Goats sometimes do very clever tricks, which almost prove them to be capable of reasoning.

A goat and her kids frequented a square in which I once lived, and were often fed by the servants and myself. Now and again I heard a thumping at the hall door, which arose from the buttings of the goat when the food was not forthcoming, and the mother's example was followed by her two little kids. After a while this grew monotonous, and no attention was paid to their knocking! but one day the area bell—used by the delivery men and callers generally, the wire of which passed by the side of one of the railings—was sounded. The cook answered the bell, but no one was there save the goat and kids, with their heads bent down towards the kitchen window. It was at first thought that some mischievous boy had rung the bell for them, but they were watched, and the old goat was seen to hook one of her horns into the wire and pull it. This is too much like reason to be ascribed to mere instinct.