7. _Locality._--A knowledge or perception of locality, that is, of one place as distinct from another, is regarded by some as a result of the agency of an exclusive mental power; but for ourselves, we see in it only the exercise of attention, leading to distinction, and involving the aid of memory. To attempt to prove that man is endowed with this capability is useless; so is the dog, so is the cat, so are all our domestic animals. Attention, distinction, and memory, are exercised by the carrier-pigeon; when let free, at a long distance from home, it returns, and rests on its old abode. But what are we to say in the case of other animals, as the dog, the cat, and the horse, travelling back from a great distance to their home, without having gained the experience of the pigeon by soaring aloft, and surveying a wide extent of land below? It is well known that year after year the swallow and the martin, and other migratory birds, return to the same spot, in order to rear their brood. Swallows and martins have been marked, so that there could be no possibility of mistake. These birds take their departure in autumn, journeying southwards; they then traverse Europe, and cross the Mediterranean; they winter in the warmer regions of Africa, and on the return of spring they commence their northern flight. What directs the course of a particular pair of swallows from central Africa, over land and sea, to a particular cottage or barn in Middlesex, Surrey, or Berkshire? Again, with respect to the bee, which wanders miles away from its hive, visiting fields and gardens in quest of honey--how is it guided in its outward and homeward flight? Has it landmarks?--does it know each wall, each hedge-row, each tree, each garden and field over which it passes? If so, how do the bees find their way to and from the floating apiaries on the rivers, through various parts of the European continent, and also in Egypt, the resting-place being continually changed according to the judgment of their owners? In Egypt it is the practice to transport the apiaries to distant places, in order to take advantage of the succession of flowers. "In Lower Egypt, for example, about the end of October, the bee-keepers embark on the Nile, and migrate with them to Upper Egypt, calculating to arrive there when the inundation is rapidly subsiding, and the flowers are beginning to bloom. Having stayed a short time in one place, till they suppose that the bees have collected all the honey and wax of the district, they remove two or three leagues lower down, and so on, as the plants come into bloom. Thus gradually returning homewards, they collect the honey of the adjacent country; and about the beginning of February, having travelled the whole length of Egypt, arrive at the spots whence they had set out, and at their habitations. Niebuhr saw, between Cairo and Damietta, a collection of four thousand hives, in their transit from Upper Egypt to the Delta."[8] How do