.

The second case is remarkable for a display of sly sagacity. A friend of mine in Ross-shire had a small terrier and a large Newfoundland. One day a shepherd called upon him to say that his dogs had been worrying sheep the night before. The gentleman said there must be some mistake, as the Newfoundland had not been unchained. A few days afterwards the shepherd again called with the same complaint, vehemently asserting that he was positive as to the identity of the dogs. Consequently the owner set one watch upon the kennel and another outside the sheep enclosure, directing them (in consequence of what the shepherd had told him) not to interfere with the action of the dogs. After this had been done several nights in succession, the small dog was observed to come at daydawn to the place where the large one was chained; the latter immediately slipped his collar, and the two animals made straight for the sheep. Upon arriving at the enclosure the Newfoundland concealed himself behind a hedge, while the terrier drove the sheep towards his ambush, and the fate of one of them was quickly sealed. When their breakfast was finished the dogs returned home, and the larger one, thrusting his head into his collar, lay down again as though nothing had happened. Why this animal should have chosen to hunt by stratagem prey which it could easily run down, I cannot suggest; but there can be little doubt that so wise a dog must have had some good reason.

I had at one time two sporting dogs, the one an excellent pointer with a very smooth skin, and of remarkable beauty and intelligence; the other was a spaniel with long and thick hair, but which had not been taught to point, but only coursed in the woods like a harrier. My château is situated on a level spot of ground, opposite to copse wood filled with hares and[436] rabbits. When sitting at my window, I have observed these two dogs, which were at large in the yard, approach and make signs to each other, and first glancing at me, as if to see if I offered any obstacle to their wishes, step away very gently, then quicken their pace when they were at a little distance from my sight, and finally dart off at full speed when they thought I could neither see them nor order them back. Surprised at this mysterious manœuvre, I followed them, and witnessed a singular sight. The pointer, who seemed to be the leader of the enterprise, had sent the spaniel out to beat the bushes, and give tongue at the opposite extremity of the bushwood. As to himself, he made with slow steps the circuit of the wood by following it along the border, and I observed him stop before a passage much frequented by rabbits, and there point. I continued at a distance to observe how the intrigue was going to end. At length I heard the spaniel, which had started a hare, drive it with much tongue towards the place where its companion was lying in ambush, and the moment that the hare came out of the passage to gain the fields, the latter darted upon it and brought it to me with an air of triumph. I have seen these two dogs repeat this same manœuvre more than a hundred times; and this conformity has convinced me that it was not accidental, but the result of a concerted agreement and combined plan of operations understood beforehand.

In process of time this aversion increased so much that all the servants I had refused to perform the ablutions, being in terror of doing so from the ferocity the animal evinced on such occasions. I myself did not choose to undertake the office, for though the animal was passionately attached to me, such was his horror of the operation, that even I was not safe. Threats, beating, and starving were all of no avail; he still persisted in his obstinacy. At length I hit upon a new device. Leaving him perfectly free, and not curtailing his liberty in any way, I let him know, by taking no notice of him, that he had offended me. He was usually the companion of my walks, but now I refused to let him accompany me. When I returned home I took no notice of his demonstrative welcome, and when he came looking up at me for caresses when I was engaged either in reading or needlework, I deliberately turned my head aside. This state of things continued for about a week or ten days, and the poor animal looked wretched and forlorn. There was[441] evidently a conflict going on within him, which told visibly on his outward appearance. At length one morning he crept quietly up to me, and gave me a look which said as plainly as any spoken words could have done, 'I can stand it no longer; I submit.' And submit he did quite quietly and patiently to one of the roughest ablutions it had ever been his lot to experience; for by this time he sorely needed it. After it was over he bounded to me with a joyous bark and wag of his tail, saying unmistakably, 'I know all is right now.' He took his place by my side as his right when I went for my walk, and retained from that time his usually glad and joyous expression of countenance. When the period for the next ablution came round the old spirit of obstinacy resumed its sway for a while, but a single look at my averted countenance was sufficient for him, and he again submitted without a murmur. Must there not have been something akin to the reasoning faculty in the breast of an animal who could thus for ten days carry on such a struggle?

He had grown old, and having some affection in his legs which made walking difficult to him, he had sunk into a very stagnant sort of life, when a Scotch terrier was brought to live with us, and treated with much favour. All Charlie's old vigour revived upon the advent of this rival. He exhibited agonies of jealousy, and has since spent his life in following, watching, and imitating him. He insists on doing everything that Jack does. Although he had previously given up walking, he now makes a point of going out whenever Jack does so. Several times he has started with us, but finding that Jack was not of the party, has turned back and quietly gone home. In the same way,[443] although before he ate nothing but meat, he now eats any food that is also given to Jack; and if Jack is caressed he watches for some time, and then bursts out whining and barking. I have seen the same rage manifested by a fine cockatoo at the sight of his mistress carrying on her wrist and stroking affectionately a little green parrot. Such jealousy seems to me a very advanced emotion, as it has passed beyond the stage when it may be supposed to be caused by a fear of other animals monopolising material benefits which they desire for themselves; it is excited solely by seeing affection or attention bestowed by those they love upon other animals. The actions in which Charlie tries to participate—such as walking far, plunging into cold water after sticks, &c.—are in themselves extremely disagreeable to him, and he performs them only that he may obtain a share in the companionship and notice bestowed upon Jack.

He showed the same deliberate design of deceiving on other occasions. Having hurt his foot he became lame for a time, during which he received more pity and attention than usual. For months after he had recovered, whenever he was harshly spoken to, he commenced hobbling about the room as if lame and suffering pain from his foot. He only gave up the practice when he gradually perceived that it was unsuccessful.

The terrier used to be very fond of catching flies upon the window-panes, and if ridiculed when unsuccessful was evidently much annoyed. On one occasion, in order to see what he would do, I purposely laughed immoderately every time he failed. It so happened that he did so several times in succession—partly, I believe, in consequence of my laughing—and eventually he became so distressed that he positively pretended to catch the fly, going through all the appropriate actions with his lips and tongue, and afterwards rubbing the ground with his neck as if to kill the victim: he then looked up at me with a triumphant air of success. So well was the whole process simulated that I should have been quite deceived, had I not seen that the fly was still upon the window. Accordingly I drew his attention to this fact, as well as to the absence of anything upon the floor; and when he saw that his hypocrisy had been detected he slunk away under some furniture, evidently very much ashamed of himself.

There is a drinking-trough for him in my sitting-room: if at any time it happens to be without water when he goes to drink, he scratches the dish with his fore-paws in order to call attention to his wants, and this is done in an authoritative way, which generally has the desired effect. Another Pomeranian—a member of the same family—when quite young used to soak[447] hard biscuits in water till soft enough to eat. She would carry the biscuit in her mouth to the drinking-trough, drop it in and leave it there for a few minutes, and then fish it out with her paw.

When vessels with live stock arrive at any of the West India harbours, these animals, some of which are nearly as large as mastiffs, are wonderfully efficient in assisting to land the cargo. The oxen are hoisted out with a sling passing round the base of their horns; and when an ox, thus suspended by the head, is lowered, and allowed to fall into the water, so that it may swim to land, men sometimes swim by the side of it and guide it, but they have often dogs of this breed which will perform the service equally well; for, catching the perplexed animal by the ears, one on each side, they will force it to swim in the direction of the landing-place, and instantly let go their hold when they feel it touch the ground, as the ox will then naturally walk out of the water by itself.[267]

My attention was called to my dog appearing in a great state of excitement, not barking (he seldom barks), but whining and performing all sorts of antics (in a human subject I should have said 'gesticulating'). The herdmen and myself returned to the sty; we caught but one pig, and put him back; no sooner had we done so than the dog ran after each pig in succession, brought him back to the sty by the ear, and then went after another, until the whole number were again housed.

