The Reasoning Power in Animals

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1867 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXX. ANIMALS FINDING WAY FROM PLACE TO PLACE.--OTHER ANIMALS BESIDES THE DOG-. Having noticed these instances of the dog's faculty of finding his way from place to place, we will turn to a few cases of the same faculty manifested in other animals. Next to the dog, the most numerous examples of it seem to have been observed in the cat. A story appeared in a Scotch newspaper some time ago, of a cat that found its way to a place thirty miles distant, at which she had never been before. A family removed from Edinburgh to a town thirty miles off, to reach which it was necessary either to cross an arm of the sea or to make a very long circuit; which of these ways the family went the account does not state. They had a favourite cat, which they wished to take with them, but the animal, apparently alarmed at the unusual bustk. of the preparation for their departure, hid itself for some days before they quitted the house, and, as they were unable to discover its place of concealment, they were under the necessity of leaving it behind them. Of course they never expected to see it again. But one morning, several weeks after they had been settled in their new abode, their attention was attracted by a violent scratching at the front door, and, on opening it, they saw, greatly to their astonishment, their favourite cat walking in. How she had discovered the road to their house, whether she had found some opportunity of crossing the sea in a vessel, or whether, as is perhaps more probable, she had gone round the longest circuit by land, will never be learned by any human being in this world. But of an animal finding a way apparently impossible for it to trace there is no more remarkable account on record. Mr. Bell' observes that cats, notwithstanding their dread of...