UNIVERSITY. OP CALIFORNIA. 
 
 
 bjBEWp^--. 
 
 
MIND IN THE LOWER 
 ANIMALS 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved') 
 
MIND IN THE LOWER 
 ANIMALS 
 
 HEALTH AXD DISEASE 
 
 BY 
 
 W. LAUDER LINDSAY, M.D. 
 \\ 
 
 F.R.S.E., F.L.S. 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER OF THE NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTK 
 
 VOL. I. 
 MIND IX HEALTH 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1879 
 
V.I 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 
TO 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 WHO, OF ALL MY MANY CORRESPONDENTS, WAS SURPASSED BY NONE, 
 EITHER IN HIS GENEROUS, GENIAL, AND GENUINE 
 
 SYMPATHY WITH THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS, 
 OR IN THE SOUND, LIBERAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS 
 
 WHICH HE HELD AND EXPRESSED 
 
 REGARDING THE NATURE AND EXTENT OP 
 
 ANIMAL REASON 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 COMPAEATIYE PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, INCLUDING THE 
 METHODS OF ENQUIRY. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Results of Human Ignorance. Error, and Prejudice . . 3 
 
 II Faults and Fancies of Terminology . . . . ..11 
 
 III. Authenticity of Anecdotes of Animal Sagacity . . .18 
 
 IV. Study by Observation and Experiment 29 
 
 V. The Dawn of Mind in Man : Mental Condition of Children and 
 
 Savages 37 
 
 VI. Evolution of Mind in the Ascending Zoological Scale : I. The 
 
 Invertebrata 51 
 
 VII. Evolution of Mind in the Ascending Zoological Scale : II. The 
 
 Vertebrata . . 69 
 
 VIII. Animal Reputation 82 
 
 IX. Alleged Psychical Differences between Man and other Animals . 100 
 
 X. Alleged Intellectual and Moral Supremacy of Man . . . 118 
 
 XL Inter-Relations of Instinct and Reason 126 
 
 XII. Unsolved Problems in the Psychology of the Lower Animals . 142 
 
viii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 MIND IN THE LOWER ANIMALS: 
 
 IN ITS NORMAL MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 MORALITY AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Moral Sense in Lower Man 163 
 
 II. The Moral Sense in other Animals 175 
 
 III. Moral Merit and Demerit 186 
 
 IV. Moral Responsibility 193 
 
 V. Religious Feeling in Lower Man 202 
 
 VI. Religious Feeling in other Animals 218 
 
 EDUCATION AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 VII. Capacity for Education 234 
 
 VIII. Self -Education : the Acquisition of Knowledge by Investi- 
 gation 246 
 
 IX. Education of Animals by Man 257 
 
 X. Education of Animals by each other 274 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 XI. Language in Lower Man 281 
 
 Language in other Animals ....... 289 
 
 Vocal Language 299 
 
 Non- Vocal Language . . 307 
 
 XV. Laughter and Weeping 314 
 
 XVI. Expressiveness of Animal Language 326 
 
 XVII. Intelligibility of each other's Language .... 334 
 
 XVIII. Animal Motives and their Interpretation by Man . . . 338 
 
 XIX. Understanding of Human Language 346 
 
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. ix 
 
 ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX. General Adaptiveness 357 
 
 XXT. Organisations 377 
 
 XXII. Law and Punishment 397 
 
 XXIII. Use of Natural Instruments 409 
 
 XXIV. Use of Man's Instruments 429 
 
 XXV. Use of Clothing and Shelt 440 
 
 XXVI. Preparation of Foo 446 
 
 XXVTL Faculty of Numeration 451 
 
 XXVIII. Power of Calculation . . . . . .454 
 
 XXIX. Courtship and Marriage 468 
 
 XXX. Foster Parentage 482 
 
 FALLIBILITY. 
 
 XXXI. Liability to Error 488 
 
 XXXLT. Commission of Error 498 
 
 XXXIII. Commission of Error continued . .... 512 
 
 XXXIV. Deception 523 
 
 XXXV. Practical Jokes 537 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 A VARIETY OP CONSIDERATIONS seems to me to reader it de- 
 sirable that I should explain shortly the circumstances under 
 which the following work has been written.. On the one hand, 
 for instance, the value of an author's opinion on a given 
 subject necessarily depends on his qualifications for forming 
 and expressing an opinion ; which qualifications include the 
 natural bias of his mind, the direction in which his mental 
 qualities have been cultivated, the nature and extent of his 
 opportunities for observation, with the degree to which he has 
 availed himself of his opportunities, the extent and variety 
 of his teaching in other words, his special experience and 
 aptitude in the investigation of the said subject. 
 
 On the other hand, the subject of Mind in the Lower 
 Animals is one that has from time immemorial been re- 
 garded, if not studied, from the most different points of 
 view, and one that will doubtless continue to be so regarded. 
 Theologians, metaphysicians, psychologists, physiologists, 
 naturalists, physicians, veterinarians, philosophers so called 
 of the most diverse views and feelings, naturally and neces- 
 sarily approach such a subject actuated by the most conflict- 
 ing motives and opinions, by prejudice the most unreason- 
 able, by ignorance the most profound. 
 
 Now, I have studied the subject of mind in other ani- 
 mals as compared with that of man, for a series of years, 
 simply as a physician-naturalist. 
 
 As a physician it has been the special business of my 
 professional life to deal practically with the phenomena of 
 abnormal inentalisation in man a circumstance that has 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 naturally involved a careful study of his normal mentalisa- 
 tion, and of the whole range of phenomena exhibited by the 
 nervous system in health and disease. 
 
 More than twenty years ago it fell to my lot to conduct 
 a series of investigations in comparative pathology, the general 
 object and result of which was to show that the lower animals 
 are subject to the same kinds of bodily disease as those which 
 affect man. At that time I had in Edinburgh occasion to 
 experiment, for instance, on the transmission of disease 
 from man to the lower animals, and from them to him ; 
 on the artificial induction of human disorders in the lower 
 animals ; and on the comparative action of poisons on the 
 human and animal systems. Latterly my studies in com- 
 parative pathology have been determined in the direction of 
 psychopathology. I was led in the first place to enquire what 
 relation madness in the lower animals bears to insanity in 
 man, the result being the conviction that the lower animals 
 are subject to the same kinds of mental disorders, producible 
 by the same causes, as in man. This enquiry formed but the 
 precursor to a much more comprehensive investigation of 
 the normal phenomena of mind throughout the animal kingdom. 
 
 My general conclusions, as regards both normal and 
 disordered mind in the lower animals, were made public in 
 a number of papers in certain London quarterly medical 
 and other reviews and journals in 1871-72. These pub- 
 lished papers having attracted the notice of the promoters 
 of the International Scientific Series of volumes on current 
 subjects of scientific interest, I was invited to contribute to 
 that series a volume on Mind in the Lower Animals ; ' which 
 invitation, though at first disposed to decline on account of 
 the very limited professional leisure I could devote to a 
 systematic exposition of my enquiries and their results, with 
 the unfavourable nature for book-making of my daily avoca- 
 tions and of my provincial (country) residence, I was finally, 
 after much correspondence, induced to accept. I did not, 
 however, feel disposed to come prominently before the public 
 without a still further and more careful study of the whole 
 subject of the animal, including the human, mind, healthy 
 and diseased. In particular, feeling, with John Stuart Mill 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 that ' a precise knowledge of what is already known is now 
 an indispensable requisite for carrying knowledge further,' ! 
 I set myself to the careful perusal note-taking the while 
 of the chief types of books which have been published 
 relating to the habits of animals a task which, along with 
 the arrangement of the resultant notanda, has occupied all 
 my leisure for several years. 
 
 As a naturalist I have long been accustomed to the 
 patient and minute observation of facts, and to scientific 
 generalisation from facts. I have been trained to separate 
 fact on the one hand from fiction, and from inference based 
 upon observation, on the other. As regards the habits of 
 animals, I have had the same opportunities that all persons 
 possess in this country of observing mental phenomena in 
 domestic animals such as the dog, horse, cat, ox, fowl, and 
 in cage birds or other house pets. But I have also had the 
 opportunity which only foreign travel affords of observing, 
 if not studying, the manners of domestic and wild ani- 
 mals in many distant and different parts of the world in- 
 cluding parts of Europe between Iceland in the north, and 
 Spain and Italy in the south ; of Africa, including especially 
 Morocco and Egypt ; of Asia (to wit, Syria) ; of America, in- 
 cluding part of the United States and the Canadas; of Austra- 
 lasia, including New Zealand and New South Wales. The 
 animals observed included, for instance, the buffalo and the 
 camel, in addition to those above mentioned. I have, more- 
 over, visited sometimes repeatedly the principal zoologi- 
 cal gardens, or menageries, in the world such as those of 
 London, Paris (including the Jardin des Plantes and the 
 Jardin d'Acclimatation prior to the siege of Paris by the 
 Prussians in 1870-71), Berlin, Dresden, New York, Dublin, 
 Sydney, New South Wales, and that which formerly existed 
 in Edinburgh and have thus seen in the captive state large 
 numbers of wild animals, representing the /me natures of all 
 quarters of the globe. 
 
 Regarding the whole subject of mind in animals 
 
 1 In a posthumous letter published in the Athenaeum' of November 
 1873, p. 5G3. 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from a medical and natural lrist<Hy point of view, I have 
 studied it from first to last without any preconceived ideas 
 with no theory to defend, support, or illustrate and 
 ready throughout, without effort or regret, to renounce any 
 belief which fad or truth might show to be scientifically 
 untenable. 
 
 In the course of my enquiries I have amassed far too 
 large a body of notes to condense into a single volume. These 
 notes consist of (1) excerpts from my readings in books, whose 
 nature and names will be found specified in the Biblio- 
 graphy ; (2) reflections or criticisms on the statements 
 made by the authorities consulted ; (3) correspondence re- 
 sulting from the publication by authors of doubtfully correct 
 records of facts, or from the confusion of fact and fiction in 
 narrative ; (4) my own observations ; and (5) reports taken 
 down by me on the spot, or immediately after hearing them, 
 of oral descriptions given by eye-witnesses of incidents illus- 
 trative of animal sagacity. In the present volumes popular 
 as they are in their aim and limited in their size all that I 
 attempt is to outline the subject of Mind in the Lower Animals, 
 to illustrate their possession of the higher mental faculties 
 as they occur in man, of reason as contradistinguished from 
 mere instinct. 
 
 The work is to be regarded simply as what the French 
 call a * memoire pour servir.' It is but a contribution and 
 introduction to the subject of which it treats, and aims only 
 at indicating to the student (1) the spirit and direction in 
 which the said subject ought to be investigated; (2) the 
 claims it has on man's attention ; (3) the desirability of 
 an exact separation of what we do from what we do not 
 already know that first condition of all true knowledge ; 
 (4) the new significance of certain facts as interpreted by 
 the light of modern science ; and (5) that facts which con- 
 trovert current popular fallacies or errors are nevertheless 
 facts. The present work offers. a certain rough classification 
 of the facts of observation as already recorded, so as, it is 
 hoped, to bring out their relative importance or significance; 
 which classification may assist the reader still further to 
 pursue the study of the subject by pointing out on the one 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 hand the kind of information already acquired, and on the 
 other that which is still desirable or desiderated. 
 
 Designed originally to form a single volume of the In- 
 ternationa] Scientific Series, I have found it impossible, 
 after fruitless efforts at condensation, to compress what 
 must be said in such a preliminary treatise within the com- 
 pass of one volume of 300 or 400 pages. With the con- 
 currence, therefore, on the one hand of the publishers, and 
 on the other of the committee of the International Scientific 
 Series of books, instead of issuing an incomplete work by 
 the omission of what I regard as its most important half 
 that which treats of mental disease I have been constrained 
 to cast the whole materials in two volumes, treating re- 
 spectively of the varied phases or phenomena on the one 
 hand of healthy, and on the other of diseased, mind. 
 
 Anxious as far as possible, in a work intended for 
 popular use, to divest the subject of mind in animals of 
 all unnecessary, repulsive, or confusing technicalities, I have 
 purposely used the term mind itself, and all terms relating 
 to its constituents or operations, in their ordinary, popular, 
 or comprehensive sense. All men of experience and culture 
 feel, rather than know, what these terms express or imply, 
 though it has been abundantly shown, by the frequent un- 
 successful attempts that have been made, how impossible it is 
 to define them satisfactorily. Indeed, no two authors agree 
 as to the signification that should be attached to such terms 
 as ' will,' ' feeling,' c thought,' * consciousness,' ' intention,' 
 and so forth. So far as I can judge, after a special study of 
 several of the fashionable modern systems of psychology 
 of mental or moral philosophy such as those of Herbert 
 Spencer and Professor Bain, I do not think anything would 
 be gained by attempting, in such a work as the present, the 
 strict definition of these or similar terms, or their restricted 
 use, solely in a metaphysical, psychological, or other purely 
 scientific or technical sense. I do not, therefore, here at- 
 tempt psychological definition or classification, preferring to 
 permit each reader to define and classify according to his own 
 favourite system of nomenclature and arrangement. 
 
 I do not venture to generalise beyond a certain safe limit ; 
 
 VOL. i. a 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the time having not yet come for full generalisation on such a 
 subject as mind in the lower, and especially in the lowest, 
 animals. We want a much greater number of exact and 
 indisputable facts, which must then be duly arranged and 
 indexed ; and then, and not till then, shall we be in a posi- 
 tion to draw legitimate inferences of an equally compre- 
 hensive and accurate kind. 
 
 I profess to deal only with the facts of observation, and 
 with the scientific or logical inferences that may be based 
 upon, or drawn from, such facts. I have omitted, therefore, 
 every topic, however interesting in itself, that does not 
 admit of scientific demonstration or legitimate argument or 
 inference in other words, all that belongs to the region of 
 pure speculation. Thus I feel myself compelled to omit a 
 series of chapters on the soul and its immortality in the 
 lower animals, concerning which much has been written by 
 some of the most celebrated divines and philosophers of 
 their day, the affirmative opinions expressed by them 
 being such as even nowadays would probably be re- 
 garded as heterodox. But neither in man nor in other 
 animals does soul admit of scientific demonstration, defini- 
 tion, or discussion at all. Only lately the question has been 
 seriously started, ' Have savages souls ? ' and so long as 
 this is a matter of doubt I may be excused from discussing 
 the possession or non-possession of soul by the so-called in- 
 ferior creatures. I prefer leaving the subject of its presence 
 or absence its immortality or annihilation in the lower 
 animals to those divines or philosophers so called who 
 consider themselves qualified to deal with abstruse specula- 
 tive questions that belong to the debatable ground equally 
 of theology and metaphysics. 
 