And here let me ask if you are aware of the cunning and sagacity of these sheep-killing dogs, that they never kill sheep on the farm to which they belong, or in the immediate vicinity, but often go miles away; that they always return before daylight,[451] and before doing so wash themselves in some stream to get rid of the blood.

The dog was lying one evening before the kitchen fire where the cook had prepared a turkey for roasting. She left the kitchen for a few moments, when the dog immediately carried away the turkey and placed it in the cleft of a tree close to the house, but which was well concealed by the surrounding laurels. So rapid were his movements that he returned to his post before the cook had come back, and stretching himself before the fire, looked 'as innocent as a child unborn.' Unfortunately for him, however, a man who was in the habit of taking him to shoot, saw him carrying away his prize and watched his progress. On coming into the kitchen the man found the dog in his old place pretending to be asleep. Diver's conduct was all along dictated by a desire to conceal his theft, and if he were a man I should have said that he intended, in case of inquiry, to prove an alibi.

Before he came to me he lived where another dog of similar size was kept, and on one occasion they fought. Having been chastised for this, on future occasions when they quarrelled they used to swim over a river of some breadth, where they[452] could not be interfered with, and fight out their quarrel on the other side. What seems to me noteworthy in this conduct is the self-restraint manifested under the influence of passion, and the mutual understanding to defer the fight till they could prosecute it unmolested; like two duellists crossing the Channel to fight in France.

My friend (Mr. James Canning, of Birmingham) was acquainted with a small mongrel dog who on being presented with a penny or a halfpenny would run with it in his mouth to a baker's, jump on to the top of the half-door leading into the shop, and ring the bell behind the door until the baker came forward and gave him a bun or a biscuit in exchange for the coin. The dog would accept any small biscuit for a halfpenny, but nothing less than a bun would satisfy him for a penny. On one occasion the baker (being annoyed at the dog's too frequent visits), after receiving the coin, refused to give the dog anything[453] in exchange, and on every future occasion the latter (who declined being taken in a second time) would put the coin on the floor, and not permit the baker to pick it up until he had received its equivalent.

My dog is a broken-haired rabbit-coursing dog, and is very intelligent. I took him one day to an exhibition of pictures and objects of interest, among which were statues and a bust of Sir Walter Scott. It was a local exhibition, and as there was jewellery, some one had to sit up all night with it as guard. I volunteered, and as we were looking about and sitting on a stand of flowers, my dog suddenly began to bark, and made as if he had found some one hiding. On looking round I found that it was the bust of Sir Walter Scott standing among the flowers, and in which he evidently recognised sufficient likeness to a human being to think the supposed man had no business there at so late an hour.

A Dandie-Dinmont terrier, after the death of his mistress, was playing with some children in a room into which was brought a photograph (large) of her that he had never previously seen. It was placed upon the floor leaning against the wall. In the words of my informant, who witnessed it, the dog, when he suddenly caught sight of the picture, crouched and trembled all over, his whole body quivering. Then he crept along the floor till he reached it, and, seating himself before it, began to bark loudly, as if he would say, 'Why don't you speak to me?' The picture was moved to other parts of the room, and he followed, seating himself before it and repeating his barking.

When it (the portrait) was brought to my house, my old dog was present with the family at the unveiling; nothing was said to him, nor invitation given to him to notice it. We saw that his gaze was steadily fixed on it, and he soon became excited and[454] whined, and tried to lick and scratch it, and was so much taken up with it that we—although so well knowing his intelligence—were all quite surprised—in fact, could scarcely believe that he should know it was my likeness. We, however, had sufficient proof after it was hung up in our parlour. The room was rather low, and under the picture stood a chair: the door was left open, without any thought about the dog; he, however, soon found it out, when a low whining and scratching was heard by the family, and on search being made, he was in the chair trying to get at the picture. After this I put it up higher, so as to prevent its being injured by him. This did not prevent him from paying attention to it, for whenever I was away from home, whether for a short or a long time—sometimes for several days—he spent most of his time gazing on it, and as it appeared to give him comfort the door was always left open for him. When I was long away he made a low whining, as if to draw attention to it. This lasted for years—in fact, as long as he lived.

Having read Mr. Peach's letter on 'Intellect in Brutes,' as shown by the sagacity he witnessed in his dog, I have been asked to send a similar anecdote, which I have often told to friends. Many years ago my husband had his portrait taken by J. Phillips, R.A., and subsequently went to India, leaving the portrait in London to be finished and framed. When it was sent home, about two years after it was taken, it was placed on the floor against the sofa, preparatory to being hung on the wall. We had then a very handsome black-and-tan setter, which was a great pet in the house. As soon as the dog came into the room he recognised his master, though he had not seen him for two years, and went up to the picture and licked the face. When this anecdote was told to Phillips, he said it was the highest compliment that had ever been paid him.

Some years ago a fine arts exhibition was held at Derby. A portrait of a Derby artist (Wright) was thus signalised:—'The[455] artist's pet dog distinguished this from a lot of pictures upon the floor of the studio by licking the face of the portrait.'

I have a small terrier who attained the age of eight months without ever having seen a large picture. One day three nearly life-sized portraits were placed in my room during his absence. Two were hung up, and one left standing against the wall on the floor awaiting the arrival of a picture-rod. When the dog entered the room he appeared much alarmed by the sight of the pictures, barking in a terrified manner first at one and then at another. That is to say, instead of attacking them in an aggressive way with tail erect, as he would have done on thus encountering a strange person, he barked violently and incessantly at some distance from the paintings, with tail down and body elongated, sometimes bolting under the chairs and sofas in the extremity of his fear, and continuing barking from there. Thinking it might be merely the presence of strange objects in the room which excited him, I covered the faces of the portraits with cloths and turned the face of the one on the floor to the wall. The dog soon after emerged from his hiding-place, and having looked intently at the covered pictures and examined the back of the frame on the ground, became quite quiet and contented. I then uncovered one of the pictures, when he immediately flew at it, barking in the same frightened manner as before. I then re-covered that one and took the cover off another. The dog left the covered one and rushed at the one which was exposed. I then turned the face of the one on the floor to the room, and he[456] flew at that with increased fierceness. This I did many times, covering and uncovering each picture alternately, always with the same result. It was only when all three paintings were uncovered at the same time, and he saw one looking at him in whatever direction he turned, that he became utterly terrified. He continued in this state for nearly an hour, at the end of which time, although evidently very nervous and apt to start, he ceased to bark. After that day he never took any more notice of the pictures during the three months he remained in the house. He was then absent from the house for seven months. On his return he went with me into the room where the portraits were hung, immediately on his arrival. He was evidently again much startled on first seeing them, for he rushed at one, barking as he had done on the first occasion, but he only gave three or four barks when he ran back to me with the same apologetic manner as he has when he has barked at a well-known friend by mistake.

