also four or five long hairs standing up
from each eyebrow, and also two or three on each cheek; all which, when the
animal erects them, make with their points so many parts of the periphery
of a circle, of an extent at least equal to the circumference of any part
of their own bodies. With this instrument, I conceive, by a little
experience, they can at once determine, whether any aperture amongst hedges
or shrubs, in which animals of this genus live in their wild state, is
large enough to admit their bodies; which to them is a matter of the
greatest consequence, whether pursuing or pursued. They have likewise a
power of erecting and bringing forward the whiskers on their lips; which
probably is for the purpose of feeling, whether a dark hole be further
permeable.

The antennae, or horns, of butterflies and moths, who have awkward wings,
the minute feathers of which are very liable to injury, serve, I suppose, a
similar purpose of measuring, as they fly or creep amongst the leaves of
plants and trees, whither their wings can pass without touching them.

Mr. Leonard, a very intelligent friend of mine, saw a cat catch a trout by
darting upon it in a deep clear water at the mill at Weaford, near
Lichfield. The cat belonged to Mr. Stanley, who had often seen her catch
fish in the same manner in summer, when the mill-pool was drawn so low,
that the fish could be seen. I have heard of other cats taking fish in
shallow water, as they stood on the bank. This seems a natural art of
taking their prey in cats, which their acquired delicacy by domestication
has in general prevented them from using, though their desire of eating
fish continues in its original strength.

Mr. White, in his ingenious History of Selbourn, was witness to a cat's
suckling a young hare, which followed her about the garden, and came
jumping to her call of affection. At Elford, near Lichfield, the Rev. Mr.
Sawley had taken the young ones out of a hare, which was shot; they were
alive, and the cat, who had just lost her own kittens, carried them away,
as it was supposed, to eat them; but it presently appeared, that it was
affection not hunger which incited her, as she suckled them, and brought
them up as their mother.

Other instances of the mistaken application of what has been termed
instinct may be observed in flies in the night, who mistaking a candle for
day-light, approach and perish in the flame. So the putrid smell of the
stapelia, or carrion-flowe