animals of all kinds, find their way home, when they are parted from it, as readily as pigeons, though it has not happened that men have taken equal notice in all

cases.

Thee mayest be sure, friend Dykes, that I expect my pretty Robin to come back, and to find no difficulty; for I would not else expose him to the trial. I would not harm him for the world; and I told him that he had only to wait till this afternoon, to see the end of all his troubles."

These words of good Mr. Gubbins restored an entire friendship between us. I forgave him the small sins of all the rest. The forgiveness, too, which I imparted, returned to beatify myself. Health and strength came back to me with good humour. I could eat and drink; and I thought that it would be no bad thing to make a meal, before I was set forward on my flight. I pecked at Mrs. Dykes's crumbs, and reached at the water; and, seeing me thus lively, and desirous of food, every hand began to minister to my comfort and my wishes. Mrs. Dykes put saffron into the water, to cheer me; and crumbs of cheese beside the bread; and Mr. Gubbins even produced from his pocket a hard egg, to chop the yolk, and mingle it, with mawseed and milk, along with the crumbs, into a heartening paste. I ate and drank freely; and though I was not a little impatient for my collar and my flight, I listened with some degree of interest to the prolonged discussions of the two naturalists, which still delayed my journey.

Thy experiment with thy Robin-red-breast," said the cobbler," will prove little, because he is already too near at home; but the faculty which all animals possess of keeping the road they want, through dis

tances the most remote, and where, to human apprehension, there is nothing natural to direct their course, is certainly among the striking phenomena of nature; though, at last, it only shows, what we ought to have believed beforehand, that all things are provided with means apportioned to their necessities. Dogs, cats, horses, oxen, sheep,--all things find their way, in circumstances which often surprise us; and the return of the dove to his dove-cote is no more, and even upon a scale comparatively much less, than the marvellous return of the swallow to his mansion, and the martin to his temple; and of so many other birds of passage; to leave out of our present thoughts the number of migrating fishes, and of four-footed beasts!"

"Thee sayest well and cautiously," interrupted Mr. Gubbins," that it is to human apprehension only, that they have nothing natural to guide them; for their guides, in reality, must be as plainly natural, as they are sure and efficacious?"

"And among these," assented Cobbler Dykes, "must be the exquisite powers of their eyes, their nostrils, and their ears. They see, smell, and hear, where, to our limited experience, those functions seem impossible. They take the minutest notice, too, (as I am persuaded), of the visible forms and appearances of things; and above all, they are directed by the most intense internal sensibility, throughout their entire frames, to the state of the atmosphere, affecting the state of their own bodies; so as to be informed of times and seasons, of the hours of the day, of the direction of places, and of the approach, and approaching departure of particular weathers, or of atmosphe rical phenomena; to an extent, and with a precision,

of which, as we do not ourselves, in our artificial ways of life, depend so implicitly upon such aids, we form no adequate idea!"

"As to what thee sayest," again interrupted Mr. Gubbins," about their taking notice of places; let me tell thee, while I think of it, an anecdote of a dog, which I have heard of from London, since thee and I enjoyed ourselves in this sort of talk; and which, though as short as it is simple, and as simple as it is short, will prove more for the reasoning powers of the animal, and against a blind instinct, than many longer tales. The dog was of a large size, but not a twelvemonth old. His master lived at the second door from the corner, in one of those numerous streets which cross each other at right angles, in the north-west part of the town; and where the pavement, lamps, steps, doors, and fronts of the houses are all so much alike. I should add, that at the distance of twenty doors, there was a second corner of two crossing streets, almost exactly resembling the first. Now, the well-grown puppy, perplexed by these similitudes, would frequently mistake his master's door, but only to this extent: he would go to the second door from the second corner, instead of the second door from the first; and what did this make manifest, but that the dog did not know the door, or at any time find it, through a blind and inexplicable instinct, but by the same rule that would have guided his master himself, in any similar emergency. The door which he had to find was a second door from a corner; that he knew; and though, for some little time, he often mistook the corner, he never failed to fix upon a second door!"

"I admire thy story," said Cobbler Dykes," as one that is more than commonly to the point; and though

what I have to give in exchange belongs rather to the whole herd of general stories of the sagacity or reasonableness of dogs, or their approach to human manners and modes of action, yet I venture to recite it. We have, in our village, a terrier, which, at home and abroad, shows his sagacity, in various ways, to the equal admiration of his master and his mistress. At home, if he is hungry, and if the usual supply of food is wanting, his mistress can put money into his mouth, which he will carry to a dog's-meat shop, and lay down in exchange for a meal. Abroad, his master, who is a labouring man, and whom he accompanies, in the evening, to chat and take a pint, at the King's Head, can send him, with a halfpenny in his mouth, to the bar; and, in his mouth, he will bring back & biscuit in exchange. He neither trespasses upon the biscuit, nor does he carry the money to the dog's-meat shop, as, in the former case, and for his own food, he knows that he has leave to do."

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"Well!" said Mr. Gubbins, so we go on, adding story to story; but it is time thee madest the collar, and that poor Robin was on his way." The collar was then made in an instant, and fastened upon my neck; and now, to my unspeakable joy, and amid the good words and wishes of the whole party, I was released from the detested net, and suffered to fly at large. This done, it was not long before I had shrouded myself, for the night, in the most retired part of the garden of Burford Cottage.

CHAP. VI.

To trust again, and be again deceived!

ANON.

I GAVE my reader to understand, for his sympathetic satisfaction, even before closing the final page of my late chapter, that I reached Burford Cottage safely and expeditiously, after once escaping from the net of Mr. Gubbins, and from Cobbler Dykes's storehouse of the works of art and nature. There can be no doubt, but that Mr. Gubbins's experiment (so very disagreeable to me, who was the subject of it!) was little better than trivial; for how could he suppose any other than that I must know my way for six miles round my nest *? Cunning Mr. Gubbins! He did not know how often I had accompanied even his own solitary rambles for parts of that distance; or met or overtook him within that circuit from his home, springing from twenty yards to twenty yards along the hedge-rows, and stopping when he stopped, and turning back when he turned back; though all without his giving that particular attention to me, which I was bestowing upon him! Cunning Mr. Gubbins! He did not, and he does not know, that if men, and women, and children watch and note the ways, and looks, and figures, and colours of Robins; so, Robins also watch and note the ways,

* A similar experiment, however, and one which is upon record, was lately tried in reality, and in the instance of a Red-breast; and three miles was all the space, on that occasion, interposed.