The terrier in question followed a conveyance from the house in which I resided in the country, to a town ten miles distant. He only did this on one occasion, and about five months afterwards was taken by train to the same town as a present to some friends there. Shortly afterwards I called upon these friends in a different conveyance from the one which the dog had previously followed; but the latter may have known that the two conveyances belonged to the same[458] house. Anyhow, after I had put up the horses at an inn, I spent the morning with the terrier and his new masters, and in the afternoon was accompanied by them to the inn. I should have mentioned that the inn was the same as that at which the conveyance had been put up on the previous occasion, five months before. Now, the dog evidently remembered this, and, reasoning from analogy, inferred that I was about to return. This is shown by the fact that he stole away from our party—although at what precise moment he did so I cannot say, but it was certainly after we had arrived at the inn, for subsequently we all remembered his having entered the coffee-room with us. Now, not only did he infer from a single precedent that I was going home, and make up his mind to go with me, but he also further reasoned thus:—'As my previous master lately sent me to town, it is probable that he does not want me to return to the country; therefore, if I am to seize this opportunity of resuming my poaching life, I must now steal a march upon the conveyance. But not only so, my former master may possibly pick me up and return with me to my proper owners; therefore I must take care only to intercept the conveyance at a point sufficiently far without the town to make sure that he will not think it worth his while to go back with me.'

A friend of mine, a naturalist, and a very conscientious man, whose word can be implicitly trusted, gives the following, to which he was an eye-witness. His grandfather, then a very old but hale and hearty man, had a splendid Newfoundland. There was a narrow and precipitous road leading from the fields to the house. It was regarded as a very dangerous place. One day when the old gentleman was doing some work about the farm his horse became alarmed, and started off with the waggon along this causeway. The chances were that he would dash himself and the empty waggon to pieces. At once the dog seemed to take in the situation, although until that time he had been impassive. He started after the horse at full speed, overtook him, caught the bridle, and by his strength arrested the frightened creature until help could reach him. My friend gives many other stories of this fine dog, and thinks he had a decided sense of humour. I will repeat that both of these tales come to me well authenticated, and I could, by seeking permission, give names and places.

On the first discovery of the prey (crabs) a terrier runs in to seize it, and is immediately and severely bitten in the nose. But a sedate Newfoundland dog of my acquaintance proceeds more soberly in his work. He lays his paw on it to arrest it in its escape; then tumbling it over he bares his teeth, and, seizing it with the mouth, throws the crab aloft. It falls upon the stones; the shell is cracked beyond redemption, and then the dainty dish is devoured at his leisure.[270]

On one occasion a rabbit was 'started,' and all of the dogs, with the exception of 'Bonus,' dashed off in full pursuit. We were astonished to observe that the sedate 'Bonus,' foregoing[461] the intense excitement of the chase, deliberately trotted by a short cut to a hollow oak trunk, and crouching at its base calmly awaited the advent of the fleeing rabbit. And he was not disappointed (they frequently escaped without being reduced to this extremity), for the pursuing dogs pressed the rabbit so hard that, after making a long detour, it made for the place of refuge. As it was about entering the hollow trunk, the crouching 'Bonus' captured the astonished rodent.

There is a shrubbery near the house, about 200 or 300 yards long, and running in the shape of a horseshoe. A small terrier used to start a rabbit nearly every morning, at the end of the shrubbery next the house, and hunt him through the whole length of it to the other end, where the rabbit escaped into an old drain. The dog then appears to have come to the conclusion that the chord of a circle is shorter than its arc, for he raised the rabbit again, and instead of following him through the shrubbery as usual, he took the short cut to the drain, and was ready and in waiting on the rabbit when he arrived, and caught him.

I was watching the operations of a little Skye terrier on a wheatstack which was in the course of being thrashed, when suddenly a very large rat bounced off, just from under Fan's nose. It darted into a pit of water about a dozen yards from the stack, and tried to escape. Fan, however, plunged after, and swam for some distance, but found she was being left behind. So she turned to the shore again and ran round to the other side of the pit, and was ready and caught it just on landing.

I never saw anything more remarkable. If it was not reason, I do not know how it is possible that it could come much more closely to the exercise of that faculty.

One morning, soon after his usual time for starting, I saw the dog looking anxiously about, evidently afraid that my brother had gone without him. He looked into the room where we had breakfasted, but my brother was not there. He went up two or three stairs, and listened attentively. Then, to my astonishment, he came down, and going to the hat-stand in the hall, stood on his hind legs and sniffed at the great-coats hanging there, undoubtedly trying to ascertain whether my brother's coat was there or not.

My cat had kittens, of which two were preserved, the rest being drowned. The dog tolerated the two kittens, but did not care about them with any friendship. When the kittens were a few weeks old, I—finding that I could get but one of them off my hands—determined to kill the other, and, as the quickest mode of death, to shoot it by a pistol close behind its head. The[463] dog saw me do this in my garden, and in a few minutes afterwards she appeared with the other kitten dead in her mouth; she had killed it. If that was not reasoning I do not know what is.

The nursemaid had not taken many steps towards home before her progress was barred by the dog, who placed himself in the centre of the path and growled whenever she advanced. She was much alarmed, and tried to coax the dog to move, but Leo would not, and abated nothing of the hostile display. Half an hour passed, and the girl became nearly distracted. What could be the matter with the dog? Was she to be a prisoner all day? Would the animal fly at her throat? Was Leo suffering from hydrophobia? These and similar questions crossed the girl's mind. At length a suggestion of despair—it was nothing more—occurred to her. She thought it might win the dog round to good humour if she showed it the baby; so she removed the folds of her shawl and presented it at arm's length to the dog. The result was magical, and far in excess of all expectation, for not only did the dog cease to growl, but he began to gambol and caress, and removed himself from the path altogether, so that there was now a free course, and home was soon reached. The explanation of the whole affair is, when the nursemaid turned on her path thinking she had gone sufficiently far, the dog missed sight of the baby, and believed it was gone. Under this impression the dog converted himself into a sentinel, with the resolve that not one step should be taken towards home without the baby; and faithfully did the animal keep watch and ward until the demonstration was given that the child had not been left behind, but was still in the nurse's arms alive and well. I think this is an exhibition of intelligence worthy of being known to you.

I may mention a proof of his sagacity. Having a couple of long shots across a pretty broad stream, I stopped a mallard with each barrel, but both were only wounded. I sent him[464] across for the birds. He first attempted to bring them both, but one always struggled out of his mouth: he then laid down one intending to bring the other; but whenever he attempted to cross to me, the bird left fluttered into the water; he immediately returned again, laid down the first on the shore and recovered the other. The first now fluttered away, but he instantly secured it, and, standing over them both, seemed to cogitate for a moment; then, although on any other occasion he never ruffles a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and then returned for the dead bird.

Can we conceive any human being reasoning more correctly than a dog did in the following instance? Towards the evening of a long day's snipe-shooting on Dartmoor, the party was walking down the bank of the Dart, when my retriever flushed a widgeon which fell to my gun in the river, and of course instantly dived. I said no word to the dog. He did not plunge into the river then, but galloped down stream some fifty or sixty yards, and then entered and dashed from side to side—it was about twenty or thirty feet wide—working up stream, and making a great commotion in the water until he came to the place where we stood. Then he landed and shook himself, and carefully hunted the near bank a considerable distance[465] down, crossed to the opposite side, and diligently explored that bank. Two or three minutes elapsed, and the party was for moving on, when I called their attention to a sudden change in the dog's demeanour. His 'flag' was now up and going from side to side in that energetic manner which, as every sportsman knows, betokens a hot scent. I then knew that the bird was as safe as if it was already in my bag. Away through the heather went the waving tail, until twenty or thirty yards from the bank opposite to that on which we were standing there was a momentary scuffle; the bird just rose from the ground above the heather, the dog sprang into the air, caught it, came away at full gallop, dashed across the stream, and delivered it into my hands. Need I interpret all this for the experienced sportsman? The dog had learned from long experience in Australia and the narrow cañadas in the La Plata that a wounded duck goes down stream; if winged, his maimed wing sticks out and renders it impossible for him to go up, so he will invariably land and try to hide away from the bank. But if the dog enters at the place where the bird fell, the latter will go on with the stream for an indefinite distance, rising now and then for breath, and give infinite trouble. My dog had found out all this long since, and had proved the correctness of his knowledge times out of number, and by his actions had taught me the whole art and mystery of retrieving duck. His object, I say without a doubt, because I had numberless opportunities of observing it, was to fling the bird and force it to land by cutting it off lower down the stream. Then assuming, as his experience justified him, that the bird had landed, he hunted each bank in succession for the trail, which he knew must betray the fugitive.

