The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-09-20
CALCULATION OF ANIMALS.

20 quench its thirst. We have also known
CAT, when she was shut up In q room, and
wanted to get out, ring the bell and make
ner escape when the servant answered it.
custom to ring bell before the meals, one
gay chanced to be shut up at dinner-time.
ooihe hours after, when she was let out
sne ran TO the room where they used to put
her 1000, but it was not there. Soon after,
the people heard q bell ringing. and came
to see what was the matter. When the door
was opened, what was their surprise to see
the cat clinging to the bell-rope. The fact
was, that puss wanted her dinner, and
having always seen that it came after the
ring it herself. Monkeys are very fond of
birds eggs In some countries where these
animals abound, birds, in order to preserve
their eggs, will make their nests at the end
of the slender branches of trees, SO that the
monkeys cannot reach them. Woodpeckers
which they break off q tree in making hole
in it for their nest. For the same reason,
many birds carefully remove the excrements
of their young from the neighborhood of
the nest. Man himself could not be more
calculating and far reaching. There is
notorious instance on record of dog,
which, slipping it's collar at night, roamed
| round the adjoining fields and worried the
sheep, and afterward washing his jaws in
stream, returned home, re-adjusted his
COIldI, anu hccpAuS WlCulu 1CS kennel,
| threw off suspicion. Here we have, not
only an impulse, but also q multiplication
of actions arising from inward power and
| intelligence, unaccompanied by perception,
or the operation of any outward agency.
An ourang outang in Paris, when left alone,
reach the lock of the door, he carried stool
to the spot; this being removed; he took
another, and another, and mounting on it,
renewed his efforts. Reason alone could
have prompted this act; and besides, there
must have been q combination of ideas to
have enabled him to get the stool to assist
itself in opening the lock-to copy what it
had seen its keeper do; namely, to unlock
the door, ard to move stool about as he
wanted it.
The calmucks can tell, by their sense of
smell, whether fox is in his earth or not.
But even this sense of acuteness in man,
great as it certainly is, is as nothing COM
pared with that of animals. Camels passing
through desert can scent water at the dis
lance of two or three miles; the mules in
South America scent it at the distance of
two or three leagues. The carrierhorses of
Switzerland hear the fall of an avalanche,
and warn their masters by their terror, OF
the impending danger. Without eyes or
apertures of any kind for the admission OF
light, the polypus will always distinguish
the animalcula on which it feeds. Bats
will thread their way accurately through
f innumerable meshes- and complicated
threads even after their eyes have been put
out. So far, the animals take precedence
of man, sense being and ending with its
exercise. But, in the animal, the mental
. exercise, where it is even vivid and striking,
is still confined, limited, and subservient
to but one end. The dog remembers his
master and the members of the family after
l the lapse of many years, and it is perhaps
owing to the absence of mental sequence,
the comparative negation of any connected
process of thought, which gives him thai
3 tenacity of memory and extraordinary per-
n lection of the senses, according to the old
law, that power being checked i'll one di-
rection, will develop itself in another. 1t is
= related of dog which his master took with
o him on n journey of upwards of three hun
}, bred miles, through country almost desti-
g tute of roads, which occupied three weeks
+ to traverse, the dog lost his master; yet, in
: spite of the vast distance, found his way
&c back to his home. The dog of Il little
|, Savoyard being sold and carried to Rome
l. was shut up for safety, but it soon sue
IF ceeded in making it's escape, and reached
it's former home, after few days, in Il most
n emacated state. So far we see abcautiiully
~ marked resemblance between man and the
~ brute, and it must be hollow vanity which
u shuts the ear against the acceptance o
Is these truths, and seeks to exclude the lowe
"a animals from the participation OF reason.
- Z The habits of other tribes are equal.
4 characteristic. Bees are geometricians-
8 their cells are SO constructed, as, with tn
it least quantity of material, to have tn
IN largest sized spaces and the least possibl
of loss of interstice So also is the antlion-
y his funnel-shaped trap is exactly right Ii
T. it's conformation, as if it had been made b.
" the most skillful artist of our species, wit
d, the aid of the best instruments. The mol
u is meteorological. The bird called tn
nine-killer is arithmetician; so also
ly the crow, the wild turkey, and some othe
., birds. The torpedo, the ray, and the cleo
"' trio eel, are electricians. The nautilus j
a a navigator-he raises and lowers his sal
it casts and weighs anchor, and perform
other nautical evolutions. Whole tribes
birds are musicians. The beaver is a
C. architect, builder, and wood cutter-ll
OF cuts down trees, and erects houses an
We dams. The marmot is civil eng ineer-l