 There are certain other topics all interesting in them- 
 selves which I. have also altogether omitted, or have simply 
 alluded to, as being more suitable for exposition in purely 
 medical, scientific, or philosophical works or journals. 
 
 To save repetitions in the body of the work, and to afford 
 the means of identification by foreign as well as by British 
 naturalists, I have deemed it desirable to append a list of 
 the scientific as well as the common names of the various 
 animals referred to throughout the volume. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 In submitting to the reader in the following pages the 
 conclusions deducible or deduced from my own researches, 
 I do not forget the adage ' Quot homines, tot sententise.' 
 I do not expect those .who approach the subject from 
 very different points of view to accept either my facts or 
 inferences ; or, assuming that the facts are accepted, I can- 
 not hope that other students will draw the same conclu- 
 sions or form the same opinions. I have no wish to thrust 
 my own views dogmatically on any reader. Rather do I 
 offer him the means of forming an opinion of his own by 
 giving him, for instance, in the Bibliography the data on 
 which I have partly based my own conclusions . 
 
 I plead not for an immediate or even an ultimate ac- 
 ceptance of my opinions, but simply for a dispassionate 
 study of the subject of the mental endowments of the lower 
 animals, convinced that such a study can only eventuate in 
 benefit equally to the student and to the objects of study 
 these lower animals themselves whether or not it be 
 conceded that in them mind is the same in kind as in man. 
 I hope, whether the reader agree or disagree with me as 
 to the nature and extent of animal mind, at least to es- 
 tablish certain new claims on the part of the lower animals 
 upon man's consideration and kindness. 
 
 At all events I can honestly say of my work 
 
 'Tis not the hasty product of a day ; 
 
 and I must leave it to the reader to determine whether it 
 can be equally truthfully added 
 
 But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay. 
 
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, INCLUDING 
 THE METHODS OF ENQUIRY. 
 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 RESULTS OF HUMAN IGNORANCE, ERROR, AND PREJUDICE. 
 
 IT may, and probably will, appear to many perhaps the 
 majority of my readers a work of supererogation to insist 
 that he who ventures upon the study of mind in the lower 
 animals should do so free from bias or prejudice, having his 
 own mind in a state of preparedness for the observation of 
 facts and the deduction of logical inferences from facts ; or 
 to stipulate that the student should first possess a proper 
 knowledge of the human mind not only as it is developed 
 amidst the highest civilisation, but in its genesis, growth, de- 
 generacy, and decay in the child, the savage, the idiot, and 
 the lunatic. My own experiences, however, in conversation 
 and correspondence, as well as a varied and extensive reading, 
 leave me in no doubt as to the kind and amount of ignorance, 
 error, and prejudice regarding the mental endowments of 
 animals that are everywhere prevalent, not only among the 
 general public the indoctum vulgus but among our repre- 
 sentative men of the very highest culture ignorance, error, 
 and prejudice that are illustrated in speeches or writings 
 from the very highest public platforms, from the most in- 
 fluential official positions. 
 
 It is desirable to explain what I mean by specifying some 
 of the errors which man has committed, and is constantly 
 committing, in regard to the mental aptitudes of other 
 animals, and by considering the obvious or probable sources 
 of these errors. 
 
 1. The artificial differentiation of animal from human in- 
 telligence; the ascription of instinct as an exclusive posses- 
 
 2 
 
4 MAN'S EREOES. 
 
 sion to the one and of reason to the other ; the confusion 
 between instinct and reason ; the attribution to instinct in 
 other animals of what would be assigned to reason in man. 
 
 2. The belief that animals are mere ' animated machines ' 
 (Descartes), and that animal reason is ' mechanical ' in its 
 nature or action (Buffon). 
 
 3. The confounding of mere reflex or automatic action 
 with expressions of pain for instance, in the decapitated 
 frog. 
 
 4. The supposition, on the other hand, that animals are 
 insensible to, or insusceptible of, ordinary physical pain for 
 instance, the rhinoceros and beetle. 
 
 5. Baron Cuvier's misstatements as to the mental en- 
 dowments of, or rather their absence in, fishes, while alto- 
 gether his conceptions on the subject of mind in the lower 
 animals were both limited and incorrect. 
 
 (j. The inference of Principal Caird of Glasgow the 
 common outcome of the theological intellect that the dog, 
 for instance, wants the ' spirit ' of man, and cannot therefore 
 f know the things of man '- whatever such an expression 
 may mean. He speaks of the ' irrational animal that cannot 
 appreciate man's words or acts, that is inapprehensive of 
 man's thought and feeling,' while he admits a certain ' rude 
 intelligence * of its master's will. 
 
 7. Kirby talking of the 'half-reasoning' beaver and the 
 ' irrational ' animal. 
 
 8. The misconceptions, even in physiologists, as to the 
 brain-functions in man (Professor Rutherford). 
 
 9. The conviction that the brain is the sole organ of mind 
 in man. 
 
 10. The association of intelligence, as to its kind or 
 degree, with the mere size either of brain or body. 
 
 11. The undeserved bad reputations of certain animals, 
 and the supposed good ones of certain others ; that is to say, 
 misconceptions concerning their real character their virtues 
 on the one hand and their vices on the other embodied, for 
 instance, in popular emblems, legends, proverbs, fables, or 
 fiction. 
 
 12. The inference of the Jate Sir Benjamin Brodie that 
 
MAN'S ERRORS. 5 
 
 animals live only in the present, which implies that they 
 have no foresiyh t. 
 
 13. Sydney Smith's opinion that mind in animals exists 
 only for the preservation of the body, or that all their actions 
 bear either on self-preservation or reproduction. 
 
 14. The ascription of all kinds of mental excitement or 
 forms of insanity in animals to rabies in other words, the 
 non-discrimination of the nature of the different sorts of 
 animal madness. 
 
 15. The hue and cry after animals reputedly ' mad,' and 
 their summary destruction when caught. 
 
 16. Belief in the incurability and in the dangerousness 
 to man of all forms of animal ' madness.' 
 
 17. The idea that rabies occurs only in the so-called dog- 
 days of summer, or during hot weather. 
 
 18. The notion that muzzling dogs is a guarantee against 
 the propagation of rabies. 
 
 19. The opinion that all dog-bites must or may produce 
 hydrophobia in man, proceeding as they presumably do from 
 rabid animals. 
 
 20. Forcing animals to duties that are not understood by 
 them, that are unpalatable, or that are unsuited to their 
 powers, bodily or mental. 
 
 21. Regarding affection for man as a matter of self- 
 interest only. 
 
 22. Comte talking of the incapacity for instruction in 
 apes. 
 
 23. Superstitions regarding, for instance, the were-wolf, 
 man-tiger, man-hyaena, griffins, dragons, phoenix, salamander, 
 chimsera, fauns, satyrs, naiads, dryads, and hamadryads, 
 witchcraft, and the transmigration of souls. 
 
 24. Inaccuracies in observation and description by authors 
 of all classes, especially poets, novelists, and theologians, but 
 even by mental philosophers and naturalists of the highest 
 eminence. 
 
 25. The comparative but fictitious exaltation of man by 
 the degradation or depreciation of other animals ; the sup- 
 posed necessary inferiority of the latter or what comes to 
 the same thing the alleged superiority or supremacy of man. 
 
6 MAN'S ERKORS. 
 
 26. The disavowal or non-admission of man's kinship to, 
 or fellowship with, other animals ; obliviousness of the fact 
 that they are fellow-creatureg or fellow-morta's, with fellow- 
 feelings. 
 
 27. The perplexing terminology of mental philosophy. 
 Such errors as the foregoing are the natural fruit of the 
 
 following faults and failings of human nature, which have 
 ever constituted, and continue to constitute, formidable 
 obstacles to the proper study of animal reason : 
 
 1. Ignorance, on the one hand, of the natural history and 
 habits of the lower animals, and on the other of the natural 
 history of the human mind ; or, in other words, of biology, 
 zoology, physiology and psychology (human and comparative), 
 and logic. 
 
 2. Thoughtlessness ; want of due consideration or reflec- 
 tion. 
 
 3. Intolerance, pride, arrogance, self-complacency or vanity, 
 amour-propre, exclusiveness and selfishness, jealousy. 
 
 4. Prejudice, superstition, bigotry or fanaticism, especi- 
 ally those forms which are theological and metaphysical. 
 
 5. Incompetence to sift evidence, to observe facts, to reason 
 logically, and the confusion of ideas therefrom resulting. 
 
 6. The substitution of speculation for the observation of 
 fact and for logical inference. The confusion of the un- 
 certain or unascertained with the certain or ascertained ; 
 of fact with fiction, inference, or opinion. 
 
 7,. Imperviousness to conviction, and the prevalence and 
 preference of dogmatism, theological or other. 
 
 8. Want of sympathy with, and appreciation of, animal 
 character, feeling, and suffering. 
 
 9. The dread of the consequences of scientific enquiry and 
 conclusions, in reference especially to current religious creeds 
 or faiths ; fears for the stability or reality of man's boasted 
 pre-eminence, for the vaunted dignity of human nature. 
 
 10. The tendency to harsh or hasty judgments on the 
 character of subject creatures. 
 
 11. The liability to morbid credulity or credulousness. 
 
 In so far, then, as error, and the sources or causes of 
 error, in or concerning man's conceptions of the nature and 
 
METHOD OF STUDY. 7 
 
 extent of the mental operations of the lower animals are 
 superabundant, it is a self-evident corollary that the student 
 who professes or proposes to devote himself to investigations 
 in comparative psychology should bring to his task at least 
 the following qualifications : 
 
 1. He may have to unlearn much that he has already 
 learned for instance, as regards the supposed necessary con- 
 nection of mind with brain or nervous system and unlearning 
 is always a difficult matter. ' Learn of me,' said Luther, 
 ( how hard it is to unlearn the errors which the whole world 
 confirms by its example, and which by long use have become 
 to us as a second nature.' 
 
 2. He must be prepared to change, or at least enlarge, 
 his conceptions of the nature and range of mind. 
 
 3. He should re-study carefully certain phenomena of the 
 human mind, more especially the inter-relations of con- 
 sciousness and unconsciousness, and the whole subject of 
 reflex or automatic cerebro-spinal action. 
 
 4. He should further consider in detail the mental phe- 
 nomena of acephalous animals or infants ; the attributes of 
 the spinal cord and of the different classes of nerves when 
 disconnected from or unassociated with brain. 
 
 5. His study of the human mind must not be confined to 
 its highest manifestations or as it has been developed by 
 generations of high culture in the most intelligent of 
 civilised peoples, but it must embrace its lowest manifesta- 
 tions its stages of non-development, non-cultivation, de- 
 generation, retrogression ; in all conditions of disease, 
 moreover, as well as in health. Hence his field of enquiry 
 must include man in all the different stages of the social 
 scale, the genesis and progress or development of mind in 
 the infant, civilised and savage, with the morbid psychical 
 phenomena of the idiot and lunatic. 
 
 6. He should enquire further whether the bases of mind 
 are not to be found in the vegetable kingdom in the form, for 
 instance, of purposive action; l what are the bases of mind in 
 plants and the lower animals; what is consciousness, and 
 
 1 I have inaugurated enquiry in this direction in a paper mentioned in 
 the Bibliography. 
 
8 METHOD OF STUDY. 
 
 whether it is an indispensable element in mind ; and, in short, 
 what is the very essence of mind itself. 
 
 7. He should be free, or should free himself, from all 
 Mas, prejudging, preconception or misconception, foregone 
 conclusion, mental preoccupation or prepossession. 
 
 8. He should be quite open to conviction by the evidence 
 furnished by the observation of facts, ready to confess and 
 renounce his own mistakes either of observation or inference. 
 
 9. There must be perfect honesty of purpose and single- 
 ness of aim, that purpose or aim being simply the discovery 
 of truth. 
 
 10. But he must be prepared for the penalties that 
 so frequently attach themselves to the discoverers or pro- 
 pounders of new or unpalatable truths ; he must bear in 
 mind that new truths are usually productive of uneasiness, 
 suspicion, or fear in conservative minds, more especially 
 when these truths come into conflict, as they so frequently 
 do, with long-cherished associations or beliefs. 
 
 11. He must, however, be regardless of the consequences of 
 his discovery or exposition of truth, of his logical generalisa- 
 tions from facts, or of his honest renunciation of error; 
 fearless of the criticism, opposition, vilification it may be 
 even nowadays, and in one sense or another, persecution 
 to which his outspokenness may subject him. 
 
 12. He should have a natural capacity for, with due 
 training and experience in, careful observation and accurate 
 description. 
 
 13. It is at least desirable that he should be gifted with 
 fertility in experiment, with a ready suggestiveness as to the 
 best means of testing the correctness of his observations or 
 conclusions. 
 
 14. The power of patient application to study, and to the 
 study of many collateral branches of a main subject, is 
 equally important. 
 
 15. A further mental endowment that may be considered 
 indispensable is sympathy both with his subject compara- 
 tive psychology and with the objects of his study the 
 lower animals themselves. 
 
 16. He should be able tc discriminate between what man 
 
METHOD OF STUDY. 9 
 
 can and cannot do in the solution of psychological problems ; 
 what the student may, or should not, attempt. 
 
 17. There should be no confusion with other probably 
 irrelevant questions or subjects. What the student has to 
 determine for himself is simply this: whether other animals 
 than man, and what animals, exhibit such phenomena as 
 in him are ascribed to, or inseparably associated with, our 
 ideas of mind. 
 
 18. His judgment should be cool and dispassionate, his 
 decisions impartial ; the mischievous element temper should 
 be eliminated from all possible controversy in which he may 
 find himself involved; and, as a rule, all controversy itself is 
 to be avoided, as tending to the introduction of irrelevant 
 and objectionable personalities. 
 
