No one would suppose that a calf possest any extraordinary
amount of intelligence, but that one of these animals had a
well-developed bump of location is proven by the facility with
which this particular animal found its way home after it had
been taken away. A college professor writes of this incident
which came under his personal observation:
“I spent my vacation the past summer at my mother’s, three miles
from Siler City, N. C. My brother, who lived at Siler City,
had a three-months-old calf which he wanted to pasture at my
mother’s farm. Accordingly the calf was brought along the road
from the town. The next day the animal got out of the open gate
and returned home. I followed its trail; it had recently rained.
The calf first took almost a bee-line for its home; crossed a
small ditch, then came to a large ditch, which it wandered down
some distance, but returned and crossed near its direct line.
This was at a distance of a quarter of a mile from the road by
which it had been delivered, and all the space is covered by
thick forest.
“When the calf struck the main road it proceeded along this to
its home. This animal never had been out of its lot until it was
brought to my mother’s, and yet its sense of direction was so
accurate that it took a straight line for home until it reached
the road by which it had been brought. Then it depended upon its
memory of the road, altho it might have followed a path in a
much more direct line.”--_Harper’s Weekly._
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