My friend Dr. Rae, the well-known traveller and naturalist, knew a dog in Orkney which used to accompany his master to church on alternate Sundays. To do so he had to swim a channel about a mile wide; and before taking to the water he used to run about a mile to the north when the tide was flowing, and a nearly equal distance to the south when the tide was ebbing, 'almost invariably calculating his distance so well that he landed at the nearest point to the church.' In his letter to me Dr. Rae continues: 'How the dog managed to calculate the strength of the spring and neap tides at their[466] various rates of speed, and always to swim at the proper angle, is most surprising.'

I have seen her spring overboard from our gangway 16 feet from the water-line. The tides ran more than 5 knots, and she invariably came down to a little wharf abreast the ship, and gazed intently for small pieces of stick or straw, and having thus ascertained the drift of the tide (did as you mention of another dog), ran up tide and swam off. The sentry on the forecastle always kept a look-out for the dog, and threw over a line with a bowling knot, and she was hauled on board.

But one day she was observed to wait an unusual time on the wharf; no wood or straw gave her the required information. After waiting some time, she lay down on the planks, and dropped one paw into the water, and found by the feel which way the tide ran, got up, and ran up stream as usual.

The following is an instance of sagacity—indeed, amounting to reason—in a dog, a French poodle that belonged to Colonel Pearson (not the lately beleaguered colonel at Ekowe, but a Colonel Pearson living some years ago at Lichfield). The circumstance happened to a friend of mine, Canon ——, rector of ——. I have the story from his own lips, but I have no permission for his name to be used in any publication, should[467] the story be thought worthy of it. My friend the canon, I may say, has no leanings. Being a guest at luncheon with the dog's master, my friend fed the dog with pieces of beef. After luncheon the beef was taken into the larder. The dog did not think he had his fair share. What did he do? Now he had been taught to stand on his hind legs, put his paw on a lady's wrist, and hand her into the dining-room. He adopted the same tactics with my friend the canon, stood on his hind legs, put his paw on his arm, and made for the door. To see what would follow, Canon —— suffered himself to be led; but the sagacious dog, instead of steering for the dining-room, led him in the direction of the larder, along a passage, down steps, &c., and did not halt till he brought him to the larder, and close to the shelf where the beef had been put. The dog had a small bit given him for his sagacity, and Canon —— returned to the drawing-room. But the dog was still not satisfied. He tried the same trick again, but this time fruitlessly. The canon was not going again with him to the larder. What was Mori to do? And here comes the instance of reason in the poodle. Finding he could not prevail on the visitor to make a second excursion to the larder, he went out into the hall, took in his teeth Canon ----'s hat from off the hall table, and carried it under the shelf in the larder, where the coveted beef lay out of his reach. There he was found with the hat, waiting for the owner of the hat, and expecting another savoury bit when he should come for his hat.

Last year we spent our holidays at Llan Bedr, Merionethshire. Our host has a house in the above village, and another at Harlech, a town three miles distant. His favourite dog, Nero, is of Norwegian birth, and a highly intelligent animal. He is at liberty to pass his time at either of the houses owned by his master, and he occasionally walks from one to the other. More frequently, however, he goes to the railway station at Llan Bedr, gets into the train, and jumps out at Harlech. Being most probably unable to get out of the carriage, he was on one occasion taken to Salsernau, the station beyond Harlech,[468] when he left the carriage and waited on the platform for the return train to Harlech. If Nero did not make use of 'abstract reasoning' we may as well give up the use of the term.

You may perhaps think the following worthy of notice, as illustrating the comparative failure of instinct in an animal which has begun to reason. A friend of mine has a mongrel fox-terrier of remarkable intelligence, though undeveloped by any training. This dog has always shown a great fondness for accompanying any of the family on a railway journey, often having to be taken out of the train by force. One morning in the summer of 1877 the groom came, in great distress, to say that Spot had followed him to the station, and jumped into the train after a visitor's maid who was going to see her friends, and he (the groom) felt sure the dog would be stolen. The railway is a short single line, with three trains down and up each day, and my friend is well known to all the officials, so she sent to meet the next train, when the guard said the dog (apparently finding no friend in the train) had jumped out at a little roadside station about five miles distant. Most dogs would have found their way home easily, though the place itself was strange, but Spot did not appear till late in the evening, after ten hours' absence, and dead tired. On inquiry we found that the guard had seen nothing of her at 9 A.M., at 12 A.M., at 1 P.M., nor at 4 P.M.; but when he reached the little station on his return at 5.30, 'she was walking up and down the platform like a Christian,' jumped into his box, and jumped out again of her own accord at the right station for her home. She had evidently spent the interval in trying to find her way home on foot, and not succeeding, had resolved on returning the way she came.

The Rev. Mr. Townsend, incumbent of Lucan, was formerly an engineer on the Dundalk line of railway. He had a very intelligent Scotch retriever dog, which used to have a habit of jumping into any carriage in which Mr. Townsend travelled; but this had been discontinued for a year when the following incident happened. Mr. Townsend and the dog were on the platform at Dundalk station; Mr. Townsend went to get a ticket for a lady, and during his absence the dog jumped into a carriage, and when the train started, was carried down to[469] Clones. There he found himself alone when he jumped out; he went into the station-master's office and looked about, then into the ticket-collector's and searched there, and then ran off to the town of Clones, a mile distant. There he searched the resident engineer's office, and not finding his master, returned to the station and went to the up platform. When the up train arrived, he jumped in, but was driven out by the guard. A ballast train then drew up, going on to a branch line which was being constructed to Caran, but which was not finished yet. The dog travelled on the engine as far as the line went, and then ran the remaining five miles to Caran, where Mr. Townsend's sister lived. He visited her house, and not finding his master, ran back to the station, and took a return train to Clones, where he slept, and was fed by the station-master. At four in the morning he took a goods train down to Dundalk, where he found Mr. Townsend.

Rengger observed an American monkey (a Cebus) carefully driving away the flies which plagued her infant; and Duvancel saw a Hylobates washing the faces of her young ones in a stream. So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain kinds kept under confinement by Brehm in North Africa. Orphan monkeys were always adopted and carefully guarded by the other monkeys, both male and female.[271]

One of a shooting-party under a banian tree killed a female monkey, and carried it to his tent, which was soon surrounded by forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise and seemed disposed to attack their aggressor. They retreated when he presented his fowling-piece, the dreadful effect of which they had witnessed and appeared perfectly to understand. The head of the troop, however, stood his ground, chattering furiously; the sportsman, who perhaps felt some little degree of compunction for having killed one of the family, did not like to fire at the creature, and nothing short of firing would suffice to drive him off. At length he came to the door of the tent, and, finding threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning, and by the most expressive gesture seemed to beg for the dead body. It was given him; he took it sorrowfully in his arms and bore it away to his expecting companions. They who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to fire at one of the monkey race.