 19. In short, his investigation should be conducted on a 
 strictly scientific method, and in the true scientific spirit. 
 
 Assuming, however, the perfect competency of the student 
 to grapple with his task, there are certain inherent difficulties 
 in the subject itself. For instance, it is not at all so easy 
 as may a priori appear, in drawing comparisons between 
 the mental phenomena of man and other animals, to make 
 the necessary allowance for differences in structure and habits, 
 with which differences in mind and its manifestations are 
 correlated. 
 
 Again, we are frequently told of man's incapacity for 
 estimating either the quality or range, nature or comprehen- 
 siveness, of animal reason. But this is too obviously a con- 
 clusion based on the assumption that animal reason differs 
 essentially from man's. Much has been urged as to the 
 fallacy of reasoning by or from analogy ; of judging of 
 mind in other animals from the character of that of man. 
 Fortunately, or unfortunately, it is only in this way, by com- 
 parison with his own ideas, feelings, actions, that man can 
 study the mental or moral endowments of other animals at 
 all ; and it appears (to me at least) that this method of study, 
 this mode of forming a judgment such data for instituting 
 a comparison lead us to perfectly trustworthy results, as- 
 suming always that the student possesses the qualifications 
 for such an enquiry that have been already specified. 
 
10 METHOD OF STUDY. 
 
 In an investigation in which comparison is constantly 
 being made between the human and animal mind, it is all- 
 important that man's standard, ideal, or type of the human 
 mind should not be too high. It is much safer and sounder 
 to form his ideal or average from the mental condition or 
 phenomena of the lowest races and most degraded classes 
 of man, than from those of the highly cultured Englishman 
 or American, German or Frenchman. 
 
 Much has been made, by those who deny that animals 
 possess mind at all, of the ever-present danger of confounding 
 resemblance with identity ; and I do not desire to conceal or 
 depreciate the magnitude or frequency of occurrence of 
 such pitfalls for the unwary. But the fact that the ex- 
 istence of such difficulties or dangers is admitted by all 
 parties those who affirm, as well as those who deny, the 
 possession by the lower animals of mind of the same nature 
 as that of man merely indicates the desirability of the 
 possession by the student of comparative psychology of the 
 special qualifications before enumerated. 
 
 No doubt we can only make guesses or conjectures at the 
 truth ; we can attain but probabilities as to the presence or 
 absence in the lower animals, under certain circumstances, 
 of such faculties as consciousness. The difficulties of any- 
 thing approaching proof or demonstration are sometimes 
 insuperable ; but these difficulties are equally great in 
 regard to the analysis of the mental condition of countless 
 thousands of human beings, in whose case at least it can- 
 not be affirmed that analogical study is not admissible or 
 appropriate. 
 
 The practice of mental analysis is indispensable to the 
 student, who has only patiently to reflect upon the mental 
 qualities involved, for instance, in some of the commonest 
 tricks or feats of performing or other animals, to become 
 convinced of the number, nature, and variety of their psychi- 
 cal aptitudes or gifts. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 FAULTS AND FANCIES OF TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 MAN has probably from time immemorial been in the habit 
 of using towards his brother man abusive or opprobrious 
 epithets based on the supposed evil qualities and mental 
 inferiority or difference of the lower animals. These terms 
 of contempt or abuse of invidious comparison embody and 
 illustrate many current popular errors and prejudices re- 
 garding the mental endowments of animals, or the absence 
 of such endowments. They libel animal intelligence and 
 virtues, while they do no credit to those of man. Ignorant, 
 selfish, proud, prejudiced man takes very much in vain the 
 names of many estimable animals and animal virtues in 
 such designations as the following : 
 
 1. Brute; 'brutal' or ' brutish,' 'brutality.' In so far 
 as these words have become synonyms for want of feeling 
 or affection, for savageness, for cruelty and the love thereof 
 for its own sake ; or for animals that are stupid, coarse, or 
 unrefined, irrational, impulsive, swayed by the lower pro- 
 pensities, mentally degraded, devoid of moral sense, con- 
 science, the religious sentiment, or even of reason (according 
 to the dictionaries) such terms are much more appro- 
 priate to man himself than to the lower animals ; while, in 
 so far as they are truly applicable to the latter, the pro- 
 pensities which man calls distinctively, but most erroneously, 
 unjustly, and ungenerously, 'brutal' have been, in the 
 majority of instances at least, produced by man's own bad 
 example or training, or both in short, by his own evil 
 influence upon them, designed or unintentional. 
 
 2. Bestial, in so far as it is used synonymously with 
 
12 FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 * brutal ' in its bad sense. In the sense in which it is simply 
 equivalent to ' animal ' its use is quite legitimate, as when 
 psycho-pathologists talk of ' bestial ' insanity in man. A 
 man who is found in the gutter hopelessly drunk is said 
 to have 'made a beast of himself;' and the coarse, rude, 
 vulgar man is frequently said to ' behave like a beast.' Un- 
 fortunately there is a converse. Intoxication is one of the 
 vices common to other animals with man one of those, 
 moreover, that they adopt by imitation from man. When, 
 therefore, an unfortunate monkey, dog, or horse, ant or 
 medusa, is inebriated, if the term * behaving like a beast ' as 
 one of opprobrium is applicable at all, it is so to the man 
 who is the cause, direct or indirect, of the animal's intoxi- 
 cation. Illustrations will be found in the chapter on alcoholic 
 and other forms of ' intoxication ' in animals. 
 
 3. Animal, in so far as it is used distinctively im- 
 plying a distinction, structural or psychical between man 
 and other animals ; for man himself is but an e animal,' and 
 frequently very far from being either morally or intellectually 
 the highest. The word ' animal ' is both faulty and objec- 
 tionable when applied as it so commonly is by phrenolo- 
 gists to feelings or faculties, organs, constitution, or 
 nature in man in contrast with those other mental qualities 
 which are described as moral and intellectual. Thus it is 
 used as synonymous with sensual, sexual, unintellectual, 
 when we speak of an ' animalised' man, or of a man as ' a 
 mere animal,' or apply the term ' animality ' to man's 
 lower propensities in contradistinction to his 'humanity,' 
 his moral and intellectual nature ; but in all the senses in 
 which it is so variously used it is at least quite as applicable 
 to man as to other animals. 
 
 4. It is both an insult to the animals in question and 
 an error in comparison to speak of conjugal or domestic 
 jars as significant of a ' cat and dog life ; ' the fact being 
 that cats and dogs frequently live as do also many other 
 animals, even of different genera and species in the ut- 
 most harmony. If this harmony be not the result of natural 
 conditions if the animals in question do not contract natural 
 companionship and interchange a natural affection and 
 
FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 13 
 
 regard they can at least be trained into so desirable a con- 
 dition of affairs. 
 
 5. It is even a greater indignity to offer to the noblest 
 of all the lower animals to describe a contemptible person 
 as ' a dog,' 6 a dirty dog,' ' an ugly dog,' or * a sly dog ; ' to 
 refer to a human dandy as ' a puppy,' or to a mean, shabby 
 human scoundrel as ' a hound ; ' though it may be legitimate 
 enough to characterise a chattel as * dog chea.p.' 
 
 6. The word cannibalism is derived from canis (a dog), or 
 at least is said by the dictionaries to be so. But the practice 
 of destroying each other or their young, for the purpose of 
 eating their victims or not, is quite as common in man as 
 in any of the lower animals ; and there is no good ground 
 why the dog's generic name should be selected in the nomen- 
 clature of so horrible a procedure or practice. 
 
 7. ' A dog in the manger ' spirit is said to be possessed 
 by a man who neither will nor can use a thing himself, nor 
 allow the use or enjoyment of it to those who have both the 
 will and the ability to employ it to good purpose ; but in 
 point of fact a dog in his manger frequently gives his pro- 
 tection to, and shares even his food with, companions of 
 very different genera and species. 
 
 8. ( Give a dog a bad name, and you may as well hang 
 him,' is literally applicable to unfortunate animals sus- 
 pected of rabies. Whatever may be the case with men, to 
 whom the phrase is applied figuratively, the dog to which 
 this particular kind of bad name is given is usually wholly 
 undeserving of it, and if properly treated would prove 
 itself in nine cases out of ten to be a harmless, respectable 
 animal. 
 
 9. We apply the words ' an old cat,' or ' spiteful as a 
 cat,' to backbiting scandal and all manner of spitefulness ; 
 and no doubt the cat is occasionally spiteful, or may be 
 supposed to be so ; but it is not distinctively so, and it is 
 far less so than many men, and especially women, while 
 the poor cat has many admirable qualities for the posses- 
 sion of which it gets no credit. 
 
 10. We say of a consequential, pompous, empty-headed 
 coxcomb that he is c proud or vain as a peacock ; ' but the 
 
14 FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 pride or vanity is much more certain in the case of the man 
 than in that of the beautiful bird. 
 
 11. We call a man c a bear' in allusion to his rough- 
 ness or gruffness his tone, temper, or manner forgetting 
 that the bear is both an affectionate and intelligent mother. 
 
 12. One schoolboy calls another who is, or is supposed 
 to be, cowardly ' a hen ; ' but the hen in its condition of 
 maternity at least, in protection of its brood is capable of 
 the exhibition of wonderful bravery. 
 
 13. Alluding to the alleged hopeless stupidity of an- 
 other, a boy stigmatises his companion as c an ass ' or c a 
 goose.' But here again the poor animals are grossly ma- 
 ligned ; for both of them, under favourable circumstances, 
 sometimes exhibit great intelligence. 
 
 14. The ass, too, is regarded as the emblem of obsti- 
 nacy and laziness ; but in its natural or wild state, or 
 under proper treatment by man, it is neither an obsti- 
 nate nor a lazy animal. Its vices, when it possesses them, it 
 owes usually to man ; so that in this as in so many other 
 similar cases the misjudged animals have had developed in 
 them, by man's inhumanity, vices that are really more pro- 
 perly human. 
 
 15. A timid child is described as c a sheep;' and no 
 doubt the domesticated sheep is an eminently timid animal ; 
 but, on the other hand, the males of certain races, breeds, 
 or species of wild sheep are both courageous and intelligent. 
 
 It were easy to multiply such instances of man's injus- 
 tice and ignorance ; but it is unnecessary to illustrate this 
 subject further here, seeing especially that it is again treated 
 of in the chapter on animal reputation. 
 
 Some of man's phrases that appear on the surface un- 
 complimentary to other animals, because they are obviously 
 intended to be so by those who employ them, are really in 
 a sense complimentary. For instance, when one man is 
 spoken of as ( dogging the steps ' of another, an unintended 
 tribute is really paid to the fidelity in companionship, to 
 the disinterestedness in servitude, of the dog. The dogging 
 of footsteps by fellow- man is applied to close following for a 
 sinister object, whereas in the dog's faithful following of his 
 
FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 15 
 
 master no sinister object can possibly, as a rule, be sus- 
 pected. 
 
 Man commits equal error in the epithets applied to 
 his brother man which are, or are supposed to be, com- 
 plimentary to animal virtues. For instance 
 
 1. When we say 'brave as a lion' we commit a grave 
 error ; for the lion, so far from being a brave, is naturally a 
 cowardly animal. 
 
 2. The majesty of the eagle is also very much so far 
 as the term relates at least to mental qualities a fiction, of 
 the poet and the public. 
 
 Equal error, then, is committed by man in regarding 
 animals as emblems or embodiments of human virtues or 
 vices, a subject that is further discussed in another chapter 
 (on animal reputation). 
 
 Other illustrations of an incorrect and objectionable phra- 
 seology are to be found in such terms as 
 
 1. Dumb, or mute, as applied to the lower animals, im- 
 plying inability, by a supposed want of all language, to make 
 their wants or feelings known to man or to each other. This 
 is one of those numerous mistakes attributable to man's 
 ignorance, the fact being that animal language is quite as 
 eloquent and efficient in the eyes of those who have sfru died, 
 and consequently understand, it as can be the mere spoken or 
 written language of vain man. 
 
 2. Lower, as applied to other animals than man. No 
 doubt, on the whole or as a group, other animals are zoolo- 
 gically, and psychically, as well as structurally, lower than 
 man. But it is not true that all animals are necessarily lower 
 psychically than all men; for the converse is true, that many 
 individual animals dogs, horses, elephants, parrots are 
 both morally and intellectually higher than thousands of men 
 even in the very centres of Western and modern civilisation. 
 
 3. Raving, as applied to the delirium or mania of 
 animals incapable of speech. There are, however, excep- 
 tional cases, in which the use of such a term is not only not 
 so absurd as may at first sight appear, but is quite legitimate 
 for instance, in the case of parrots able to speak, sometimes 
 in more than one human language. 
 
16 FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 4. Hydrophobia is an instance both of the unnecessary 
 multiplication of technical terms and of their ambiguity. It 
 is most unnecessarily and mischievously applied to man in 
 contradistinction to rabies in other animals, while the term 
 ' hydrophobia ' itself is highly objectionable, as based upon a 
 mere symptom that frequently or generally does not exist, 
 and that is at least non-diagnostic. 
 
 5. Madness in animals may mean any one of several very 
 different affections, including especially insanity and rabies. 
 Rabies itself is sometimes spoken of as ' distemper madness ' 
 (Philpots), making 'confusion worse confounded.' A very 
 common and a very serious mistake of a city populace is to 
 confound mere excitement in the hunted, terrified dog or 
 ox with rabies or madness. The animal that is simply over- 
 driven, houseless, starving, nervous, and timid, becomes 
 excited under the influence of man's foolish hue and cry, and 
 naturally takes to flight, endeavouring, and sensibly, to escape 
 from its tormentors. The 'fury,' 'furiosity', ' infuriation,' 
 'ferocity,' or so forth that is occasionally developed, with its 
 accompanying or resultant danger to human life, is simply 
 and entirely due, in the majority of cases, to man's own 
 stupidity and inhumanity. 
 
