There are many examples of cunning and subtlety
abounding in land creatures; but to omit slights and artifices of foxes, cranes, and jackdaws, of which I shall say
nothing, because they are things already so well known, I
shall make use of the testimony of Thales, the ancientest
of our philosophers, who is reported to have chiefly admired the most excellent in any art or cunning.
A certain mule that was wont to carry salt, in fording a
river, by accident happened to stumble, by which means
the water melting away the salt, when the mule rose again
he felt himself much lighter; the cause of which the mule
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was very sensible of, and laid it up in his memory, insomuch that every time he forded the same river, he would
always stoop when he came into the deepest part, and fill
his vessels with water, crouching down, and leaning sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other. Thales hearing
this, ordered the vessels to be well filled with wool and
sponges, and to drive the mule laden after that manner.
But then the mule, as he was wont, filling his burthens
with water, reasoned with himself that he had ill consulted
his own benefit, and ever afterwards, when he forded the
same river, was so careful and cautious, that he would
never suffer his burthens so much as to touch the water by
accident.
Another piece of cunning, joined with an extraordinary
affection to their young ones, is to be observed in partridges,
which instruct their young ones, ere they are able to fly,
when they are pursued by the fowlers, to lay themselves
upon their backs, their breasts covered with some clod of
earth or little heap of dirt, under which they may lie
concealed. On the other side, the old partridges do deceive the fowlers, and draw them quite a contrary way,
make short flights from one place to another, thereby enticing the fowlers to follow them; till thus allured from
their young ones, the fowlers give over all hopes of being
masters of their game.
In like manner, hares returning to their forms dispose
their leverets one to one place, another to another, at the
distance many times of an acre of ground; so that, upon
the tracing either of men or hounds, they are sure not to
be all in danger at one time,—themselves in the mean
time not easy to be tracked, by reason of the various
windings and turnings which they make, until at length,
by giving a large leap, they discontinue the print of their
feet, and so betake themselves to their rest.
A bear, when she perceives her winter sleep coming
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upon her, before she grows stiff and unwieldy, cleanses
the place where she intends to conceal herself, and in
her passage thither lifts up her paws as high as she can,
and treads upon the ground with the top of her toes, and
at length turning herself upon her back, throws herself
into her receptacle.
Your hinds generally calve at a distance from all places
frequented by flesh-devouring beasts; and stags, when they
find themselves unwieldy through surplusage of flesh and
fat, get out of the way and hide themselves, hoping to
secure themselves by lurking, when they dare not trust to
their heels.
The means by which the land hedge-hogs defend and
guard themselves occasioned the proverb,
Many sly tricks the subtle Reynard knows,
But one the hedge-hog greater than all those.
For the hedge-hog, as Ion the poet says,
1 when he spies
the fox coming,
Round as a pine-nut, or more sphere-like ball,
Lies with his body palisaded all
With pointed thorns, which all the fox's slight
Can find no way to touch, much less to bite.
But the provision which the hedge-hogs make for their
young ones is much more ingenious. For when autumn
comes, they creep under vines, and shake off the grapes
with their feet; which done they roll themselves up and
down, and take them up with their prickles, so that when
they creep away again, you would think it a walking cluster (and this we have looked on and seen them do); after
which returning to their holes, they lay themselves down
for their young ones to feed. Their holes have two openings, one to the south, the other to the north. So that
when they perceive the alteration of the air, like pilots
shifting their sails, they stop up that which lies to the
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wind and open the other. Which a certain person that
lived at Cyzicus observing, took upon him from thence
at any time to tell in what corner the wind would sit.
