See [Destiny]; [Facing Right]; [Tendency].

DIRECTION, SENSE OF

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.

(774)

DIRECTIONS

Cora S. Day, in The Interior, illustrates in the following paragraphs the value of the Bible as a book of directions:

They were looking through the medicine-chest in search of a needed remedy when there came to light a half-filled vial, whose torn label held but a part of the directions for use.

“Might as well throw this away. I have forgotten what it is, what it is for and how to take it,” said the finder.