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    A surgeon’s mate on board a ship relates that while lying one evening awake he saw a rat come into his berth, and after well surveying the place, retreat with the greatest caution and silence. Soon after it returned, leading by the ear another rat, which it left at a small distance from the hole which they entered. A third rat joined this kind conductor; they then foraged about, and picked up all the small scraps of biscuit; these they carried to the second rat, which seemed blind, and remained in the spot where they had left it, nibbling such fare as its dutiful providers, whom the narrator supposes were its offspring, brought to it from the more remote parts of the floor.

    It is customary in large boarding-houses to announce the dinner-hour by the sound of a bell. A cat belonging to one of these houses always hastened to the hall on hearing the bell, to get its accustomed meal; but it happened one day that she was shut up in a chamber, and it was in vain for her that the bell had sounded. Some hours after, having been released from her confinement, she hastened to the hall, but found nothing left for her. The cat thus disappointed got to the bell, and sounding it, endeavoured to summon the family to a second dinner, in which she doubted not to participate.

    A lady had a tame bird which she was in the habit of letting out of its cage every day. One morning as it was picking crumbs of bread off the carpet, her cat, who always before showed great kindness for the bird, seized it on a sudden, and jumped with it in her mouth upon a table. The lady was much alarmed for the fate of her favourite, but on turning about instantly discerned the cause. The door had been left open, and a strange cat had just come into the room! After turning it out, her own cat came down from her place of safety, and dropped the bird without having done it the smallest injury.

    A gentleman travelling through Mecklenburg was witness to the following curious circumstance in an inn at which he was staying. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave a loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat with a bell about its neck. These four animals went to the dish, and without disturbing each other, fed together; after which the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, while the raven hopped about the room.

    In the Netherlands, they use dogs of a very large and strong breed, for the purpose of draught. They are harnessed like horses, and chiefly employed in 

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