I keep in my garden a number of Gibbon apes (Hylobates agilis); they live quite free from all restraint in the trees, merely coming when called to be fed. One of them, a young male, on one occasion fell from a tree and dislocated his wrist; it received the greatest attention from the others, especially from an old female, who, however, was no relation; she used before eating her own plantains to take up the first that were offered to her every day, and give them to the cripple, who was living in the eaves of a wooden house; and I have frequently noticed that a cry of fright, pain, or distress from one would bring all the others at once to the complainer, and they would then condole with him and fold him in their arms.

We had several monkeys on board; they were of different species and sizes, and amongst them was a beautiful little creature, the body of which was about ten inches or a foot in length, and about the circumference of a common drinking glass. This interesting little animal, which, when I received it from the Governor of the Island of St. Thomas, diverted me by its innocent gambols, became afflicted by the malady which unfortunately prevailed in the ship. It had always been a favourite with the other monkeys, who seemed to regard it as the last born and the pet of the family; and they granted it many indulgences which they seldom conceded to one another. It was very tractable and gentle in its temper, and never took advantage of the partiality shown to it. From the moment it was taken ill their attention and care of it redoubled; and it was truly affecting and interesting to see with what anxiety and tenderness they tended and nursed the little creature. A struggle often ensued among them for priority in those offices of affection; and some would steal one thing and some another, which they would carry to it untasted, however tempting it might be to their own palates. Then they would take it up gently in their fore-paws, hug it to their breasts, and cry over it as a fond mother would over her suffering child. The little creature seemed sensible of their assiduities, but it was wofully overpowered by sickness. It would sometimes come to me and look me pitifully in the face, and moan and cry like an[474] infant, as if it besought me to give it relief; and we did everything we could think of to restore it to health: but, in spite of the united attention of its kindred tribes and ourselves, the interesting little creature did not survive long.

A year or two ago there was an Arabian baboon and an Anubis baboon confined in one cage, adjoining that which contained a dog-headed baboon. The Anubis baboon passed its hand through the wires of the partition, in order to purloin a nut which the large dog-headed baboon had left within reach—expressly, I believe, that it might act as a bait. The Anubis baboon very well knew the danger he ran, for he waited until his bulky neighbour had turned his back upon the nut with the appearance of having forgotten all about it. The dog-headed baboon, however, was all the time slyly looking round with the corner of his eye, and no sooner was the arm of his victim well within his cage than he sprang with astonishing rapidity and caught the retreating hand in his mouth. The cries of the Anubis baboon quickly brought the keeper to the rescue, when, by dint of a good deal of physical persuasion, the dog-headed baboon was induced to leave go his hold. The Anubis baboon then retired to the middle of his cage, moaning piteously, and holding the injured hand against his chest while he rubbed it with the other one. The Arabian baboon now approached him from the top part of the cage, and, while making a soothing sound very expressive of sympathy, folded the sufferer in its arms—exactly as a mother would her child under similar circumstances. It must be stated, also, that this expression of sympathy had a decidedly quieting effect upon the sufferer, his moans becoming less piteous so soon as he was enfolded in the arms of his comforter; and the manner in which he laid his cheek upon the bosom of his friend was as expressive as anything could be of sympathy appreciated. This really affecting spectacle lasted a considerable time, and while watching it I felt that, even had it stood alone, it would in itself have been sufficient to prove the essential identity of some of the noblest among human emotions with those of the lower animals.

I was one of a party of Jeekary in the Bahar district; our tents were pitched in a large mango garden, and our horses were picquetted in the same garden a little distance off. When we were at dinner a Syer came to us, complaining that some of the horses had broken loose in consequence of being frightened by monkeys (i.e. Macacus Orhesus) on the trees. As soon as dinner was over I went out with my gun to drive them off, and I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down to the lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood, and held it out for me to see. I was so much hurt at the time that it has left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since fired a gun at any of the tribe. Almost immediately on my return to the party, before I had fully described what had passed, a Syer came to inform us that the monkey was dead. We ordered the Syer to bring it to us, but by the time he returned the other monkeys had carried the dead one off, and none of them could anywhere be seen.

One of his officers, coming home after a long day's shooting, saw a female monkey running along the rocks, with her young one in her arms. He immediately fired, and the animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her little one close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the wound which the ball had made, and which had entered above her breast. Dipping her finger in the blood, and then holding it up, she seemed to reproach him with being the cause of her death, and consequently that of the young one, to which she frequently pointed. 'I never,' says Sir William, 'felt so much as when I heard the story, and I determined never to shoot one of these animals as long as I lived.'[272]

Several years ago I used to watch carefully the young orang-outang in the Zoological Gardens, and I am quite sure that she manifested a sense of the ludicrous. One example will suffice. Her feeding tin was of a somewhat peculiar shape, and when it was empty she used sometimes to invert it upon her head. The tin then presented a comical resemblance to a bonnet, and as its wearer would generally favour the spectators with a broad grin at the time of putting it on, she never failed to raise a laugh from them. Her success in this respect was evidently attended with no small gratification on her part.

The excitement thus caused was one of the most curious spectacles I ever beheld. . . . . I then placed a live snake in a paper bag, with the mouth loosely closed, in one of the larger compartments. One of the monkeys immediately approached, cautiously opened the bag, peeped in, and instantly dashed away. Then I witnessed what Brehm has described, for monkey after monkey, with head raised high and turned on one side, could not resist taking a momentary peep into the upright bag, at the dreadful object lying quietly at the bottom.[274]

The principle of imitation is strong in man, and especially, as I have myself observed, with savages. In certain morbid states of the brain, this tendency is exaggerated to an extraordinary degree; some hemiplegic patients and others, at the[478] commencement of inflammatory softening of the brain, unconsciously imitate every word that is uttered, whether in their own or in a foreign language, and every gesture or action which is performed near them.

Sir Andrew Smith, a zoologist whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons, told me the following story of which he was himself an eye-witness. At the Cape of Good Hope, an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim.[276]

I witnessed the following incident in the Jardin des Plantes, now many years ago; but it struck me greatly at the time, and I have narrated it repeatedly in the interval. A large ape—I[479] believe anthropoid, but cannot tell the species—was in the great iron cage with a number of smaller monkeys, and was lording it over them with many wild gambols, to the amusement of a crowd of spectators. Many things—fruits and the like—had been thrown between the bars into the cage, which the ape was always forward to seize. At last some one threw in a small hand looking-glass, with a strongly made frame of wood. This the ape at once laid hold of, and began to brandish like a hammer. Suddenly he was arrested by the reflection of himself in the glass, and looked puzzled for a moment; then he darted his head behind the glass to find the other of his kind that he evidently supposed to be there. Astonished to find nothing, he apparently bethought himself that he had not been quick enough with his movement. He now proceeded to raise and draw the glass nearer to him with great caution, and then with a swifter dart looked behind. Again finding nothing, he repeated the attempt once more. He now passed from astonishment to anger, and began to beat with the frame violently on the floor of the cage. Soon the glass was shattered, and pieces fell out. Continuing to beat, he was in the course of one blow again arrested by his image in the piece of glass still remaining in the frame. Then, as it seemed, he determined to make one trial more. More circumspectly than ever the whole first part of the process was gone through with; more violently than ever the final dart made. His fury over this last failure knew no bounds. He crunched the frame and glass together with his teeth, he beat on the floor, he crunched again, till nothing but splinters was left.