 6. The popular terminology of insanity in the lower ani- 
 mals includes such vague terms as 'frenzy' and 'franticness.' 
 
 The current terminology of mental philosophy abounds in 
 sources of perplexity to the student. He has perpetually to 
 encounter the misuse of certain terms ; the inexactness and 
 multiplicity of the applications of others, even by professed 
 naturalists ; the variety and contrariety of definitions ; the 
 impossibility of defining some; the employment of others 
 sometimes in a vague, popular, comprehensive sense on the 
 one hand, and in a strictly scientific sense on the other. The 
 following are instructive illustrations of some of these diffi- 
 culties or sources of difficulty : 
 
 1. As has already been shown> and as will appear in the 
 sequel, the all-important term and quality consciousness may 
 be used, as it is throughout this work, in its ordinary, 
 popular, vague, and comprehensive sense as applicable in 
 different degrees to man, the lower animals, and possibly 
 
FAULTS OF TERMINOLOGY. 17 
 
 even to plants; or its definition may be so restricted by 
 metaphysicians as to be applicable only to man. 
 
 2. Sense and sensation, sensibility and sensitiveness, are 
 constantly confounded. Thus the late Dr. Baird, of the 
 British Museum, used the term 'sensibility,' instead of 
 ' sensitiveness ' or e susceptibility,' in speaking of the effects 
 of weather changes on animals. 
 
 3. Irritability is frequently used by physiologists, in a 
 strictly scientific sense, as synonymous with mere sensitive- 
 ness to the influence of a stimulus that is, with mere irrito- 
 or excito-contractility as it exists even in plants while the 
 general public understand by it irascibility (of temper), and 
 the physician frequently a certain morbid state of brain and 
 nervous system. 
 
 The faulty or unsatisfactory character of current defini- 
 tions of metaphysical terms is freely admitted by metaphysi- 
 cians themselves. The extreme difficulties of the definition 
 or application of the terms used in modern mental philosophy 
 have been pointed out by authors differing so much in their 
 various points of view as Darwin, Lewes, Laycock, and Bain. 
 Lewes, for instance, refers to the ' deplorable and inevitable 
 ambiguity of communication resulting from an absence of 
 strictly defined technical terms ' as constituting one of the 
 c many difficulties which lie in the way of psychological in- 
 vestigation.' On the other hand, Guizot has remarked that 
 ( the common meaning of a word is much more correct than 
 the scientific meaning, which has been given by a few persons 
 under the influence of a particular fact that has taken posses- 
 sion of the imagination.' Hence the propriety, as it appears 
 to me, of avoiding, when possible, in such a work as the 
 present all strictly metaphysical terms, or at least of 
 avoiding, where they must be introduced, all pedantic defini- 
 tions thereof, and of employing such popular designations as 
 mind, reason, intellect, instinct, consciousness, and so forth in 
 their ordinary, albeit vague and comprehensive, accepta- 
 tions. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES OF ANIMAL SAGACITY. 
 
 IT must be obvious it requires no argument surely to show 
 that anecdotes of animal ' instinct ' or intelligence are only 
 of value they can be used as the basis of sound inferences, 
 conclusions, or generalisations, only if or when they are true 
 or authentic, or can be relied upon as representations of 
 actual facts. To be of service there must be no doubt of 
 their truthfulness. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, even of the endless volumes of 
 such anecdotes that have been published in our own language 
 and in our own country, a large proportion is valueless for 
 the purposes of science, because we are furnished with no 
 proper guarantee that the incidents as described actually 
 occurred. Either the names of the observers or recorders 
 are not given, or they are those of unknown persons, for 
 whose veracity of whose capacity for observing, narrating, 
 or describing accurately even the simplest facts we have 
 no sort of voucher. In other cases the narrative is clothed 
 in the garb of fiction, or there is a certain amount of 
 poetical or sensational amplification, so as to make the 
 record read like a '.story ; ' and though perhaps in all, and 
 no doubt at least in many, cases the fiction has been founded 
 on fact, it is impossible to distinguish the one from the 
 other. 
 
 This being the case, I have set aside in my own enquiries 
 all anecdotes that did not bear, or appear to bear, the stamp 
 of truthfulness or authenticity either in their authorship or 
 in the incidents themselves, or in both. I have been led 
 to prefer for my data modern or recent incidents, described 
 for the most part by living persons of acknowledged com- 
 
AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES. 19 
 
 petency, and to disregard all anecdotes that have been trans- 
 mitted, sometimes in many versions, from classical or me- 
 diaeval times. Many of the anecdotes on which I have 
 based my own conclusions regarding the mental status of 
 animals were described to me by eye-witnesses of the inci- 
 dents, in the truthfulness of which witnesses I could put 
 implicit trust. 
 
 On the other hand, in the Bibliography will be found 
 the names and characters of works and authors from whom 
 much of my material for generalisation has been drawn. 
 For all incidents that are not of the most ordinary kind, 
 capable of observation by anybody and anywhere, as well 
 as for all conclusions at variance with my own, I cite the 
 name of my authority. 
 
 The authentication of anecdotes that are not of the most 
 ordinary kind, the proof of the truth of the incidents their 
 observers describe, the determination of the accuracy of their 
 narrators, is always desirable and generally practicable. I 
 have therefore been at considerable pains, when the possible 
 or probable result promised to be worth the effort, to ascer- 
 tain whether certain statements illustrative, for instance, 
 of animal sagacity or ingenuity made by anonymous writers 
 in books, magazines, or newspapers, were correct representa- 
 tions of actual facts. 1 
 
 I have repeatedly applied or appealed to editors or pub- 
 lishers, sometimes with a satisfactory, at other times with 
 a reverse, result. That is to say, that on the one hand 
 either the said editors or publishers assured me of the veracity 
 and bona fides of their contributors or authors, giving me 
 their names and addresses, or these contributors or authors 
 themselves have in writing acknowledged their authorship of 
 the anecdotes which formed the subject of enquiry, and 
 vouched for the reality of all the facts as narrated, gene- 
 rally as having been observed by themselves. 
 
 In other cases editors or publishers have frankly admitted 
 that their contributors were not men of any weight, scientific 
 or literary not persons to be trusted ; in short, that they 
 
 1 Specimens of these enquiries and their results are given in a series of 
 papers mentioned m the Bibliography. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES 
 
 were literary hacks or compilers, probably unwilling, if not 
 also unable, in the haste of writing what are vulgarly known 
 as ' pot-boiler ' books or articles, to observe for themselves, 
 or even to collect information at first hand. Sach penny-a- 
 liners were as likely as not to take their material from for- 
 gotten, oldish works, whether such works were of repute or 
 not being a consideration of no moment, and to serve up 
 in some new, ad captandum form hackneyed stories of a 
 sensational kind to meet the public demand for what is 
 called 6 popular science.' 
 
 Like the famous razors of the razor-grinder, that were 
 made to sell and not to shave, or the equally celebrated 
 wooden nutmegs of the Yankee pedlar, that were intended 
 to captivate and deceive the eye, not to gratify the palate 
 the anecdotes of this class of penny-a-liners are ' got up ' 
 merely to suit the wants and pander to the ignorance of 
 a non-discriminating market. 
 
 It seems to me desirable to indicate some of the results 
 of my own enquiries as to the authenticity of anecdotes. 
 The writer of the description of a certain e talking bird ' (a 
 grey parrot) in ' Chambers's Journal ' l thinks it necessary 
 to preface the account of his c interviewing ' of the animal 
 for journalistic purposes with the following explanatory re- 
 marks : ' A. bird so very remarkable for its powers of speech 
 is about to be described, that it will be well to premise that 
 the sketch to be offered is perfectly true, not the least a 
 fiction.' 
 
 In order to give the reader opportunity of judging for 
 himself as to the existence of the parrot and the reality of 
 its wonderful mental feats, the author of the article pub- 
 lished the name and address of the owner of the animal a 
 well-known photographer in Edinburgh, in whose town or 
 country abode it may probably still be seen. 2 'I am 
 grateful,' says the author, 'for his [the photographer's] 
 kindness in authorising me to make this statement, 
 because it will save me from being suspected of inventing 
 
 1 For October 31, 1874. 
 
 2 Since this was written I have heard of its death, in November 1876. 
 
OF ANIMAL SAGACITY. 21 
 
 the story. 9 The circumstantial details were such as to enable 
 me to investigate the matter for myself. 
 
 I had no opportunity of doing so till August 1875, when, 
 being in Edinburgh for a few days, I called upon the photo- 
 grapher referred to for the purpose of seeing his parrot, 
 and of hearing for myself the character of its ' speech.' 
 With Mr. Truefitt himself I had a long interview ; saw pho- 
 tographs of the animal, and heard many anecdotes illus- 
 trating its intelligence. Among other information he gave 
 me the name of the writer of the article in 'Chambers's 
 Journal,' who proved to be an English clergyman. The parrot 
 itself was in the country at Cramond, near Edinburgh 
 in charge of Mr. Truefitt's mother, who was more fully 
 acquainted with all her pet animal's peculiarities, in con- 
 sequence of the closer intimacy of her association with it, 
 than any other member of her family. 
 
 My object not having been gained by a mere conversation 
 with Mr. Truefitt, I devoted a day to a pilgrimage to Cra- 
 mond. There I saw the bird, and had the benefit of a long 
 interview with its mistress. The result of all which enquiries 
 was that, though I saw the bird to disadvantage after an 
 illness and just before dinner, when it is always indisposed 
 to conversation I was convinced of the truthfulness of all 
 the statements regarding it ; for instance, those which illus- 
 trate its appropriateness of remark. It so happened that 
 about the same time Edinburgh was visited by a troupe of 
 performing dogs, whose feats were made the subject of exhi- 
 bition at one of the theatres. The newspaper reports of 
 course bepraised those feats as something marvellous. I 
 therefore devoted an evening to attend at the said exhibition ; 
 and here again I was left in no doubt as to the genuineness 
 of the proofs of intelligence called forth by proper training. 
 The occasional mistakes of the animals dogs of different 
 breeds were quite as instructive as their more successful 
 performances, showing, as both did, the operation of an in- 
 telligence quite comparable to man's. 
 
 Seeing especially that I have entered more fully on this 
 subject elsewhere, I cannot occupy space here with further 
 examples of the results of my efforts to establish the authen- 
 
22 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES 
 
 ticity, or the reverse, of published assertions regarding 
 animal sagacity. Suffice it that the following are inter 
 alia illustrations to be found in the Bibliography of 
 anonymous magazine articles, having all the aspect of 
 fiction, which proved to be in all respects true viz. ' The 
 Consciousness of Dogs,' ' Dogs whom I have' known, and ' An 
 Ugly Dog.' In the Bibliography, however, they do not appear 
 as anonymous, but are enumerated under the names of their 
 respective authors Cobbe and Murray. 
 
 There are certain common sources of information con- 
 cerning animal habits on which it may be desirable to make 
 some remarks. I have myself derived much information 
 from children, school-girls, young ladies, elderly ladies, 
 farmers' wives, and other ladies who, with no bias or pre- 
 judice, no theories or speculations to support or to disturb 
 them, told truthfully what they were in the habit of 
 observing in their own home pets or household retainers ; 
 and these pets or retainers included a very considerable 
 variety of animal genera and species. The facts so observed 
 and described were those common facts that are capable 
 of verification by anybody of ordinary intelligence those 
 common facts upon which alone may be based a sound scien- 
 tific knowledge of the nature and range of animal mind. 
 
 I have also derived much assistance in the collection of 
 data from newspapers. It is scarcely possible to take Tip 
 one of the best class that does not contain some reference, 
 direct or indirect, to animal habits in the form of anecdotes 
 of animal intelligence. Not only do newspapers give local 
 incidents, with the dates of their occurrence and the names 
 and addresses of the observers, so that the facts narrated 
 may be investigated by any enquirer, but the exigencies or 
 customs of the fourth estate nowadays lead newspaper 
 editors to draw largely for quotation and review upon serial 
 'and book literature. They furnish, in truth, a resume of all 
 that is going on in the literary or scientific world by quota- 
 tions from, and reviews of, magazines and works of every kind 
 including those relating to zoology and general natural 
 history. 
 
 Attention is thus drawn to anecdotes and illustrations 
 
OF ANIMAL SAGACITY. 23 
 
 of animal intelligence that would otherwise escape notice. 
 Contrasting current newspapers as repertories of reference 
 with volumes of anecdotes of animal instinct, I have found 
 the former to be more valuable and trustworthy, inasmuch 
 as inter alia newspapers usually refer to passing events, 
 the records of which admit of investigation, and the authen- 
 ticity of which records can at once be established or the 
 reverse. I have had frequent occasion to enquire into the 
 truthfulness or accuracy of newspaper paragraphs of the 
 reports of local 'correspondents' relating to singular in- 
 stances of animal intelligence ; and the result has usually 
 been that, while I have found the same incident sometimes 
 differently described in half a dozen different newspapers, all 
 the essential facts have been given accurately, or the dates 
 and names furnished enabled me to discover the actual and 
 important facts for myself. 
 
 Much attention is now being given to the subject of 
 animal intelligence in all classes of our serials, whose num- 
 ber, scientific and literary, is simply legion. The articles 
 which illustrate or discuss the subject in question are 
 not always anonymous. For instance, in 'Nature,' as in 
 ' Science Gossip,' the name of the author is frequently or 
 usually appended, so that the value of his statements or 
 opinions may be judged of by the admitted or doubtful 
 competency of the observer or narrator. But even where 
 the articles are anonymous, as in ' Land and Water ' or the 
 'Field,' in the various London or other quarterlies or monthlies, 
 it is usually possible, sometimes easy, to discover the author's 
 name, and to gauge the veracity and value of his assertions ; 
 and we have the additional guarantee, in many if not most 
 of these serials, that the editors may be trusted to admit no 
 contributions from authors who are not competent to deal 
 with the subjects they respectively discuss. 
 
 A common and instructive feature nowadays of all classes 
 of serials, including newspapers, is their practice of reviewing 
 works of natural history, zoology, and travel by competent 
 critics, whose comments are frequently as valuable as the 
 quoted observations of the authors criticised. The modern 
 practice of publishing volumes of reprints of articles that 
 
24 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES 
 
 have originally appeared anonymously as contributions to the 
 serial press gives us occasional opportunity of discovering the 
 names, and consequent competency, of the said anonymous 
 writers as observers and recorders of facts in natural history. 
 
