Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits

In Short

This charming nineteenth-century instructional volume uses a framing narrative of cozy dialogue to deliver natural history lessons to young readers. Across nine structured sessions, an elder narrator shares dramatic anecdotes, travel reports, and personal observations detailing how creatures great and small interact with their environments and each other. The text spans topics from domestic pets and livestock to exotic wildlife like elephants, beavers, and migrating birds. By framing complex behaviors through the lens of divine design, the book has endured as an accessible, morally uplifting introduction to ethology, demonstrating that reason is not humanity's sole monopoly in the living world.

The Story

The narrative progresses through a series of structured discussions between an elder narrator and a group of curious children. Each conversation focuses on specific animal families or behavioral traits, building an overarching argument that animal instinct is a complex, purposeful gift designed for survival and harmony.

The journey begins on the open plains and highways, where the discussion centers on the intelligence and docility of the horse. Tales of wild herds captured by lassos in South America give way to accounts of extraordinary loyalty, including a heroic planter's horse that braves violent ocean breakers off the Cape of Good Hope to rescue fourteen shipwrecked sailors before exhausting its strength. The conversation then shifts to nature's engineers. The mentor details the collaborative instincts of the beaver, describing how colonies fell timber, float branches downstream, and construct sophisticated mud dams and circular huts with underwater escape routes. This building instinct is compared with the African white ant, whose massive earthen mounds dwarf human architecture relative to their scale.

Moving to larger beasts, the narrative explores the capture and training of wild elephants. Through descriptions of elaborate stockades known as keddahs, the text illustrates how hunters use fire and drums to drive wild herds into enclosures. Alongside these technical accounts are stories highlighting the elephant's memory, affection, and sharp sense of justice, such as a tame elephant using muddy water to drench two cruel cobblers who pricked its trunk.

As the lessons turn toward domestic animals, the shepherd's crook and the hearth take center stage. Accounts from sheep country illustrate maternal devotion, including a sheep leading a human walker to rescue her trapped lamb from a steep brook. Discussions on cats reveal a spectrum of behavior ranging from a household cat pilfering pastries to share with nursery children to the raw ferocity of wild lions and tigers.

The final chapters broaden in scope to examine large-scale natural phenomena, specifically migration. The text chronicles the exact return of swallows to past nest sites, the vast flights of American passenger pigeons that darken forests, and the relentless, disciplined march of millions of land-crabs journeying from mountain burrows to the ocean to spawn. After examining the mischievous intelligence and deceptive instincts of monkeys, the book concludes by emphasizing maternal affection across species, leaving the young listeners with a unified vision of nature governed by providential care.

How It Unfolds

The domestic and working beasts The initial conversations establish how animals demonstrate reasoning and affection in partnership with humans. Accounts of courageous rescue horses and clever shepherd dogs illustrate that domestic animals possess deep emotional bonds and problem-solving abilities tailored to their surroundings.

Architects of the natural world The focus expands to wilderness builders, contrasting the aquatic engineering of beavers with the massive clay towers of African termites. The mentor breaks down how these small creatures clear land, transport raw materials, and construct safe dwellings using inherited knowledge.

Giants and predators of the wild The narrative tackles dangerous and exotic species, detailing both the organized strategies humans use to capture wild elephants and the formidable power of big cats. Stories emphasize that even predatory beasts exhibit subtle social traits, hospitality, and memory.

The great seasonal movements The lessons turn to the mystery of animal migration, exploring how birds, fish, and land-crabs navigate vast distances without human guidance. Massive assemblies of passenger pigeons and disciplined columns of land-crabs illustrate nature's balance on a continental scale.

Maternal instinct and providential design The closing discussions center on parental care and self-sacrifice across the animal kingdom. By examining how mothers protect, feed, and guide their young, the dialogue concludes that instinct is a beneficent force implanted to secure every creature's protection.

The People

• Uncle Thomas wants to educate and morally elevate his young relatives by sharing natural history anecdotes. Armed with travel literature, historical accounts, and personal experience, he guides every conversation to show that animal behavior reflects purpose rather than blind chance.
• Frank, Harry, and John want to satisfy their endless curiosity about the natural world. They challenge claims, ask sharp questions about how animals think, and express empathy or disbelief as dramatic stories unfold.
• The Benevolent Planter wants to save drowning sailors during a violent gale off the Cape of Good Hope. Facing raging breakers that keep rescue boats ashore, he repeatedly rides his expert swimming horse into the surf until fatigue overtakes him.
• The Bencoolen Elephant wants to roam city streets peacefully while visiting kind residents. When harassed by two malicious cobblers who prick its trunk with awls, it uses restraint and resourcefulness to deliver a publicly humiliating, muddy punishment instead of violent retaliation.
• Kees the Baboon wants to secure comfort, food, and social dominance within a human expedition. Riding stronger dogs to save its own energy and boxing the ears of competitors at mealtime, Kees displays a pragmatic intelligence adapted to life alongside humans.

In Its Own Voice

"At first both disappeared, but it was not long before they floated on the surface, and swam up to the wreck; when taking with him two men, each of whom held by one of his boots, he brought them safe to shore."

A planter rides his trusted horse into ocean breakers to rescue shipwrecked sailors clinging to debris.

"Finding no outlet from this they become desperate, scream with tremendous power, and seek to escape by violently attacking the sides of the stockade."

Wild elephants trapped inside the innermost wooden enclosure of a hunter's keddah react to their capture.

"In their procession they are as regular as an army under the command of an experienced general, and are usually divided into three battalions."

Millions of land-crabs organize into structured columns during their annual migration from the mountains to the sea.

What It's Really About

Beneath its accessible storytelling, the book argues that instinct is an active, highly organized form of intelligence tailored to each species' survival needs. Rather than treating animals as unfeeling automatons, the text posits that creatures possess distinct personalities, moral capacities like gratitude and loyalty, and a keen sense of justice. The recurring dialogue contrasts human reason with animal instinct, demonstrating how the latter often achieves engineering and navigational feats that rival human ingenuity. Ultimately, the work uses animal behavior to instill moral values in young readers, framing maternal devotion, cooperation, and restraint as universal laws established by a benevolent Creator.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers a fascinating window into nineteenth-century popular science and Victorian educational methods. Modern readers will enjoy its cozy format and vivid, anecdotal style, which reads like a collection of dramatic bedtime stories anchored in historical natural history. The text captures the wonder of an era when the full scope of global wildlife was still being cataloged and shared with the public.

Readers should be prepared for period attitudes toward wildlife management and hunting, as well as nineteenth-century formatting conventions. Descriptions of trapping elephants in stockades, hunting pumas with lassos, or nineteenth-century naturalists collecting specimens reflect the era's utilitarian view of nature. However, the book's core warmth, gentle humor, and deep respect for animal life easily transcend its historical setting, leaving readers with a renewed appreciation for the natural world.

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