ANIMAL INSTINCT.
(TO THE EDITOR OF TEl "SPECTATOR.")
Sut,—As I am sure your sympathies are not confined to dogs,. though at present they only have appeared in your paper, I anl. going to ask you for a small space for just one anecdote of my- favourite animal,—the donkey, an animal so universally snubbea and looked down upon, that it seems almost a duty to make public- anything that tends to show he is by no means so stupid as he is- generally thought to be.
Biped friends of mine are at the sea-side, and the donkey I am anxious to see in print, because of the credit he reflects on his- race generally (intellectually, if not morally), was engaged for an hour to take two children up and down the parade, but when it came to the turn of the second to mount, " Neddy " fell so- suddenly and distressingly lame, that the little girl refused to have- her ride, but the boy in charge of the donkey assured those in. charge of the children that it was only a "trick "he had ; that he- " disliked going up and down the parade," and always "fell lame when required to do it ; and the truth of the statement was tested' by holding a crust to Neday's nose and running off with it in an. opposite direction, when Neddy cantered briskly after it, his- lameness as suddenly and easily put off as it had been put on. Now, for a donkey, this was rather clever, if not quite so in- teresting as the story of the dog that tried to fill the void in its- heart—and its kennel—by adopting a young pigeon, or so clever- as the dogs told of lately in the Spectator, that went to the- confectioner's with the money in their mouths for their dinner, insisting, too, upon having. their money's worth,—a good dinner- when they had a whole penny, but expecting only half the quantity when they were "hard-up," and only took a halfpenny. Audi was once so very subject to sudden headaches and "pain in the aide" whenever it was time to go to school, that I naturally syna-
patinae with Neddy's sudden lameness, when required to go up and down a parade ; and so many, I fancy, must be able to sym- pathise with him for the same reason, that surely he is deserving of a place where perhaps no donkey—on four legs—has ever appeared before.—I am, Sir, &c., W.
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