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Chap. XV

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING ANIMALS.-(Concouded., Remarkable Strength of Affection in Animals-Surprising Instances of their Sociality-Unaccountable Faculties possessed by some Animals-Remarkable Instances of Fasting in Animals-Extraordinary Adventures of a Sheep-Sagacity of a Monkey-Astonishing Instance of Sagacity in a Horse-Sagacity of Dogs-Curious Anecdotes of a Dog-Remarkable Dog.

Far as creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers, ascends:

Mark, how it mounts to man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass!

What modes of sight, betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:

Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious, on the tainted green:

Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true, From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew:

How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!

Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier, For ever separate, yet for ever near!

Pope.