 But even when the author of anecdotes of animal feeling 
 and sagacity gives his name to the public as a voucher for 
 their authenticity, fact may be clothed in such a garb that 
 it has all the semblance of beautiful fiction, and as such an 
 imaginative public prefers to regard and accept it. I 
 very well remember, when in Edinburgh some years ago, and 
 in conversation on the subject of animal reason with a lady of 
 much shrewdness both in observation and inference, a relative 
 of my own, who had, like so many of her countrywomen, 
 been much moved by Dr. John Brown's well-known story of 
 ' Rab and his Friends,' that she cast a doubt on its truth- 
 fulness, regarding it as a c story,' and a mere story, and 
 thinking all the more highly of it on that account. I had 
 myself no reason to doubt that the story was fact, or founded 
 on fact. But calling on the author himself, and discussing 
 the subject of the apparent incredibility of real enough occur- 
 rences illustrative of animal intelligence, I took the oppor- 
 tunity of putting the question to him personally and directly 
 whether or not ' Rab ' was a fact, and behaved as he is said 
 to have done. The answer was what I had expected that 
 it was all ' perfectly true.' 
 
 And this leads me on to remark that the student of 
 anecdotes of animal sagacity will constantly find that 
 
 Truth is strange 
 Stranger than fiction ; 
 
 that incidents which appear simply incredible, and which 
 are relegated to the category of fable or romance, on investi- 
 gation prove to be, like Dr. John Brown's ' Rab,' ' perfectly 
 true.' A distinguished author, well known as a canophilist, 
 told me some years ago that he dared not publish certain 
 anecdotes or incidents illustrating the remarkable intelli- 
 gence of dogs and birds under exceptional circumstances, 
 though he believed them to be ' perfectly true,' just because 
 they would not be believed by the public. They would have 
 
OF ANIMAL SAGACITY. 25 
 
 been regarded either as pure fictions or as gross exaggera- 
 tions of the truth ; and in either case his position his re- 
 putation as the describer of other incidents that were 
 only equally true, but for which he could better vouch from 
 direct personal knowledge, would have been weakened or 
 imperilled. 
 
 The category of the apparently incredible in anecdote is 
 well illustrated by what used to be called fc travellers' tales.' 
 The suspected veracity of such, tales, and of those who made 
 them public, is notorious. But it has been proved by modern 
 travellers over and over again that stories long regarded as 
 fabulous are, or have been, simple facts for instance, those 
 of Bruce as regards Abyssinia, of Du Chaillu as regards 
 Western Tropical Africa, of Livingstone as to Central Tro- 
 pical Africa, and of Humboldt and Waterton as to South 
 Tropical America. The history of the gorilla affords a 
 striking instance of the confirmation of old travellers' stories 
 by the researches of modern missionaries for instance, those 
 of Dr. Savage, the American missionary, in 1847. Purchas, 
 in 1613, on the authority of an Englishman Andrew Battel, 
 who had lived for some years in Congo described what he 
 called ' pongoes,' asserting inter alia that they ' build shelters 
 for the raine .... and cover the dead with great heaps of 
 boughs and wood. . . . One of these pongoes took a negro 
 boy of his, which lived a month with them.' In point of 
 fact, the evidence of modern traveller-naturalists is of the 
 most important kind. I allude to such men as Humboldt, 
 Agassiz, Darwin, Wallace, Houzeau, Bates, Belt, Hooker, 
 Audubon, Wilson, Gould, GiHmore, and a host of others, 
 who, with competent natural history knowledge and the 
 desirable natural history tastes, had the inestimable advan- 
 tage of foreign travel more or less extensive and who have 
 made the best use of their opportunities of observation by 
 placing on record all that they saw noteworthy in animal 
 habits. 
 
 Nor are we to regard k old stories ' as fabulous simply 
 because of their age. Though I have, for the reasons 
 already specified, preferred modern to ancient anecdotes or 
 illustrations of animal intelligence as the basis of my own 
 
26 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES 
 
 generalisations, it is only just to the naturalists of classical 
 times of ancient Greece and Rome, for example to point 
 out that one of the results of modern research has been to 
 prove the correctness of observers and recorders who lived 
 centuries before accurate observation or philosophical in- 
 ference is supposed to have existed or to have been developed 
 in the progress of Western civilisation. In certain cases the 
 observations of Aristotle, Herodotus, and Pliny have been 
 laughed and sneered at as incorrect, fanciful, poetical, or 
 mythical, by successive generations of more modern natu- 
 ralists among the scientific and ' advanced ' nations of the 
 West. 
 
 Nevertheless, the most recent researches sometimes prove 
 the accuracy of the distinguished Pagan, and the inaccuracy 
 of the less distinguished Christian, naturalists. One of 
 the most remarkable instances of this confirmation of the 
 soundness of the observation and inference of ancient natu- 
 ralists is the corroboration by the late Mr. Moggridge, at 
 Mentone, in the South of France, of the observations made 
 on harvesting ants by Aristotle hundreds of years ago. Mr. 
 Lee's observations at the Brighton Aquarium on the repro- 
 duction of the octopus also confirm those of the noble Greek 
 naturalist and philosopher Aristotle. Countenance at least 
 is given to the well-known ancient fable of Eomulus and 
 Remus by the discovery in India, in recent times, of so-called 
 6 wolf children,' who, whether or not they have been suckled 
 or protected by wolves, have many of the habits of those or 
 other wild animals, as is fully pointed out in another chapter. 1 
 Much ridicule, again, has been expended upon the assertion 
 repeatedly made, and by generations of naturalists as to 
 the ' milking ' of Aphides and other insects by ants. That it 
 is nevertheless a fact, that certain bees do the same, and 
 that Aphides are by no means the only insects treated as 
 milk kine, has been shown in the pages of ' Nature ' quite 
 recently by observers so competent as Fritz Miiller and 
 Meldola. 
 
 On the other hand, there are many stories in modern 
 
 1 That which treats of the degeneracy or defective development of the 
 human mind. 
 
OF ANIMAL SAGACITY 27 
 
 fiction that are types or representations of real incidents or 
 character are borrowed or transferred from actual life are 
 taken or copied from nature. Exact representations of the 
 finer as well as the coarser traits in animal character, par- 
 ticularly as relates to the dog and horse., occur abundantly 
 in the works both of novelists and poets including, for 
 instance, those of Sir Walter Scott, Burns, Byron, Cowper, 
 Bulwer (Lord Lytton), and George Eliot. Such anecdotes, 
 however, are apt to be looked upon not as genuine illustrations 
 of animal character, feeling, or intelligence just because they 
 do occur in poetry or fiction. Nor is it easy, in such cases, 
 to distinguish the fiction from the fact ; the more so because 
 of the inexact or erroneous representations of animal mind 
 given by other poets and novelists, including Shakespeare 
 and Rogers. In this category of writers who are too imagi- 
 native to be depended upon, who are untrustworthy as to 
 their facts, who are figurative, fanciful, and sensational, 
 rather than accurate, in their descriptions of animal habits 
 must be included certain French and other so-called ' popu- 
 larisers ' of science, such as Michelet and Figuier. 
 
 But the difficulty of discriminating between fact and 
 fiction of accepting facts as such, because to the ignorant 
 they appear to be improbabilities is daily being illustrated 
 in many other ways. For instance, there are many worthy 
 people living at a distance from the scene of the incident, 
 in whose case distance obviously lends enchantment or 
 romance to their view of a perfectly prosaic subject who 
 believe the whole of the well-known story of f Greyfriars 
 Bobby ' to be fiction, and who ascribe the dog's memorial 
 collar, monument, and other civic or private honours to the 
 tendency of imaginative men and women to idolise their 
 ideals of animal virtue. They regard the old dog of the 
 Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh long so familiar to the 
 dwellers in the precincts as a mere myth, the poetical 
 embodiment, however, of the human ideal of canine fidelity 
 and affection. On the other hand, people living in Edinburgh 
 itself, and having confidence in the observers and recorders 
 of the facts of Greyfriars Bobby's life, are convinced of the 
 former existence of the animal, and of the truthfulness of 
 
28 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES. 
 
 the narratives that record his attachment to his master's 
 grave. They accept the story, as usually given, in all its 
 essentials ; and they are correct in so doing. Again, the 
 discussion recently carried on by Pouchet and other authors 
 as recorded in the 6 Animal World ' as to hedgehogs 
 spiking apples with their quills shows that there is the 
 greatest possible difficulty sometimes in ascertaining the 
 exact truth in current stories about common animals. Asser- 
 tions on the one hand are controverted, or their facts denied 
 on the other the authors of both assertion and denial being, 
 perhaps, equally reputable writers. 
 
 It has to be explained, lastly, that the value of anecdotes 
 is apt to be greatly over-estimated. Apart altogether from 
 the fact, already pointed out, that every man, woman, or 
 child may speedily observe a sufficient number of facts 
 upon which to base safe and sound conclusions as to the 
 nature of animal 'instinct,' a few common, well-authenti- 
 cated incidents are sufficient for the same purpose quite 
 as valuable as a larger number, and infinitely more valu- 
 able than a host of anecdotes unsupported by proper evi- 
 dence of their authenticity. For this and other reasons I 
 have deemed it both unnecessary and undesirable to crowd 
 these pages with any profusion of illustrative anecdotes 
 or quotations, which would have the disadvantage of con- 
 fusing the reader and distracting his attention, as well as 
 of occupying space that is devoted, it is hoped, to better 
 purpose. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STUDY BY OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT, 
 
 BY far the best way to acquaint oneself with the phenomena 
 of mind in the lower animals is by the personal observation 
 of animal habits. I can conceive no one so unfortunately 
 placed as not to have opportunity of observing the behaviour 
 of such animals as the horse, dog, cattle, sheep, or poultry, 
 or the domestic pets, such as the cat or canary. Even 
 blindness has not proved a barrier to observation and ex- 
 periment of the most valuable kind ; for Fra^ois Huber, the 
 famous Swiss naturalist, distinguished for his researches on 
 bees (in which he was able to expose the errors of pre- 
 decessors, who did not labour under his physical disability), 
 was blind. N"or is poverty an obstacle to observation 
 and enquiry ; ] for there are, perhaps, no more sincere lovers 
 of animals, of home pets, no keener observers of animal 
 character, than the poor, who make real companions of 
 their dogs, cats, and canaries, of their horses, donkeys, and 
 pigs. The obstacles to personal observation are, therefore, 
 merely nominal and visionary. In truth, ' where there's a 
 will there's a way.' 
 
 The faculty of observation, however, requires to be culti- 
 vated or trained. The eye must be trained to the accurate 
 notice of phenomena ; the memory to the recollection of facts ; 
 the judgment to the drawing of logical inferences from facts. 
 There has been much false observation and much false or in- 
 correct record of facts, much false reasoning on these false 
 facts, on the subject of what has hitherto been known as 
 
 1 As is well illustrated in Smiles's ' Life of a Scottish Naturalist ' Thomas 
 Edwards, the poor journeyman shoemaker of Banff. 
 
30 OBSEBVATION OF 
 
 f instinct ' in animals. Instances of faulty observation, even 
 by naturalists, are to be found in the different accounts that 
 have been given of the habits of harvesting ants, and of the 
 uses of its tail by the beaver. Those who are most intimately 
 associated with the lower animals frequently fail to notice 
 their mental peculiarities from want of the proper training 
 of their observative and reflective powers ; while they commit 
 numerous errors of interpretation or inference from ignorance, 
 prejudice, superstition, or the other faults specified in the 
 chapter which treats of the proper ' method of enquiry ' 
 concerning the character of mind in the lower animals. 
 Thus the most important information that has been derived or 
 contributed on the subject of mind in the lower animals has 
 not come from veterinarians, sportsmen, jockeys, cattle dealers, 
 drovers, shepherds, butchers, grooms, or ostlers, but from 
 naturalists, accustomed to the accurate observation of 
 natural phenomena and to a proper appreciation of the value 
 of the facts of observation. Illustrations of exact and con- 
 scientious observation, and record of facts or observations, 
 are to be found in the writings of Charles Darwin, Houzeau, 
 Wallace, Belt, Moggridge, Spalding, Terrier, the Hubers, 
 Fleeson, and many other authors, whose names are generally 
 mentioned in these pages, or specially in the appended 
 Bibliography. There is, perhaps, no better example to all 
 than Audubon's study of bird habits in the forests of 
 North America. 
 
 All that is necessary to an understanding of the nature 
 and range of animal reason is a study of the commonest 
 facts of observation those which are capable of the easiest 
 daily verification in the horse, dog, cat, canary, and other 
 domestic animals, in almost every country under the sun. 
 If once established or fixed by common experience, such 
 facts can neither be overthrown nor explained away. Facts, 
 however, must ever be carefully distinguished from in- 
 ferences, or opinions based upon them, which may vary 
 ad infinitum. The Eev. Gilbert White, of Selborne, has 
 shown how fertile a field of observation may exist in a 
 limited rural locality ; and, in fact, a field of observation, 
 more or less fertile, is to be found in every farm-yard, 
 
ANIMAL HABITS. 31 
 
 kennel, stable, byre, or market ; while it may be produced in 
 every homestead, even in every apartment of every man's 
 dwelling. 
 
 No doubt there are certain subjects deserving of ob- 
 servation that are not open to everybody, that can, on the 
 contrary, be fitly studied by a very few persons, and these 
 highly qualified naturalists for instance, the mental en- 
 dowments or aptitudes of the anthropoid apes. To certain 
 classes only of the population, again, the following special 
 fields or facilities for observation are at command : 
 
 1. Zoological gardens. 
 
 2. Menageries. 
 
 3. Annual or periodical animal shows, such as those now 
 so common in London and elsewhere, of horses, cattle, dogs, 
 cats, donkeys, poultry, pigeons, and song birds the ani- 
 mals exhibited belonging for the most part to the same 
 species. 
 
 4. c Happy families ' another form of peripatetic popu- 
 lar animal show, in which different genera and species 
 (frequently hereditary or natural enemies) are exhibited in 
 harmonious groups ; such as monkeys, dogs, cats, rats,, 
 and owls. 
 