It would sometimes entangle itself round a pole to which it was fastened, and then unwind the coils again with the greatest discernment. Its chain allowed it to swing down below the verandah, but it could not reach to the ground. Sometimes, when there were broods of young ducks about, it would hold out a piece of bread in one hand, and when it had tempted a duckling within reach, seize it by the other, and kill it with a bite in the breast. There was such an uproar amongst the fowls on these occasions, that we soon knew what was the matter, and would rush out and punish Mickey (as we called him) with a switch; so that he was ultimately cured of his poultry-killing propensities. One day, when whipping him, I held up the dead duckling in front of him, and at each blow of the light switch told him to take hold of it, and at last, much to my surprise, he did so, taking it and holding it tremblingly in one hand. He would draw things towards him with a stick, and even used a swing for the same purpose. It had been put up for the children, and could be reached by Mickey, who now and then indulged himself in a swing on it. One day I had put down some bird-skins on a chair to dry, far beyond, as I thought, Mickey's reach; but, fertile in expedients, he took the swing and launched it towards the chair, and actually managed to knock the skins off in the return of the swing, so as to bring them within his reach. He also procured some jelly that was set out to cool in the same way. Mickey's actions were very human-like. When any one came near to fondle him, he never neglected the opportunity of pocket-picking. He would pull out letters, and quickly take them from their envelopes.[278]

One of the large monkeys at the Alexandra Palace had been for some time suffering from the decay of the right lower canine, and an abscess, forming a large protuberance on the jaw, had resulted. The pain seemed so great, it was decided to consult a dentist as to what should be done; and, as the poor creature was at times very savage, it was thought that if the tooth had to be extracted, gas should be used for the safety of the operation. Preparations were made accordingly, but the behaviour of the monkey was quite a surprise to all who were concerned. He showed great fight on being taken out of the cage, and not only struggled against being put into a sack prepared with a hole cut for his head, but forced one of his hands out, and snapped and screamed, and gave promise of being very troublesome. Directly, however, Mr. Lewen Moseley, who had undertaken the operation, managed to get his hand on the abscess and gave relief, the monkey's demeanour changed entirely. He laid his head down quietly for examination, and, without the use of the gas, submitted to the removal of a stump of a tooth as quietly as possible.

A Cape baboon having taken off some clothes from the barracks, I formed a party to recover them. With twenty 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 fifty 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 the barracks, was seen distributing his orders, as if a general. We rushed on to the attack, when, at a scream from him, they rolled down enormous stones on us, so that we were forced to give up the contest.

Brown Capuchin (Cebus fatuellus—Linn.), Brazil.

Diary, 1880.

December 18th. Arrived in box with keeper. Seemed rather frightened and screamed a good deal on being transferred from small box to a larger one.

19th. Took him out of the box he had been in all night and fastened chain on to collar. Was meek and subdued, hiding his face in my lap.

20th. Has become much more lively and somewhat aggressive, especially towards the servants. He has taken a fancy to my mother, and (she holding his chain) he plays with her in a gentle and affectionate manner in her bed, but flies angrily at any of the servants who come near the bed. I observed to-day that he breaks walnuts (which are too hard for him to crack with his teeth) by striking them with the flat bottom of a dish[485] he has for drinking out of. He is ceaselessly active all day, and at night covers himself very neatly with warm shawls, and sleeps soundly till about eight o'clock.

21st. I notice that the love of mischief is very strong in him. To-day he got hold of a wine-glass and an egg-cup. The glass he dashed on the floor with all his might, and of course broke it. Finding, however, that the egg-cup would not break for being thrown down, he looked round for some hard substance against which to dash it. The post of the brass bedstead appearing to be suitable for the purpose, he raised the egg-cup high over his head and gave it several hard blows. When it was completely smashed he was quite satisfied. He breaks a stick by passing it down between a heavy object and the wall, and then hanging on to the end, thus breaking it across the heavy object. He frequently destroys an article of dress by carefully pulling out the threads (thus unripping it) before he begins to tear it with his teeth in a more violent manner. If he gets hold of anything that he sees we do not care about, he soon leaves it again; but if it is an article of value (even if it be only a scrap of paper) which he sees we are anxious about, nothing will induce him to give it up. No food, however inviting, will distract his attention: scolding only makes him more angry, and he keeps the article until it is quite destroyed. To-day I gave him a hammer to break his walnuts with, and he uses it in a proper manner for that purpose.

22nd. To-day a strange person (a dressmaker) came into the room where he is tied up, and I gave him a walnut that she might see him break it with his hammer. The nut was a bad one, and the woman laughed at his disappointed face. He then became very angry, and threw at her everything he could lay hands on; first the nut, then the hammer, then a coffee-pot which he seized out of the grate, and, lastly, all his own shawls. He throws things with great force and precision by holding them in both hands, and extending his long arms well back over his head before projecting the missile, standing erect the while.

23rd. There is continual war between him and Sharp [a small terrier], but they both seem to have a certain mutual respect for each other. The dog makes snatches at nuts, &c., and runs away with them beyond the reach of his chain, and the monkey catches at the dog, but seems afraid to hold him or hurt him. He however pelts him with nuts or bits of carrot, and chatters at him. At other times he holds out his hand as if to make friends, but the dog is too suspicious to go near him. His hostility towards the servants (one especially) increases, so that he[486] will not even take a nut from her without catching fiercely at her hand; he also frequently throws things at her. On the other hand, he allows my mother to do anything with him.

24th. He bit me in several places to-day when I was taking him away from my mother's bed after his morning's game there. I took no notice, but he seemed ashamed of himself afterwards, hiding his face in his arms and sitting quiet for a time.[280] In accordance with his desire for mischief, he is of course very fond of upsetting things, but he always takes great care they do not fall on himself. Thus he will pull a chair towards him till it is almost over-balanced, then he intently fixes his eyes on the top bar of the back, and when he sees it coming over his way, darts from underneath and watches the fall with great delight; and similarly with heavier things. There is a washhand-stand, for example, with a heavy marble top, which he has with great labour upset several times, and always without hurting himself.[281]

25th. I observed to-day that if a nut or any object he wishes to get hold of is beyond the reach of his chain, he puts out a stick to draw it towards him, or, if that does not succeed, he stands upright and throws a shawl back over his head, holding it by the two corners so that it falls down his back; he then throws it forward with all his strength, still holding on by the corners; thus it goes out far in front of him and covers the nut, which he then draws towards him by pulling in the shawl. When his chain becomes twisted round the bars of a 'clothes-horse' (which is given him to run about upon), and thus too short for his comfort, he looks at it intently and pulls it with his fingers this way and that, and when he sees how the turns are taken, he deliberately goes round and round the bars, first this way, then that, until the chain is quite disentangled. He often carries his chain grasped in his tail and held high over his back to keep it from getting into the way of his feet. He is always rather excited in the morning when I loosen his chain preparatory to taking him to my mother's bed; jumps about and tugs at the chain. Sometimes, however, if the chain is entangled, and I am rather long in getting it unfastened, he sits quietly down beside me, and begins picking at the chain with[487] his fingers as if to help me to untie it. I cannot say, however, that he succeeds in helping me at all.

26th. He seems very fond of spinning things round. If he gets a whole apple or orange he generally sits spinning it on one end, before beginning to eat it. He eats an orange by biting off a tiny piece of the peel, and putting his long, thin finger deep into the fruit; he then lays the whole orange under a piece of wire netting he has near him, and, putting his mouth to the hole he has made, presses the wire netting down upon the fruit, thus squeezing the juice up into his mouth. When a good deal of juice begins to run out, he holds the orange up over his head and lets the juice run into his mouth.

