Sagacity Of Animals Overrated

It is next to impossible to shake the jublic faith in the value of the observaions of the lower creation. We know by experience that onr barn-door fowls will with irfinite composnre retire to est at 10 o'clock in the morning in case f an eclipse, yet that knowledge does not prevent the public from assuming he possession by birds of mysterions ouroes of information on thê ' subject f weather -which are sealed to us. )ogs are supposed to have some intuiion which warns them of approaching eath, and many a heart has been torured by accepting as a forewarning of issolution a dog's complaint against ie moon for unreasonable brightness. 'he fact is that animáis in general are ar less wise than we think, even in the natters that come directly under their een. Observations of pheñomena on the art of a man who, bynoticing the influnee of changing oondition upon various bjeots, animato and inanimate, becomes weather-wise are far more trustworthy ban that kind of feeling, which, like nin in an old wound, warns birds or nimals of the approach of wet. Altopther curious it ip, indeed, to see how ar animáis are from possessing the kind f knowledge we are most ready to asign tliem, that of things they may eat vith impunity. Quite recently Lord jovelace underwent a eerious loss in onsequence of a herd of cows eating ome ewe-clippings indiscreetly placed within their reach. Oattle continually mistako the kind of food that will ffwr. ( hem, especially when they are str- ;o the district in which it grows. After time they find its noxious (jUaiities nd are it appears, able to miumit the nowiedge to their desj, __qen, emana Magazine,