 5. Aquaria, marine and fresh- water. 
 
 6. Apiaria, vespiaria, and formicaria of all kinds. ^^//c- n 
 
 7. Aviaries, dovecots, rookeries, and swanneries. 
 Zoological gardens, and more especially travelling menage- . 
 
 riesy offer the means of studying, for instance, the effects of 
 confinement and artificial existence on animals accustomed to 
 a free, active forest or campaign life in warmer climates 
 including the diseases, mental and bodily, that are created 
 or aggravated by such a change in the conditions of being ; 
 the alteration of instincts or habits, of character or dis- 
 position with circumstances including the development 
 of new instincts or habits, the loss of old ones, and the sub- 
 stitution of vices for virtues, and vice versa. They offer also 
 great opportunities not hitherto utilised for the sys- 
 tematic study of the range of mind in the various classes of 
 animals in the ascending or descending zoological scale. 
 Animal shows or exhibitions are both the causes and effects 
 
32 EXPEKIMENTS ON 
 
 of an improved public feeling towards subject creatures ; 
 besides which, they have a distinct scientific and educational 
 value. Dr. Dohrn, of Naples, Mr. Lloyd, of the Crystal 
 Palace Aquarium, and Mr. Kent, of the Aquaria of Brighton 
 and Manchester, have shown the value of marine and other 
 aquaria in the study of the habits of fish and other aquatic 
 animals. Happy families are most instructive and sugges- 
 tive as showing man's power for good or evil over other 
 animals, the force of discipline, their capacity for educa- 
 tion, and their power of control of their natural propen- 
 sities or passions. 
 
 Not only, however, is it possible for every man, woman, 
 and child of average intelligence to observe and reflect upon 
 the habits of domestic and other animals, and the nature 
 of the phenomena which they exhibit or involve, but experi- 
 ment may equally fitly and easily be instituted in order to 
 determine the true nature, relations, and range of their so- 
 called ' instinct.' In order to show what has been already 
 done in this direction, and what may still be accomplished 
 by those who have the necessary qualifications, I append a 
 list of the chief, including the most recent, experiments on 
 the mental endowments of animals that have come under my 
 own notice. 
 
 1. Moggridge: on the ants of the south of France, in- 
 cluding his interesting observations on 6 harvesting ants ; ' 
 the possibility of deceiving them by beads instead of grain ; 
 deterring or alarming them by the sight of a mere line, or 
 of dead or dying companions. 
 
 2. Lubbocki on ants, bees, and wasps; their power of 
 intercommunication, of way-finding; their perception of 
 colour and sound ; the influence upon them of light, of 
 alcohol, of chloroform; their tempers, affection, and in- 
 telligence. 
 
 3. Belt : on the foraging and leaf-cutting ants of 
 Nicaragua, and on the artificial production by corrosive 
 sublimate of insanity in the whitefaced monkey. 
 
 4. Hague : on the ants of California. 
 
 5. Huber (Pierre) : on ants in formicaria, and on cater- 
 pillars. 
 
ANIMAL REASOX. 33 
 
 6. Huber (Frai^ois) : on bees ; changes in the mode of 
 building their combs, the result of unforeseen physical ob- 
 stacles ; their mode of dealing with pieces of loose comb ; 
 the effects of killing the queen. 
 
 7. Latreille, Nemour, and other authors : on ants. 
 
 8. The celebrated American author Dr. Franklin : on 
 ants with the treacle pot. 
 
 9. Pasley : on scorpions ; their power of self-stinging 
 and suicide. 
 
 10. Boyer : on crickets ; the effects of sound. 
 
 11. Spalding : on birds; the nature of instinct in new- 
 born chicks. 
 
 12. Houzeau : on horses and dogs; their understanding 
 of man's words and conversation, on speaking to or address- 
 ing them as he would have spoken to or addressed children ; 
 their knowledge of time. 
 
 13. Nichols : on dogs and horses ; railway travel in 
 relation to knowledge of time, the succession of events or 
 eventuality, the calculation of the number of stoppages ; 
 their use of natural tools. 
 
 14. Menault: on dogs, testing their power of under- 
 standing man's conversation. 
 
 15. Leroy : on omnibus mules, and on crows; their ideas 
 of number and time, of duty and relaxation therefrom. 
 
 16. Burnett, Jebb, and others : on the dog, horse, and 
 cat ; their power of way-finding. 
 
 17. Fleming : on the pig ; the effect of white colours. 
 
 18. Ferrier: on monkeys and other animals; the local- 
 isation of the functions of the brain. 
 
 19. Romanes : on rats ; use of their tails in the extrac- 
 tion of jelly from narrow-necked jars ; on the intoxication 
 of the Medusce. 
 
 20. Gillies : on trap-door spiders in New Zealand. 
 
 21. Gudden: on various animals; effects of removal of 
 the brain. 
 
 22. CzermaJc : on birds ; the artificial production of hyp- 
 notism and catalepsy. 
 
 23. Flourens : on pigeons ; results of removal of the 
 cerebral hemispheres. 
 
 VOL. i. E 
 
34 EXPERIMENTS ON 
 
 24. Home (Sir Everard) : on the elephant and lion ; 
 effects of piano music. 
 
 25. Smellie : on the corncrake ; its wariness. 
 
 26. Marville, on various animals ; the power of music. 
 
 27. By many authors, on elephants, testing their in- 
 genuity; their intellectual efforts. 
 
 28. Countless experiments on the dog sometimes for 
 wagers to test or show its intelligence or sensitiveness, for 
 instance, in the use of money ; or its fidelity and integrity in 
 defence of a trust ; or its power of way-finding home, when 
 taken over unknown ground by railways or steamboats. 
 
 A perusal of the foregoing list will show in how large a 
 proportion of cases experiment w r as made upon insects ; a 
 circumstance in connection with which it is desirable to 
 remind the reader how much experimental study of animal 
 habits may be conducted under glass in our own libraries, 
 studios, parlours, drawing-rooms, conservatories, or even 
 bedrooms ; for I know of one instance in which an enthu- 
 siastic young zoologist conducted salmon-breeding experi- 
 ments in a small tank fitted up in his own bedroom. Hence 
 the use of ferneries, Wardian cases, or other forms of closed 
 glass vessels, aquaria, apiaria, &c., in the study of the habits 
 of insects of such interest as ants, bees, and wasps. 
 
 The simplest experiment may give rise to a host of sug- 
 gestive reflections. I have myself frequently performed a 
 very simple experiment which may be repeated by anybody 
 on the influence of harsh or caressing tones, looks, or atti- 
 tudes, on dogs and cats, in the creation of confidence or fear ; 
 in calling forth affection or repressing it ; in developing in- 
 dividuality, and testing character and courage. I have over 
 and over again found tnat an angry word or scowl a 
 threatening attitude will cause some dogs and cats to flee 
 precipitately in alarm sometimes backwards in case of 
 seizure by their fancied enemy while others bravely bark 
 or hiss their defiance. Some show unmistakably their 
 doubt whether the experimenter is in jest or earnest. There 
 is obviously a conflict of feelings and ideas in their minds 
 when they find a person who is in the habit of taking no 
 notice of them, or of throwing them a friendly word, assum- 
 
ANIMAL REASON. 35 
 
 ing such forms of apparent hostility. I have often, by such 
 means, shown the cowardice of pet dogs that were supposed 
 by their mistresses to be very brave, because of their incessant 
 barking at, and bold front to, strangers. On the other hand, 
 a kindly look, a gentle tone, a friendly advance is seldom 
 misunderstood unless by the poor animal that has been 
 rendered suspicious and timorous by its experience of human 
 treachery and cruelty. In other words, there is nothing 
 easier than for any man, woman, or child, to give to him- or 
 her-self practical or experimental lessons in the power of 
 human kindness to bring out in response all the better or 
 finer features of an animal's nature, and of human cruelty 
 to develope all the worse ones in man's influence, therefore, 
 for good and evil over the lower animal world. 
 
 Some of the experiments that have been made upon 
 animals may appear to be, or are really, cruel and unnecessary 
 at least in their repetition for instance, those relating to 
 or involving 
 
 1. The action of alcohol, laughing gas, chloroform, opium, 
 belladonna, and many poisons. 
 
 '2. Mutilation or vivisection, including removal of the 
 head or brain, or portions of either or both. 
 
 3. Self-destruction in scorpions. 
 
 4. Various kinds of deception in the form of practical 
 jokes or otherwise leading sometimes to the death of 
 the animals experimented on, including the substitution of 
 the eggs of different species of birds, or of stones or other 
 bodies, in the nest of a hatching mother-bird. 
 
 5. Destruction of beaver dams, birds' nests, and spiders' 
 webs. 
 
 There are, then, certain directions in which experiment 
 need not be extended or repeated, especially by the general 
 public. But, on the other hand, there are many directions 
 in which extended or renewed experiment is not only legiti- 
 mate but desirable, at or in the hands of persons of average 
 intelligence and feeling, possessed of the necessary acquire- 
 ments the power of, or facility in, observing and recording 
 facts, fertility of resource, and an acquaintance with what 
 has been already done on the one hand, and what remains 
 
 D 2 
 
36 EXPEKI MENTAL STUDY. 
 
 to be done on the other. Spalding, for instance, points out 
 the desirability of further experiment and observation on 
 what he calls ' inherited acquisition ' a doctrine capable of 
 experimental proof or demonstration. Houzeau, again, has 
 suggested, as an important subject for future research in- 
 cluding both experiment and observation the taming and 
 studying, in their native countries, of the great anthropoid 
 apes particularly the soko, which is as yet known only to 
 Livingstone and other forms of the gorilla and chimpanzee. 
 Among other legitimate and desirable, and at the same time 
 harmless, subjects of experimental investigation by man is 
 the effect of mirrors, pictures, and patterns on various 
 animals. 
 
 Many experiments are performed for man by nature, by 
 disease or injury in himself or other animals; but their 
 value or importance is seldom evident, unless to the accom- 
 plished or experienced physiologist, pathologist, or naturalist. 
 In the hands of such men, however, these experiments of 
 nature's may be reproduced artificially by imitation; so 
 that the lessons they are calculated to teach may be duly 
 learned and applied. In other words> the results of human 
 experiment may be made, when necessary or desirable, to 
 imitate those of disease or injury ; or the diseases or injuries 
 themselves may be deliberately produced. 
 
 The animals that will best repay man's observation and 
 experiment and that should, therefore, be selected for that 
 purpose are those that most closely resemble him, on the one 
 hand, in structure and functions, and, on the other, in habits 
 that are most intimately associated with him as com- 
 panions, servants, pets, adopting, as much as may be, his 
 own mode of life. Hence the fittest subject for man's 
 observation and experiment is the dog his constant friend, 
 companion, servant, and plaything; so like him probably 
 by reason of the intimacy of the personal association both 
 in character and habits. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DAWN OP MIND IN MAN : MENTAL CONDITION OF 
 CHILDEEN AND SAVAGES. 
 
 PEIOR to a study of the genesis and evolution of mind in 
 the young of the lower animals, it is all-important that the 
 student should be previously well acquainted with the phe- 
 nomena that constitute or characterise the dawn and gradual 
 development of intelligence, on the one hand, in the human 
 infant or child of civilised races, and on the other in savage 
 man under the different degrees and conditions of his 
 savagery. 
 
 The mental condition of the human child is of special 
 interest, because various authors have instituted a psychical 
 parallelism between the earlier stages of growth of the mind 
 in man and its full development in other amimals; in other 
 words, they hold that throughout their lives or in their 
 mature condition the lower animals are mentally in the con- 
 dition of children that their mind in its prime is essentially 
 childish. According to Houzeau, for instance, the mental 
 development of the infant or child at various ages marks the 
 levels which, in other animals, intelligence permanently at- 
 tains ; and long ago Locke, while quite recently Carpenter 
 and other writers on mental physiology, have instituted 
 similar comparisons and drawn similar inferences. But that 
 there is only a certain amount of truth in such inferences is 
 shown by the general results recorded in this volume, which 
 go to prove the frequent psychical superiority of the lower 
 animals the dog, horse, elephant, parrot, or ape over the 
 human child, and even over the human adult. 
 
 Whatever be the result or advantage of such a compari- 
 son or parallelism, there can be no doubt as to the propriety 
 
38 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 of the study of the simple preceding that of the complex in 
 comparative psychology. And hence it is obvious that the 
 student of comparative psychology should begin his enquiry 
 by the systematic investigation of the simplest forms, earliest 
 stages, first glimmerings of mind, reason, or intelligence, as 
 illustrated in or by 
 
 1. Man: (a) the child of civilised races; (6) lowest or 
 savage man. 
 
 2. Other animals : (a) in their lowest forms ; (6) the 
 young of the higher groups. 
 
 Such a study of the germs or rudiments of mind in man 
 and other animals should be gradually followed up by obser- 
 vations on the psychical condition of 
 
 1. Man in all stages of savagery, barbarism, and civi- 
 lisation, and 
 
 2. Other animals, in their different species, genera, and 
 classes, beginning at the lowest, and ascending step by step 
 in the zoological scale. 
 
 In the mental and moral condition of the human child, 
 even of the most highly civilised races and of the most 
 virtuous and talented individuals, the following points are 
 specially noteworthy : 
 
 1. The language of the infant consists at first of mere 
 cries or calls, similar in character and object to those of other 
 animals, and particularly of their young. It is by imitation 
 of the sounds they hear that infants learn to speak. 
 
 2. Consciousness is only gradually developed. 
 
 3. There are no innate ideas (Melia). Infants acquire 
 their earliest ideas at least, as other animals probably do, 
 from their senses and sensations. 
 
 4. Infants are wholly occupied at first with the objects 
 of special sense and sensation. The infant desires only the 
 gratification of its physical wants (Pierquin). 
 
 5. They are governed by instinct, appetite, passion, un- 
 controlled by judgment and conscience (Elam). 
 
 6. There is no religious sense ; it has to be created and 
 cultivated. 
 
 7. The same must be said of the moral sense, or con- 
 science, so that moral responsibility cannot be said to exist. 
 
 8. Education and time are necessarv to the development 
 
OF THE CHILB. 39 
 
 not only of the religious and moral feelings, but of reflection 
 and thought, and to the regulation of the emotions and 
 passions. 
 
