Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-12-21


When the naturalist Ruppen explored
the highlands Of eastern Africa, two
SoudaRese emirs OF chieftains once per
mitted him to deposit his baggage in
their military camp while he pursued
his inquiries in the giens of neighbor-
ing mountain range. On his return he
presented necklaces of beads to the
emirs, and, having observed that there
were just twenty tents in the fortified
Eaal, and that every tent was occupied
by exactly seven men, he handed the
emirs bag containing 40 glass buttons,
with the request that they give one but
ton to every warrior in the camp.
The giit:ering keepsakes were at once
distributed, and Ruppell had just re-
loaded his baggage cart, when one of
the chieftains removed the professor s
hat, and gravely examined the top and
rear of his head.
verify, oh, friend" he said, ''you
must have an extra eye somewhere or
other, for else you could not possibly
have discovered the exact number Of
our men"
The honest enir himself could proba-
bly, court up to seven, and with the aid
of all his fingers and toes, perhaps could
count even TO twenty, but evidently did
not think it possible that the human
mind could grasp the vast product of
the two factors.
A similar mistake may often tempt us
to misconstrue the abilities of our in
stinct guided fellow creatures. The sup
posed sixth sense" may often be nothing
but an uncommon development of COM
mon faculty.
Take for example the deerhound,
which pursues his game through brush
and brake, and returns safely home,
even after he has crossed waters that
would prevent him from retracing his
steps by the sense of smell A few years
practice, however, enables the hunter
himself to remember the general direc-
ton of his rambles through painless
forest where a novice would surely lose
his way.
BY hereditary transmission of the
traits of countless generations of dogs
that have hunted, and which include the
wolf-Eke ancestors, the domestic dog
may have perfected the ability to find
his way to an apparently prerernatural
degree.
Individual experience, indeed, often
wholly fails TO explain such faculties as
the protective instincts" of certain
birds and ansznals. The British zoolo-
gist, Spalding, once procured some
newly Matched turkeys, and in order to
make an experiment. carried them into
ball adjoining a room where he kept a
pair of pct hawks that bad not been fed
that morning, and which DOW and then
vented their Impotence in a shrill
scream.
The young turkeys had but just come
out OF their egg shells, and had never
seen hawk OF heard one before; but at
the first sound of those screams they all
started to their feet and toddled off with
every sign of terror.
AT sight of a snake or o rat nv pct
balloon will retreat to the farthest cor
ner Of her cage. / ascribed the precau-
ton TO a nervous dread of ali unknown
animals, until l made the experiment
with pair of guinea pigs. Jenny was
eating her breakfast when the soueaiinp
little strangers entered her cage, but in
this case her only dread seemed to be
that she might have To share her meal
with the uninyited guests.
For a minute or two she watched their
movements with an air of puzzled Curl
osity, but then, instead of taking to her
heels, she made grab at the intruders,
and without further ado hustled them
out, and discouraged a repetition of the
visit by giving each a parting pinch in
the back.
Jenny had received her geological ed
ucation in the AbySsinian highlands
while guinea pigs are natives of South
America, but somehow the sight of the
waddling pigmies seemed to satisfy her
that they could be no fighters.
This balloon has strange appetite for
insects She appears to recognize the
difference between the harmless north
erD cenrpede and its dreadful tropical
relative. but she handles crawfish with
evident suspicion, either on account of
their pinching apparatus c. because of
thCAi fSctiioidiiCS W lutONcISTOWn SCOT
pions of the tropics.
With snakes she absolutely declines
to take any risks; the non-poisonous va
rieties include too many dangerous
strangers.
Hereditary instincts sometimes con-
tnue to assert themselves under circum-
stances that seem to make their assist t
ance rather superhuous. There was a
time when the ancestors of the dog found 4
it useful preoaution to bury the rem /
nantS of good meal, and thus provide
against possible times of scarcity,, and
that old race habit still prompts their !
descendants to hide bones and old crusts
even where the bounty of their masters
supplies them with regular and abun-
dant daily meals.
Lapdogs that have never left the prem
Uses Of fashionable residence hunt" in
their dreams, which proves that their
minds retain latent aptitude for the
favorIte paStimes of their forefathers.
During summer tour in the Austrian
Alps one of my neighbors bought
young shepherd dog and brought him to
suburb of Cincinnati, where sheep are
seen only in the form of mutton; but
every little while the young herder would
try to earn his board by collecting
troop of stray geese. and, in spite Of their
Kissing protest, drive them along the