Swine have a sense of touch as well as of smell at the end of their nose, which they use as a hand, both to root up the soil, and to turn over and examine objects of food, somewhat like the proboscis of an elephant.  As they require shelter from the cold in this climate, they have learnt to collect straw in their mouths to make their nest, when the wind blows cold; and to call their companions by repeated cries to assist in the work, and add to their warmth by their numerous bedfellows.  Hence these animals, which are esteemed so unclean, have also learned never to befoul their dens, where they have liberty, with their own excrement; an art, which cows and horses, which have open hovels to run into, have never acquired.  I have observed great sagacity in swine; but the short lives we allow them, and their general confinement, prevents their improvement, which might probably be otherwise greater than that of dogs.

Instances of the sagacity and knowledge of animals are very numerous to every observer, and their docility in learning various arts from mankind, evinces that they may learn similar arts from their own species, and thus be possessed of much acquired and traditional knowledge.

A dog whose natural prey is sheep, is taught by mankind, not only to leave them unmolested, but to guard them; and to hunt, to set, or to destroy other kinds of animals, as birds, or vermin; and in some countries to catch fish, in others to find truffles, and to practise a great variety of tricks; is it more surprising that the crows should teach each other, that the hawk can catch less birds, by the superior swiftness of his wing, and if two of them follow him, till he succeeds in his design, that they can by force share a part of the capture?  This I have formerly observed with attention and astonishment.

There is one kind of pelican mentioned by Mr. Osbeck, one of Linnaeus’s travelling pupils (the pelicanus aquilus), whose food is fish; and which it takes from other birds, because it is not formed to catch them itself; hence it is called by the English a Man-of-war-bird, Voyage to China, p. 88.  There are many other interesting anecdotes of the pelican and cormorant, collected from authors of the best authority, in a well-managed Natural History for Children, published by Mr. Galton.  Johnson.  London.

And the following narration from the very accurate Mons. Adanson, in his Voyage to Senegal, may gain credit with the reader:  as his employment in this country was solely to make observations in natural history.  On the river Niger, in his road to the island Griel, he saw a great number of pelicans, or wide throats.  “They moved with great state like swans upon the water, and are the largest bird next to the ostrich; the bill of the one I killed was upwards of a foot and half long, and the bag fastened underneath it held two and twenty pints of water.  They swim in flocks, and form a large circle, which they contract afterwards, driving the fish before them with their legs:  when they see the fish in sufficient number confined in this space, they plunge their bill wide open into the water, and shut it again with great quickness.  They thus get fish into their throat-bag, which they eat afterwards on shore at their leisure.”  P. 247.