27th. To-day he obtained possession of a rather valuable document, and, as usual, nothing I could do would persuade him to give it up. He neglected any kind of food I offered him, and only chattered when I coaxed him. When at last I tried threatening him with a cane, he only became savage and flew at me, chattering. My mother now came and sat down in a chair beside him. He immediately jumped into her lap, and remained quite still while she took the paper out of his hands. When, however, she handed it to me and I laughed at her success, he showed his teeth and screamed and chattered at me angrily. I find laughing generally irritates him. Thus, when he is playing with my mother in the bed in the best of humour, as long as I sit quietly on the bed all is well, but if I laugh, for example at any of his affectionate glances, he makes a dart at me to send me off, and then returns with renewed demonstrations of affection to my mother, tumbling head over heels and lying on his back, grinning in a most comical manner, and making a sound very like slight laughter.

28th. His chain is fastened to the marble slab of a washhand-stand, placed on the floor against the wall. It is too heavy for him to pull along by his chain without hurting himself, so when he desires to do any mischief which is beyond the reach of his chain, he deliberately goes to the marble and pushes an arm down between an upright part of it and the wall, until he has moved the whole slab sufficiently far from the wall to admit of his slipping down behind the upright part himself. He then places his back against the wall and his four hands against the upright part of the marble, and pushes the slab as far as he can stretch his long legs. He only does this, however, when he is bent on mischief, as the fact of food being beyond the reach of his chain does not furnish a strong enough inducement to lead him to take so much exertion. Thus to-day he began to[488] pull the glazed leather cover off a trunk which was near him. I pulled the trunk away, and when he found it was out of his reach he ran and pushed the marble towards the trunk in the manner I have described, and when he knew his chain was then sufficiently long to reach the trunk, he ran to the latter and hastily resumed his destructive process.

29th. I notice that nothing the person does who has hold of his chain offends him. I mean, although he is furiously angry at having anything taken away from him, he is not at all angry if he is pulled away by his chain. If he is trying to bite a person, and another person takes hold of his chain behind him and so prevents his spring forward, he does not turn to bite the person who has taken hold of his chain, as a dog would do under similar circumstances, but quietly submits to be thus held. He seems to look upon his confinement and management by a chain as a natural law against which it is useless to struggle. On the other hand, he seems to be quite aware of the place where his chain is fastened, and to know that if he were clever enough to undo it he would be free. After we found he could move about the marble slab of the washhand-stand in the way described, we had a ring sunk in the floor to tie him to. The moment the chain was fastened to that[282] he began to investigate its new connection, and continued to do so for hours, passing the chain rapidly backward and forwards through the ring. When he found this did not loosen it, he began to hammer it and the ring also with all his strength, and this he continued to do for the rest of the day.

30th. He still continues to work at the chain where it is fastened to the ring. He passed the whole of the chain through the ring so many times with his fingers that it became quite blocked up in the ring, which made it very short, and it took me a quarter of an hour to disentangle it. He was very much interested in this process, sitting quietly beside me and watching my fingers intently, sometimes gently pulling my fingers on one side in order to see better, and sometimes casting a quick intelligent glance into my face as if asking how I did it. After I had disentangled and lengthened the chain he worked at it again for hours, but took care not to twist it into the ring a second time.

31st. To-day he hurt himself by getting one of his toes caught in a hinge of the clothes-horse. He did not make any[489] fuss, although the accident must have been somewhat a painful one, nor did he try to pull the toe out, which would have been useless and only hurt him more; but he sat almost motionless, making slight complaining noises until I discovered that there was something wrong with him. When I began to extricate his foot, he remained perfectly passive—although I dare say I hurt him a good deal—and only looked at me gratefully.

January 1, 1881. He has now quite given up trying to loosen his chain himself; having tried every way and failed, he has evidently become hopeless about it. He now resents being tied up. When I loosen him he is quite pleased, and when I tie him he waits until he is quite sure he is being tied, and not loosened, and then he flies at me and bites me.

10th. As he is always tied up in the same place he has no new opportunities given him of showing his intelligence. His attachment to my mother has increased. When she goes out he immediately gives up all play and mischief, and does nothing but run round and round in a restless manner, making a peculiar sweet calling noise, such as he never makes when she is in the room, listening intently between times. As long as she remains away he takes no rest or amusement, nor does he ever, or hardly ever, become angry; but the moment she returns he begins all his old ways again, usually becoming more savage at other people than before.

My mother frequently takes things away from him, and he never resents it to her as he would do to any other person. He generally, however, chatters angrily at some one else when my mother removes anything he wishes to keep. At first I thought he was deceived in the matter—that he could not believe it possible that his best friend could deprive him of what he valued, and so thought someone else must have done it. But the same thing has now happened so frequently that I can hardly think he is not really aware of who takes the things away. He seems rather to think it politic to keep on good terms with one person, and that although he does see her remove the things, and feels angry in consequence, he thinks it more prudent to vent his anger upon someone with whom he has already quarrelled. He always shows more irritation when my mother gives anything to me after having taken it away from him, than when she keeps it herself (as mentioned on December 26), and this may be the reason partly why he resents these matters to me; he thinks when I obtain possession of anything he wants that it is a sort of triumph to me. In the same way my mother may laugh as[490] much as she likes whether he is with her or not, but if I laugh at all at anything it generally results in something being thrown at me. If my mother calls out to the servants—if, for instance, a servant has left the room and my mother calls her back—he becomes very angry at the servant, and salutes her on her return with a shower of missiles. Sometimes my mother pretends to scold or beat the servants, and then he joins with great energy, by way of supporting his friend. If I scold or beat the servants he does not mind so much. When my mother comes back after being out he does not show any great demonstrations of joy. He screams out with pleasure when he hears her voice approaching on the stairs, but does not make much ado when she enters the room. While my mother is out I can do anything I like with him, just as she can when she is at home. Perhaps being in low spirits he does not feel angry, or perhaps he thinks it prudent to be amiable when his best friend is away. When my mother comes back, all his ill-temper returns at once and even in an increased degree towards other people, and he immediately resumes playing with all his toys.

11th. When he throws things at people now he first runs up the bars of the clothes-horse; he seems to have found out that people do not much care for having things thrown at their feet, and he is not strong enough to throw such heavy objects as a poker or a hammer at people's heads; he therefore mounts to a level with his enemy's head, and thus succeeds in sending his missile to a greater height and also to a greater distance.

14th. To-day he obtained possession of a hearth-brush, one of the kind which has the handle screwed into the brush. He soon found the way to unscrew the handle, and having done that he immediately began to try to find out the way to screw it in again. This he in time accomplished. At first he put the wrong end of the handle into the hole, but turned it round and round the right way for screwing. Finding it did not hold, he turned the other end of the handle and carefully stuck it into the hole, and began again to turn it the right way. It was of course a very difficult feat for him to perform, for he required both his hands to hold the handle in the proper position and to turn it between his hands in order to screw it in, and the long bristles of the brush prevented it from remaining steady or with the right side up. He held the brush with his hind hand, but even so it was very difficult for him to get the first turn of the screw to fit into the thread; he worked at it, however, with the most unwearying perseverance until he got the first turn of the screw to catch, and he then quickly turned it round and round until it was screwed up to the end. The most remarkable[491] thing was that, however often he was disappointed in the beginning, he never was induced to try turning the handle the wrong way; he always screwed it from right to left. As soon as he had accomplished his wish, he unscrewed it again, and then screwed it in again the second time rather more easily than the first, and so on many times. When he had become by practice tolerably perfect in screwing and unscrewing, he gave it up and took to some other amusement. One remarkable thing is that he should take so much trouble to do that which is no material benefit to him. The desire to accomplish a chosen task seems a sufficient inducement to lead him to take any amount of trouble. This seems a very human feeling, such as is not shown, I believe, by any other animal. It is not the desire of praise, as he never notices people looking on; it is simply the desire to achieve an object for the sake of achieving an object, and he never rests nor allows his attention to be distracted until it is done.

