but it had
not gone far, before one, who had not received his portion, darted down
upon it perpendicularly, and as the last fragment of me rolled down his
enormous gullet, the spirit fled, and all was darkness and oblivion.

But I have digressed sadly from the concatenation of ideas. The ant
made me think of my grandmother,--my grandmother of my uncle,--my uncle
of my cousin,--and her death of my dream, for "We are such stuff as
dreams are made of, and our little lives are rounded with a sleep." But
I had not finished all I had to say relative to the inferior animals.
When on board of a man-of-war, not only is their instinct expanded, but
they almost change their nature from their immediate contact with human
beings, and become tame in an incredibly short space of time. Man had
dominion given unto him over the beasts of the field; the fiercest of
the feline race will not attack, but avoid him, unless goaded on by the
most imperious demands of hunger; and it is a well-known fact, that
there is a power in the eye of man, to which all other animals quail.
What, then, must it be to an animal who is brought on board, and is in
immediate collision with hundreds, whose fearless eyes meet his in every
direction in which he turns, and whose behaviour towards him corresponds
with their undaunted looks? The animal is subdued at once. I remember
a leopard which was permitted to run loose after he had been three days
on board, although it was thought necessary to bring him in an iron
cage. He had not been in the ship more than a fortnight, when I
observed the captain of the after-guard rubbing the nose of the animal
against the deck, for some offence which he had committed.

"Why, you have pretty well brought that gentleman to his bearings,"
observed I: "he's as tame as a puppy."

"Tame! why, sir, he knows better than to be otherwise. I wish the
_Hemp'rer of Maroccy_ would send us on board a _cock rhinoceros_--we'd
tame him in a week."

And I believe the man was correct in his assertion.

The most remarkable change of habit that I ever witnessed was in a
wether sheep, on board of a frigate, during the war. He was one of a
stock which the captain had taken on board for a long cruise, and being
the only survivor, during the time that the ship was refitting he had
been allowed to run about the decks, and had become such a favourite
with the ship's company, that the idea of his being killed, even when
short of fresh provis