On the northern coast of Ireland a friend of mine saw above a hundred crows
at once preying upon muscles; each crow took a muscle up into the air
twenty or forty yards high, and let it fall on the stones, and thus by
breaking the shell, got possession of the animal.--A certain philosopher (I
think it was Anaxagoras) walking along the sea-shore to gather shells, one
of these unlucky birds mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a
shell-fish upon it, and killed at once a philosopher and an oyster.

Our domestic animals, that have some liberty, are also possessed of some
peculiar traditional knowledge: dogs and cats have been forced into each
other's society, though naturally animals of a very different kind, and
have hence learned from each other to eat dog's grass (agrostis canina)
when they are sick, to promote vomiting. I have seen a cat mistake the
blade of barley for this grass, which evinces it is an acquired knowledge.
They have also learnt of each other to cover their excrement and
urine;--about a spoonful of water was spilt upon my hearth from the
tea-kettle, and I observed a kitten cover it with ashes. Hence this must
also be an acquired art, as the creature mistook the application of it.

To preserve their fur clean, and especially their whiskers, cats wash their
faces, and generally quite behind their ears, every time they eat. As they
cannot lick those places with their tongues, they first wet the inside of
the leg with saliva, and then repeatedly wash their faces with it, which
must originally be an effect of reasoning, because a means is used to
produce an effect; and seems afterwards to be taught or acquired by
imitation, like the greatest part of human arts.

These animals seem to possess something like an additional sense by means
of their whiskers; which have perhaps some analogy to the antennæ of moths
and butterflies. The whiskers of cats consist not only of the long hairs on