THE ASS. w81

could hardly suppose he could have drawn the bolts and
let himself in, especially as the upper bolt was fixed at a
considerable height. This, however, proved to have been the
case; for my bedroom overlooking the yard and garden, I
one night watched at the window, and distinctly saw master
donkey, reared on his hind legs, unfastening the upper bolt
with his nose or mouth. He then withdrew the lower one,
lifted the latch, and walked quietly into the garden. In a
few minutes I further observed him returning to his shed with
a large bunch of carrots, which he deposited in his shed, and
then went back—not, certainly, to bolt, but to latch the
door; after which he leisurely set about munching his slily
acquired booty. Before putting a final stop to these proceed-
ings, I gave several of my neighbours, who were incredulous
upon the subject, an opportunity of witnessing them. And
at these times his sagacity was further evinced by the fact
that he would never commence his operations until after the
light had been extinguished at the bedroom window.”
ThoInstincs The sense of locality so conspicuous in the
of the Ass. dog, the cat and the horse is also possessed in
a remarkable degree by the ass, as the following story told
by Captain Brown will show. “In 1816, an ass belonging
to Captain Dundas was shipped on board the Ister, bound
from Gibraltar to Malta. The vessel struck on a sand-bank
off the Point de Gat, and the ass was thrown overboard into
a sea which was so stormy that a boat that soon after left
the ship was lost. In the course of a few days, when the
gates of Gibraltar were opened in the morning, the guard
was surprised by the same ass which had so recently been
removed, presenting itself for admittance. On entering, it
proceeded immediately to the stable which it had formerly
occupied, The ass had not only swum to the shore, but
found its own way from. Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance
of more than two hundred miles, through a mountainous and
intricate country intersected by streams, which it had never