16th. When he is angry, and has at hand only those things which he wishes to keep, he makes a great show of throwing them at people, but always retains a hold. Thus if he has had a plaything a long time and is tired of it, he throws it right at a person without the least hesitation; but if he has a new thing which he values, he goes through all the appropriate motions for throwing, but only brings the object down with a noise upon the ground, taking care not to let go his hold. He beats people with a long cane he has, and when he cannot reach people he strikes it with all his strength upon the ground to show what he would do if he had the chance. There is no more comical sight than to see him hurriedly climbing his screen in fierce anger, taking (not without great difficulty) his long and awkward stick up with him in order to be high enough to give a good blow to a person. The dog is quite afraid of the stick in the monkey's hands, although he is too petted to be afraid of it in a person's. The monkey is jealous of the dog lying in the arm-chair in which he sometimes seats himself with my mother, so he pokes the stick at the dog (as the chair is beyond the reach of his chain) and makes him get off.

18th. He was very angry to-day at a servant girl sweeping out his place with a long brush, and he seized the brush every time the servant attempted to sweep. My mother then took it, and he at once became not only quite good-tempered, but assisted her in sweeping, by gathering the rubbish in the corners of his place into little heaps with his hands, and putting the heaps into the way of the brush.

20th. To-day he broke his chain, and flew at a servant[492] savagely, but seeing my mother he immediately jumped into her lap. While another chain was being prepared he got to the trunk where his nuts are kept. I have long noticed that he looks upon that trunk as in some special sense his own property. There are other things kept in the trunk as well as the nuts, and if any person goes to the trunk for anything he becomes furiously angry. Indeed nothing makes him so angry as people opening the trunk, and this is not because he wants nuts out of it, for he always has more than he can eat beside him, and generally refuses to take any that are offered to him. Well, to-day, as soon as the breaking of his chain enabled him to get to the trunk, he began picking at the lock with his fingers. I then gave him the key, and he tried for two full hours without ceasing to unlock the trunk with this key. It was a very difficult lock to open, being slightly out of order, and requires the lid of the trunk to be pressed down before it would work, so I believe it was absolutely impossible for him to open it, but he found in time the right way to put the key in, and to turn it backwards and forwards, and after every attempt he pulled the lid upwards to see if it were unlocked. That this was the result of observing people is obvious, from the fact that after every time he put the key into the lock and failed to open the trunk, he passed the key round and round the outside of the lock several times. The explanation of this is that, my mother's sight being bad, she often misses the lock when putting in the key, and then feels round and round the lock with the key; the monkey therefore evidently seems to think that this feeling round and round the lock with the key is in some way necessary to the success of unlocking the lock, so that, although he could see perfectly well how to put the key in straight himself, he went through this useless operation first.

21st. To-day I gave him a wooden box with the lid nailed on, and an iron spoon, to see if he would use the latter as a lever wherewith to raise the lid. The experiment was somewhat spoiled by my mother putting the handle of the spoon into the crack between the lid and the box to show him how to do it. Therefore I cannot tell whether or not he would have taken this first step himself, if he had had time to do so. However, when the handle of the spoon was in he certainly used it in the proper manner, pulling it down with all his strength at the extreme end, thus drawing the nails out of the box and raising the lid.

22nd. He was sitting on my mother's knee, and she washing his hands with a little sponge, a process of which he is[493] very fond; she tried to wash his face, and that he disliked very much. Every time she began, the expression of his face became more angry; at last he suddenly jumped off her knee, and made a violent attack on one of the servants who is usually his favourite, although she was doing nothing at all to anger him. This is a good instance of his habit of venting his anger at my mother on other people. He always eats vigorously when he is angry, or after a fit of passion. After a prolonged fit of passion he always lies down on his side as if dead, probably from exhaustion.

30th. He quite understands the meaning of shaking hands. He always holds out his own hand when he wishes to be friendly, especially when a friend is entering or leaving the room. To-day he had been a long time playing with his toys, taking no notice of any one. Suddenly my mother remembered that to-day was my birthday, and (for the first time since he came to the house) shook hands with me in congratulation. He immediately became very angry with me, screamed and chattered and threw things at me, being evidently jealous of the attention my mother was paying me.

February 1st. He has now been moved down to the dining-room, where he is chained between the fireplace and the window. He seems quite miserable on account of the change, as he does not see so much of my mother.

4th. His low spirits continue, and threaten to make him ill. He will not play with anything, but sits moping and shivering in a corner. To-day I found him very cold and unhappy, and warmed his hands for him. He is very meek and gentle, and seems to be getting fond of me.

8th. He has quite recovered his spirits since he took a fancy to me. He likes me now apparently as well as he used to do my mother; that is to say, he allows me to nurse him, and walk about in his place, and even take things away from him. When, however, my mother comes to see him, he does not care for me, although he shows none of his old hostility. To the servants, however, he continues to do so when my mother is present.

10th. We gave him a bundle of sticks this morning, and he amused himself all day by poking them into the fire and pulling them out again to smell the smoking end. He likewise pulls out hot cinders from the grate and passes them over his head and chest, evidently enjoying the warmth, but never burning himself. He also puts hot ashes on his head. I gave him some paper, and, as he cannot, from the length of his chain,[494] quite reach the fire, he rolled the paper up into the form of a stick, and then put it into the fire, pulling it out as soon as it caught light, and watching the blaze in the fender with great satisfaction. I gave him a whole newspaper, and he tore it in pieces, rolled up each piece as I have described, to make it long enough to reach the fire, and so burnt it all piece by piece. He never once burnt his own fingers during the operation.

13th. He can open and shut the folding shutters with ease, and this seems to be an amusement to him. He also unscrewed all the knobs that belong to the fender. The bell-handle beside the mantelpiece he likewise took to bits, which involves the unscrewing of three screws.

15th. He is so amiable to me now that he constantly gives me bits of things that he himself is eating, evidently expecting me to share his repast with him. Sometimes this attention on his part is not altogether agreeable. For instance, to-day he thrust into my hand, when I was not looking, a quantity of sopped bread and milk out of his pan, no doubt thinking himself very kind-hearted thus to supply me with food.

17th. He offered the dog a bit of toast which he himself was eating, and the dog took a part of it. I think, however, that he had at the same time a sly design of catching the dog with the other hand, but he did not do so—perhaps because I was looking on, and he knows the dog is a friend of mine; but he had a wicked look in his eye while feeding the dog, which he has not when he extends his bounty to me.

19th. When I was brushing him to-day he took the brush away from me. Playthings are especially valuable to him now, as he is not allowed to have any lest he should break the windows with them. For this reason I was afraid to leave the brush with him, but found he was not at all disposed to give it up. I threw other things within his reach, but he carried the brush in his hind hand while going after the other things. At last I sat down and called him gently, when he mildly came up to my lap and put the brush into my two hands, evidently resolving that he would not now quarrel with his only friend.

22nd. His manner of showing his humours is interesting, as illustrating the principle of antithesis. Thus when he is angry he springs forward on all four hands with tail very erect and hair raised, so making himself look much bigger. When affectionate he advances slowly backwards with his body in the form of a hoop, so that the crown of his head rests on the ground, face inwards. He walks on three hands (hair very smooth), and puts the fourth fore-hand out at his back in advance[495] of his body. He expects this hand to be taken kindly, and he then assumes his natural attitude. In that manner of advancing it is obviously impossible that he could bite, as his mouth is towards his own chest, so it is the best way of showing how far he is from thinking of hostility.

February 28, 1881.