 9. The general education or training of the child is on 
 the same principles as that of the pup or other young animal 
 (Carpenter). 
 
 10. The predominance of emotion or emotionalness. 
 
 11. What has been called the instinct of cruelty is cha- 
 racteristic of the child, and too frequently not only of the 
 youth also, but of the adult, even in the most highly 
 civilised races, as has been pointed out by John Stuart Mill 
 and other writers. The natural or innate cruelty of the 
 child, and the obvious pleasure it takes therein, are quite 
 comparable, for instance, to the delight shown by monkeys 
 in torturing their prey. 
 
 12. Amongst other characteristic vices of childhood are 
 selfishness and self-indulgence, sulkiness or pettedness, com- 
 bativeness and destructiveness ; and it is only in the course 
 of time that the child becomes enabled to neutralise or 
 overcome such vices by the development of counteracting 
 virtues, if indeed he is so fortunate as to possess the requisite 
 measures of self-control, moral sense, and judgment. 
 
 13. The sports, tricks, and mischievousness of the child 
 so closely resemble those of the young of certain of the 
 lower animals, such as the kitten or monkey, that we 
 habitually speak of our children being ' playful as kittens ' 
 or 6 mischievous as monkeys.' 
 
 14. Fearlessness of deadly danger, of poisonous animals 
 or fruits, of risks of all kinds to life and limbs, arises from 
 ignorance and inexperience. In regard to incapacity of form- 
 ing a judgment on matters that intimately concern its own 
 personal safety, or of providing therefor, the child is ob- 
 viously, as it is in certain other respects, inferior to lower 
 animals. 
 
 15. Imitation operates as powerfully in the child as in 
 other young animals. 
 
 16. Curiosity or inquisitiveness is as marked, and as apt 
 to lead into danger, as in the case of so many animals, adult 
 as well as young. 
 
 17. The mental potentialities of the child or infant can no 
 
40 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 more safely or surely be determined than those of the young 
 of other animals. 
 
 Inasmuch as such an animal as the adult, naturally or 
 hereditarily intelligent, well-trained dog as has been 
 pointed out, for instance, by Miss Cobbe has moral sense 
 and is morally responsible, with religious feeling of the kind 
 that has been described in another chapter, while it is 
 capable of wonderful self-sacrifice and self-control, and exhibits 
 remarkable sagacity and ingenuity, with a predominance of 
 virtues over vices such animals must be considered mentally 
 and morally the superiors of the human infant and child, as 
 they so frequently are also of the human adult. 
 
 In savage races of man tha following features in their 
 mental or natural history are specially deserving of con- 
 sideration, as illustrating their psychical status compared 
 with that of other animals : 
 
 1. The absence of fixed shelter or dwellings, or their 
 rudimentary character. Like feral carnivora, primitive man 
 made use of caves, as do certain savage races of the present 
 day. 
 
 2. Absence of clothing ; bodily nakedness. 
 
 3. Ignorance of the use of fire for cooking or warmth 
 for instance, as found by the Spaniards, who first came in 
 contact with the Ladrone Islanders (Bu'chner). The tradi- 
 tions of the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians, 
 Chinese, and Greeks point to the introduction and develop- 
 ment of the knowledge and uses of fire. 
 
 4. Absence of cookery ; the use of raw food, animal or 
 vegetable. 
 
 5. Morbid appetite and depraved taste, including : (a) 
 Geophagy dirt- or earth-eatingfatal generally by dysen- 
 tery or dropsy among the Indians of the Orinoco and 
 other parts of South America, as well as among the 
 Laplanders (Gait). Under this head may be classed the 
 indiscriminate or omnivorous appetite of the Pata- 
 gonians (Houzeau). (b) Ordure-eating, (c) Carrion- eating 
 among the Zulus. (d) Placenta-eating of parturient 
 mothers. (e) Cannibalism, even of their own children, 
 parents, or other relatives for instance, by the Caribs 
 (Buchner). 
 
OF SAVAGE MAX. 41 
 
 6. Filthiness in their personal habits, excluding those 
 connected with food-eating. Thus the Yeddas of Ceylon 
 show a t habitual disregard of any sort of ablution ' (Harts- 
 home). The Bushmen of South Africa ' never wash' 
 (Richerer). 
 
 7. No sense of decency, modesty, chastity, or shame. 
 
 8. Their main object in life is the gratification of their 
 physical ivants. The only care of the Andaman Islanders, 
 for example, is food supply (Owen). When the Bushmen of 
 South Africa ' have enough food, they gorge and sleep.' 
 (Richerer). Most savages are stimulated to a search for 
 food only by hunger. The Australian ' knows almost no 
 other sensation than that of the need of food, which he .... 
 makes known to the traveller by grimaces' (Biichner). 
 
 9. Absence of ordinary foresight as to physical wants. 
 
 10. Handlessness, or awkwardness in the use of their 
 hands (Houzeau) ; a disability common enough in civilised 
 man for instance, among many of our own peasantry. 
 
 11. Absence of fools, implements, and weapons- -for 
 instance, for fishing among the ancient Caribs (Houzeau). 
 There are either no tools, or scarcely any idea of using them, 
 among the Mincopies, while the Dokos have no weapons 
 (Biichner). The first musical instrument alike of the savage 
 and of the anthropoid ape is a rudely-formed drum (Houzeau). 
 Teeth, hands, and feet, however, are used as natural tools and 
 weapons, just as they are by other animals. Thus Thine 
 mentions a Kanake of Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, 
 who, climbing a cocoa-nut tree and bringing down some of 
 the green fruit, ' tore the outer husk off with his teeth, 
 getting purchase on the nut with his feet and hands, like a 
 monkey.' 
 
 12. Want of natural affection. 'Mothers suckle their 
 children only a short time, and then abandon them,' among 
 the Dokos. Man and woman live isolated in certain hill 
 tribes of India the so-called 'ape men.' There is 'no 
 domestic life .... no attachment to kindred' (Biichner). In 
 East African negroes there is 'no attachment between father 
 and child ; but, on the contrary, there prevails, after the 
 time of childhood, a natural enmity between father and son. 
 . . . The children are sold ; the wife is driven out of doors 
 
42 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 at pleasure' (Burton). Among the Soudan negroes there is 
 no family or personal love. Of certain South African negroes 
 Dr. Rainey writes, e It is seldom that one cares for another : 
 the utmost they will do is to assist each other if their back 
 itches. Even for their sick and dying they have no concern.' 
 Among the Australian blacks ' it is only at the beginning 
 that the mother concerns herself about her child. After- 
 wards the original connection is entirely forgotten ' in other 
 words, the offspring is callously deserted. The Indians of 
 Tierra del Fuego ' will sooner kill their old women than their 
 dogs' (Biichner). 
 
 13. The universality of infanticide. The South African 
 Bushmen ' will kill their children without remorse, strangling 
 or smothering them when food is scarce. When a mother 
 dies bearing an infant, it is often buried alive with her, to 
 save the trouble which it would give ' (Richerer) . Putting 
 to death the aged for similar reasons to save trouble and 
 food is equally common. The Australian aborigines thus 
 murder both their young and old. In New Caledonia the 
 aged are buried alive (Biichner). 
 
 14. No respect for the dead ; no proper burial or burial 
 rites. 
 
 15. The suckling of young animals by women. Even at 
 the present day Maori women give suck at their breasts to 
 young pigs and dogs ; c a disgusting habit, for which I can 
 offer no reasonable explanation,' says a recent traveller in 
 the north island of New Zealand (Tinne). 
 
 16. Fondness for other animals, or the reverse; aptitude 
 on the one hand for attracting their confidence, and thus 
 taming them for instance, among the Indians of South 
 America (Brown) and on the other abuse or ill-usage a 
 propensity and practice only too common also among civilised 
 men. 
 
 17. Cruelty to each other, exclusive of the various forms 
 already specified, including refinement in torture and 
 enjoyment of the manifestations of pain, physical and 
 mental. 
 
 18. Wrestling for wives for instance, among the 
 Indians comparable to the strength trials that characterise 
 
OF SAVAGE MAX. 43 
 
 the love rivalry of the lower animals. They fight as birds 
 and so many other animals do for the possession of the 
 female. 
 
 19. The relation or proportion that mere instinct and 
 habit bear to reason ; the predominance of instinct over 
 reason (Darwin). What is called instinct in the savage is 
 frequently, however, really the result as in still lower 
 animals of habit and reason. 
 
 20. The acuteness of the senses of smell, vision, touch, 
 and hearing, in certain cases ; their obtuseness in others. 
 The Veddas, for example, are * quite unable .... to dis- 
 criminate between colours' (Hartshorne) . 
 
 21. The peculiarities of their cesthetic taste for colour, 
 form, sound in comparison with that of cultivated man. 
 
 22. Insensibility to kindness; absence of gratitude. 
 ' The treachery of the negro is beyond belief,' says Baker. 
 
 23. Combativeness and quarrelsomeness. Many of their 
 wars resemble those of ants in their ferocity, the causus belli 
 being perhaps, the possession of a woman as that of a 
 white elephant is, or may be, in Burmah (Houzeau). 
 
 24. Want of the moral sentiments, and of religious 
 feeling or belief. 
 
 25. Incapacity for education or instruction, for progress 
 or improvement ; including untamability. Hence their in- 
 capability for any work useful to themselves or to higher 
 races of mankind. The aborigines of Borneo in common 
 with the Australian blacks, ( on account of their unbounded 
 stupidity, cannot be used for slaves ; while of certain African 
 negroes in the American Slave States, a German traveller 
 writes, " they seem totally incapable of any higher culture " 
 (Biichner). Arab sailors in Egypt are characterised by 
 possessing e no reasoning no waiting for results' (Eden). 
 The Andaman Islanders are untamable (Smith) . ' The 
 faculty of memory ' among the Yeddas ' is almost wholly 
 absent ; ' so that a typical married male ' could not even 
 recall the name of his own wife, until he caught sight of her 
 and pronounced it mechanically ' (Hartshorne). There is no 
 * thought reaching beyond the narrowest circle of things 
 perceptible by the senses ' in the negro of East Africa. He 
 
44 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 lias no sort of logic, and ( can deduce nothing from what he 
 has observed' (Burton). 
 
 26. Incapacity for generalisation. 
 
 27. Want of originality, ingenuity, or inventiveness. 
 In the present Polynesians ' there is no originality. Inven- 
 tion is unthought of,' says a correspondent of c Nature.' A 
 want of mechanical ingenuity characterises the Australian 
 aborigines (Fox). 
 
 28. Arithmetic is rudimentary where it can be said to 
 exist at all. The Apache Indians have no notion of their 
 own age, or of counting up years (Buchner). 
 
 29. No idea of time. 
 
 30. No systems of knowledge. 
 
 31. No legislation-, no social or other laws e.g. among 
 the Dokos (Buchner). 
 
 82. No territorial, tribal, or other property. Dogs, 
 wives, and children are possessed in common by the Aus- 
 tralian aborigines (Houzeau). 
 
 33. No history ; sometimes scarcely any oral traditions. 
 
 34. No policy, nor plans of action. 
 
 35. No form of government, even by chiefs or leaders 
 e.g. among the Dokos (Buchner). 
 
 36. No traffic nor commerce. 
 
 37. Absence of agriculture, or any kind of tillage of the 
 soil ; sometimes even no hunting of wild animals for food. 
 
 38. Want of industry of any kind; idleness and laziness. 
 ' There is no inclination to labour ' in the negroes of East 
 Africa (Buchner). 
 
 39. Absence of money or coinage for instance, in 
 Central Africa, where barter is conducted by means of shells 
 or by payments in produce. 
 
 40. Imitation enters largely into all their actions. 
 When Lallemant endeavoured to make a Brazilian Botokudo 
 understand anything by signs, c he imitated every action, 
 just as apes do' (Buchner). In this respect, as Pierquin 
 points out, the negro resembles the monkey, or vice versa. 
 
 41. The absence of arts (Houzeau). 
 
 42. Navigation by rafts, just as in the case of various 
 lower animals (Houzeau). 
 
OF SAVAGE MAN. 45 
 
 43. The use of spies or scouts for the same purpose as 
 in the bee the discovery of suitable new dwelling-places 
 (Houzeau) . 
 
 44. The absence of laughter. The Yeddas, we are told, 
 'never laugh' (Hartshorne). 
 
 45. Want of facial expression ; impassiveness T or charac- 
 terlessness immobility or invariability of feature. The 
 Digger Indians have a ' face void of all mental expression ; ' 
 while in the Brazilian Botokudo eyes, ' without lustre or 
 soul,' look ( staring, dull, and without intelligence ' 
 (Biichner). 
 
 46. No specific or proper spoken language for instance, 
 among the Mincopies (Smith) and hence incapability of 
 conversation. 
 
 47. No civilities or salutations. Thus there is ( no notion 
 of greeting, either at meeting or parting,' in the Apache 
 Indians (Biichner). 
 
 48. Love antics comparable with those of certain birds. 
 
 49. Even the forms of insanity in savage and semi- 
 savage races resemble those which are commonest among 
 the lower animals. Thus the running amok (or amuck, as it 
 is more usually called) of the semi-savage Malay is a pecu- 
 liarly Asiatic and barbarous form of human insanity, though 
 it is not absolutely peculiar to the East, nor to barbarous 
 races occurring occasionally in Italian sailors and other 
 European peoples. It is characterised by a craving for in- 
 discriminate murder a sort of promiscuous homicidal mania 
 and is strictly analogous to that form of ephemeral mania 
 in cattle which so frequently proves fatal to man in the 
 crowded streets of our large cities. 
 
 50. Their wonderful power of way-finding has frequently 
 been dwelt upon by travellers a power that is unconsciously 
 exercised while it is unintelligible to and inexplicable by 
 its possessors, the savages themselves* It is based pro- 
 bably on habitual sensory impressions, involving keenness 
 of observation, a quality which in the white settlers in the 
 same regions for instance, in the Australian bush (Nichols) 
 leads sometimes to equal acquisition of the same accom- 
 plishment. On the other hand, the savage, with his supposed 
 
46 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 'instinct' of way-finding, frequently fails as a guide probably 
 from his loss of the memory of landmarks. 
 
