vegetable anatomy discovers no organ, that bears any analogy with the seat of animal sensation, it would nevertheless betray a species of ignorance to deny sensation to plants. It would betray a still greater to deny reason to animals; since the faculty of imagination is proved by their capacity of dreaming. In the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, was a crane, which Mons. Valentin brought from Senegal. This bird was attended by that merchant, during the voyage, with the most assiduous care; but, upon landing in France, it was sold, or given, to the Museum of Natural History. Several months after its introduction, Valentin, arriving at Paris, went to the menagerie, and walked up to the cage in which the bird was confined. The crane instantly recognized him; and when Valentin went into its cage, lavished upon him every mark of affectionate attachment. That animals possess parental and filial affections, friendly dispositions, and generous sympathies, is known even to superficial observers. The artifices which partridges and plovers employ to delude their enemies from the nests of their young are equally known. The hind, when she hears the sound of dogs, puts herself in the way of her hunters; and, choosing her ground, takes an opposite direction to that in which she left her fawns. The love of this animal, too, for its native haunts, is not unfrequently exemplified. A farmer at Mount Vernon, in the state of Kentucky, having domesticated a female deer, lost her during the whole spring and summer. After an absence of several months, however, she returned with a young fawn by her side; and, on her arrival, seemed to take great pleasure in shewing her young. Grief, too, works in a lively manner upon animals. I knew a dog that died for the loss of its master; and a bullfinch, that abstained from singing ten entire months on account of the absence of its mistress. On her return it resumed its song. Lord Kaims' relates an instance of a canary, which, in singing to his mate, hatching her eggs in a cage, fell dead. The female quitted her nest; and, finding him dead, rejected all food, and died by his side. Homer was not so extravagant, as some may be inclined to esteem him, when he makes the proud horses of the proud Achilles weep for the loss of their master: for horses can regret; and their countenances frequently exhibit evident marks of melancholy. The seal weeps, and the turtle mourns. XIII. Some animals are more truly sensitive to the value of liberty than men. Vipers, when in a state of bondage, never take their annual repose; and leeches will ✅ never breed in confinement. But, without recurring to many of those instances, which the page of nature so copiously records, we may borrow an instance from the borders of the Delaware. The mocking birds of that region will not live in cages; and so entirely free are they, by nature, that when a nest is procured, placed in a cage, and hung out, the parents will come, Sketches, vol. ii. p. 19. indeed, three or four times to feed their young; but, finding them incapable of release, they will give them poisonous food, in order to relieve them from captivity. I will not vouch for the truth of this; but the Delawarians believe, and Captain Aubury' has recorded it. Democritus contended, that men learnt music and architecture from birds; and weaving from spiders. The hippopotamus is said to have taught the art of bleeding; goats the uses of dittany; snakes the properties of fennel; and the ibis the use of clysters. The wild hog of the West Indies, when wounded, repairs to the balsam-tree; and, rubbing itself till the turpentine exudes, soon cures itself. To this animal, therefore, the Indians esteem themselves indebted for a knowledge of the healing powers of balsam. Animals have many of their faculties superior to men. Birds, in general, have a quicker sight; dogs, camels, and storks a livelier scent; and fishes an acuter sense of touch: though some blind men are said to have the faculty of feeling colours. Frogs and bees perceive the approach of rain long before it comes. The bee has, also, a very peculiar instinct, in returning from the distance of several miles to its own hive; though it can see only three inches before it. The nautilus, too, will quit its shell in the deep, and return to it again. But the superior reason of man not only enables him to surpass the strength of lions, as in the Trav. vol. ii. p. 248. instances of Samson'; David2; Benaiah3; and Hercules; but even to guard against the collective hostility of the entire animated world. XIV. That fishes have the sense of hearing has been proved by Rondelesius, Abbé Nollet, and other naturalists. The Bramins calling to the fish in many of the sacred streams of India, they come from their recesses, feed out of their benefactors' hands, and even suffer them to handle them. I had once the pleasure of shaking a seal by the fin in one of the most public streets of London. This animal had a lively sense of hearing, and would do various things its master desired it to do. It was of a cold day in November, and yet it absolutely panted with heat. Renard' says, he had a fish, of the lophius genus, which followed him about like a dog. This however is not only dubious and improbable, but impossible. Spiders also have the auricular sense, and they are not insensible to music. Other insects have the olfactory power. In some parts of the Arctic circle the air is impregnated with the fragrance of the linnea borealis, round the twin blossoms of which myriads of mosquitoes hover, as if enchanted with its odour, and inflict, says a recent traveller, the most envenomed 1 Judges, xiv. v. 6. 21 Sam. chap. xvii. v. 3. 5. Hist. des Poissons, tom. ii. 5 Clarke, Scandinavia, 309, 4to. stings upon the hand of any one who presumes to pluck them. Some insects exercise no little ingenuity in robbing those flowers, the nectar of which they find a difficulty in procuring. Those, which have not a proboscis sufficiently long to penetrate the honeysuckle from within, tap it below, and suck the honey as it flows at the bottom. Locusts and summer flies display an astonishing method and celerity in their flight. There is nothing in nature to compare with them. The former fly in bodies, generally the eighth part of a mile square in extent, and yet they never incommode each other; such is the order and regularity with which they fly: and when they approach a vineyard, they send out, as Shaw and Pococke inform us, spies, in order to explore places for them on which to settle. Some birds have striking mental peculiarities. Bullfinches have strong memories: this is evident from instances, in which they have returned to their mistresses, after escaping from their cages, and living some time in the woods. Some birds are even artisans. The razor-bill fastens the only egg, which it lays, to the bare cliff with cement; but the East Indian taylor bird' sews together the leaves of trees. To effect this its bill serves as a needle, and the small fibres of plants as thread. The Loxia of Bengal is also a remarkable bird, and has no disinclination to an intercourse with mankind. In a wild state it sits and builds upon the Indian fig-tree, and suspends its nest 1 Sutoria.-An imperfect specimen may be seen in the eighth room of the British Museum, case xiii. |