The Instinct of Cattle.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVII, Issue 5204, 10 February 1892, Page 1

The Instinct of Cattle.

Mr Andrew •(. Ogilvie write as follows from Tamaln, Shark Hay, Western Australia, to the Spectator : -1 have read with interest, your articles on Ihe instinct, of cattle. That cattle ami horses can eommuuieale intelligence to each oilier, ami are endowed with a certain amount, of reasoning faculty, the following facts an pretty conclusive proof : 1 once purchased a station oil which a large number of cattle and horses had gone wild. To get, the cattle in, 1 fenced the permanent, water ta distance of I*o miles) leaving traps at intervals. At first, (his answered all right ; hut soon the oat,tie became exceedingly cautions about, entering I.lm traps, waiting outside for two or three nights before going in, and, if they could smell a man or his tracks, not, going i" at all. At last they adopted a plan which heat me. A mob would come to the (rap gate, and one would go in and drink and come out ; and then another would do tlm same, and so oil till all had watered. They hail evidently arrived at tlm conclusion that. 1 would not, catch one and frighten all the others away. To get in the wild horses, (KM) of which were running oil a large plain (about 110,000 (ictoh), I erected a stockyard with a gradually widening lane in a hollow where it, could not easily be seen, and by stationing horsemen at intervals on the plain, galloped the wild horses in. My first, hunt (which lasted for some days) wan successful, the wild horses heading toward the mouth of the lane, without, much dilliculty : but,, of course, some escaped by charging back at the stockyard gate and in other ways. My second hunt, about a month later, was a failure ; every mob of horses on the plain seemed to know where the yard was, and would not head that way. This scorns to show that the horses that escaped from the lirst hunt told all (he others where the stockyard was.