 51. The fear of what is novel or unusual is quite as con- 
 spicuous sometimes as it so frequently is among the lower 
 animals. Thus we are told, a propos of the dread inspired in 
 certain jungle Yeddas of Ceylon by the sight of a mirror, 
 ' The first wheeled vehicle they saw filled them with alarm 
 and terror ; and as they bent eagerly forward to scrutinise 
 it, they instinctively grasped the handles of their axes.' 
 Boiled rice ' they at first seemed to fear would make them 
 intoxicated or stupified.' And it may be added that the 
 same kind of fear characterises the child of civilised races. 
 
 52. On the other hand, curiosity to ascertain the true 
 character of objects new to them is as prominent a feature 
 in the savage as in the child, and in many of the lower 
 animals, adult and young. 
 
 I am not to be understood as asserting that all the 
 foregoing intellectual or moral peculiarities, negative or 
 positive, are to be met with in any one race of savage men ; 
 but that some of them are to be found, in various degrees 
 and combinations, among all primitive peoples, there can be 
 no doubt, if we can credit the many eminent travellers who 
 have described the psychical condition of uncivilised man. 
 That the savage, as a whole, is low in the scale of intelli- 
 gence, compared with his civilised brother, is generally, 
 perhaps, conceded. But there are many worthy people, 
 whose wish would appear to be father to their thought, 
 who, in the face of facts to the contrary, persist in believing 
 that a ' potentiality ' for culture and civilisation exists in 
 all races of mankind, however primitive, however degraded. 
 That intelligence, reason, morals, are frequently so low in 
 their stage of development where they can be said to exist 
 at all as to sink man, in countless instances, below the 
 psychical level of many other animals, is what even the un- 
 biassed student will not at first be prepared to believe what 
 throughout his enquiry he may even be led honestly to 
 doubt. But his scepticism when it exists may be con- 
 verted into belief by a careful study of the intellectual and 
 moral condition of the following savnge races: 
 
OF SAVAGE MAN. 47 
 
 a. Asiatic races. 
 
 1. The Andaman Islanders of the Bay of Bengal, other- 
 wise known as the Min copies, who are, according to Pro- 
 fessor Owen, the most degraded race of mankind. 
 
 2. The natives of Ceram and Malacca, or the Malay 
 Peninsula (Elam). 
 
 3. The Papuans, or aborigines of New Guinea. 
 
 4. Certain hill tribes of Northern India, such as the 
 Lepchas, Gonds, and Khasias. 
 
 5. The Ainos, or 'hairy men,' of Japan (Pumpelly). 
 
 6. The Yeddas of Ceylon (Hartshorne). 
 
 7. The Samoiedes of Siberia. 
 
 b. American races. 
 
 8. The inhabitants of Alaska (Houzeau). 
 
 9. The Eskimo of Greenland. 
 
 10. The Digger, Apache, Mexican, and other Indian tribes 
 of North America (Houzeau). 
 
 11. The Indians of Brazil and other parts of South 
 America, including the Botokudos, or ' men of the woods ' 
 (Biichner). 
 
 12. The Caribs, the negroes of the Antilles, and the other 
 aboriginal races of the West Indian Islands, including the 
 Creole negroes of Jamaica and the slaves of Cuba (Trollope). 
 
 13. The natives of Tierra del Fuego. 
 
 c. African races. 
 
 14. The Dokos of Abyssinia (Brown). 
 
 15. The Nuehr savages of Central or Northern Africa 
 (Baker). 
 
 16. The Latukas of the region of the Nile sources 
 (Baker). 
 
 17. The negroes of Eastern Tropical Africa (Burton). 
 
 18. The Kaffirs (or Caffres), Hottentots, Bushmen (or 
 Bosjesmans), and other tribes of Southern Africa. 
 
 d. Australasian and Polynesian races. 
 
 19. The Australian aborigines, especially the 'black 
 fellows ' of Western Australia. By various authors the 
 native Australian blacks are regarded as a typical primitive 
 people, with a striking resemblance in their habits to Palaeo- 
 lithic man (Fox). 
 
43 MENTAL STATUS 
 
 20. The natives of Tasmania. 
 
 21. The Maoris of New Zealand. 
 
 22. The aborigines of New Caledonia. 
 
 23. The natives of the Marianne or Ladrone (Thieves' or 
 Lazarus) Islands, and of other South Sea or Oceanian 
 islands (Buchner), some of whose names, bestowed on them 
 by navigators, bear testimony to the theftuous propensities 
 of their inhabitants. 
 
 These are all foreign, heathen, and coloured races 
 extra-European, and characterised by blackish, brownish, or 
 yellowish skins. But there are also 
 
 e. European races even highly civilised Christian peoples, 
 boasting incessantly of their high state of religious and moral 
 culture, that possess in their very midst white savages, whose 
 intellectual and moral condition is quite as instructive as, 
 and infinitely more important than, that of remote primi- 
 tive races. I need only refer to some of our own country, 
 to wit 
 
 24. The c savages of North Devon,' as described by the 
 commissioner of the ' Daily Telegraph.' 
 
 25. The labourers of the potteries and collieries of 
 central England, the dog-fighters and women-kickers of 
 Hanley and other villages of the ' Black Country ' in more 
 respects than one a country well named. 
 
 26. The ' gutter children 5 of the 'wilds of London,' 
 according to Hollingshead and so many others. 
 
 27. The whole of the ( criminal class ' of our great cities. 
 These fellow-countrymen of our own voluntarily place 
 
 themselves if indeed the possession of normal freedom of 
 will be granted them on a level with what it were a farce 
 to call, in contrast with such men, the 'lower' animals, when 
 they engage with bull-dogs in duels of the kind which 
 rendered Hanley famous in 1874. 
 
 Among the psychical peculiarities of these our brother 
 men in Christian England are 
 
 1. The absence of any religious sentiment (Elani). 
 
 2. Want of the moral sense in the whole criminal class 
 (Despine). No appreciation of duty (Elam). 
 
 3. Low general intelligence., 
 
OF SAVAGE MAN. 49 
 
 4. Incapacity for intellectual or moral education. 
 
 5. Immorality of all kinds ; debauchery ; the social evil. 
 
 6. Depraved tastes, including especially intemperance. 
 
 7. Crime, especially theft for instance, by the profes- 
 sional thieves of London, or by the frequenters of, or loafers 
 at, the Liverpool docks. 
 
 8. Cruelty to each other, of a kind that it is a libel on 
 other animals to designate ' brutality ' for instance, wife- 
 kicking by the Lancashire navvy. 
 
 It is of importance to note in how many respects the 
 mental condition of savages corresponds with that of the 
 child. Thus we are told that mentally the Australian abori- 
 gines are ( mere children,' finding ' amusement only in 
 childish tricks and trifles. . . . They cannot be taught any 
 principles. . . . They know no sentiment .... but only 
 unbridled passions and the sense of their nothingness 
 against the white races' (Madame Bingmann). Again, the 
 East African negro c combines all the incapacity and credu- 
 lity of childhood with the obstinacy and stupidity of age ' 
 (Burton). 
 
 It is a corollary from the psychical parallelism that 
 exists between the children of civilised races with certain of 
 the lower animals on the one hand, and savage adult man on 
 the other, that, as Houzeau and so many other authors point 
 out, savage man is intellectually and morally indistinguish- 
 able from many of the unfortunately so-called ' lower ' 
 animals. According to Owen, Agassiz, Huxley, and others 
 of our most celebrated naturalists, there is no distinction 
 between the psychical phenomena of a Bosjesman adult, or 
 of an European infant, or of a mature cretin, and those of 
 such animals as the chimpanzee, save in degree, if even that 
 difference always exists. Where it does exist, it is not 
 necessarily in favour of man. 
 
 Darwin and other writers have drawn a comparison 
 between savage men and certain other animals in respect, 
 for instance, of morals not in favour of man. Pierquin 
 asserts the superiority of the lower animals; and no doubt 
 his assertion is well founded as between certain intelligent, 
 well-educated, and well-behaved dogs, horses, elephants, 
 
 VOL. i. E 
 
50 MENTAL STATUS OF SAVAGE MAN. 
 
 chimpanzees, parrots, or other animals and whole races of 
 savage man that c noble savage ' who ran ( wild in woods,' 
 and of whom we hear so much from Exeter Hall ! If the 
 student will take the trouble of comparing, one by one, the 
 negative qualities intellectual and moral of savage man, 
 as hereinabove described, with the positive qualities of 
 certain other animals especially the well-bred dog the 
 conclusion arrived at will probably be what appears to me 
 the inevitable one that psychical superiority frequently per- 
 tains to the c lower ' animal and not to man ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EVOLUTION OP MIND IN THE ASCENDING ZOOLOGICAL SCALE. 
 
 I. The Invertebrata. 
 
 So little is at present known of the phenomena of inind in 
 the lowest classes of animals, that it is impossible as yet to 
 give any comprehensive and exact outline of the genesis and 
 development of mind in the animal kingdom as a whole. We 
 know a great deal about the mental or moral character of the 
 dog, cat, horse, elephant, and other Mammalia ; of the parrot, 
 starling, domestic fowl, canary, sparrow, and other birds; 
 of the ant, bee, wasp, and other insects ; but of mind in all 
 other classes of animals our knowledge is as yet and at 
 present most limited and fragmentary. 
 
 What are the earliest dawnings of mind whether they 
 are concomitant with the earliest appearance of animal life, 
 or whether they are to be met with in the vegetable king- 
 dom depends very much, if not altogether, on what are our 
 conceptions of the constitution or essentials of mind what 
 are our definitions of such things or terms as sensation, 
 sensibility, sensitiveness and sense, consciousness, will, emo- 
 tion or feeling, thought and knowledge, memory, instinct, 
 intelligence, and so forth. 
 
 If we use such terms in their widest and general accepta- 
 tions, we must regard mind as beginning in the vegetable 
 kingdom. If, on the other hand, we re-define all these, and 
 allied or included, terms, so as to be applicable to man alone, 
 or to man and other animals, difficulties of an insuperable 
 kind will, I fear, be met with. Any such re-definition, more- 
 over, will necessitate the multiplication of technical terms 
 for the distinguishing of processes which I believe to be 
 
52 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 essentially the same in plants, the lower animals, and man ; 
 and such a multiplication of terms will only still further 
 confuse a subject already rendered needlessly intricate by 
 man's ingenious refinements in word-splitting. 
 
 Though our present knowledge is fragmentary and un- 
 precise, it is nevertheless desirable to attempt a general 
 sketch of the kind and amount of data we possess, upon or 
 from which to begin the construction of a future science of 
 comparative psychology. It is proper to expose our ignorance 
 and deficiencies, in order to point out to the student the 
 direction in which research is desirable and likely to yield 
 profitable results. 
 
 Beginning with the lowest subkingdom of the Inver- 
 tebrata the Protozoa of zoologists certain of the Infusoria, 
 or Rhizopoda, according to Dr. Carter, exhibit will, deter- 
 mination, fixed purpose or aim, intention, cunning, in- 
 genuity in the adaptation of means to an end, the re- 
 cognition of food and the selection thereof. The Vorticella 
 is said to ' contract itself upon its stem when alarmed or 
 irritated ' (' Globe Encyclopedia ') , Among the Rhizopoda 
 Carpenter refers to the selection of the materials of con- 
 struction by and to constructive art in Amoeba; while 
 Houzeau mentions way-finding to food supply in Actinophrys ; 
 and Carter assigns to both animals observation, will, and 
 intention in their food-search. Pouchet speaks of the 
 Amoeba the so-called proteus animalcule changing its 
 shape ' at will.' In the Protozoa feeling is excited by 
 external impressions. 
 
 Here we have, then, at the very base or beginning of the 
 zoological scale, in the capture of prey a whole series of mental 
 phenomena exhibited will, purpose, choice, ingenuity, obser- 
 vation, feeling ; and these aptitudes doubtless involve others, 
 such as sensation and consciousness, patience and perse- 
 verance. It seems incontestable that choice or preference 
 in the selection of food is a characteristic of the very lowest 
 animals. And if this be the case, certain at least of the 
 mental qualities above specified with others are necessa- 
 rily involved. 
 
 Ascending a stage higher, among the Coslenterata we have, 
 
IN THE INVERTEBRATA. 53 
 
 in the new Theco-medusa of Professor Allman, and in Campanu- 
 laria each individual retiring into its horny dwelling when 
 danger threatens a phenomenon that involves a sense of 
 danger, a knowledge of the means of avoiding or escaping 
 it, and the adoption of these suitable means in prompt 
 action. What is essentially the same process, however, has 
 already been described in Vorticella among the Protozoa 
 (Infusoria). In the pursuit and capture of prey various of 
 the Ccelenterata ' excel in dexterity,' Dr. Macintosh, of -British 
 annelid celebrity, writes to me. Dr. Andrew Wilson speaks 
 of the e intelligent seizure of matter or pabulum adapted to 
 its growth ' by the Hydra. 
 
 In the third subkingdoin the Annuloida and of its class 
 the Echinodermata we are told that brittle stars 'can scarcely 
 be procured for a museum in a tolerably perfect state, be- 
 cause they throw off ray after ray, and in fact break them- 
 selves to pieces, upon any alarm ' (' Chambers's Encyclo- 
 paedia'). The 'Guide to the Brighton Aquarium' also speaks 
 of this habit of starfishes, ' when irritated, of dismembering 
 their bodies by throwing off their arms. The spiny star 
 .... has shown a tendency to so mutilate itself; and this 
 practice extends to every specimen yet introduced into the 
 Aquarium.' Houzeau, too, points out the effect of emotion 
 on Ophiocoma in causing it to fall to pieces. 
 
 In the fourth subkingdom the Annulosa a considerably 
 greater range or variety of mental phenomena is met with. 
 Among the Annelida, the Tubicolse, or tube worms, retreat 
 into their abodes ' at the slightest alarm ; ' a phenomenon, as 
 we have seen, that occurs even among the Protozoa. There is 
 selection of materials of construction, as well as constructive 
 art, in Terebella (Carpenter) phenomena, however, that are 
 to be found so low down in the zoological scale as Amoeba. 
 
 It is well known that the angler desiring bait has only 
 to create slight succussion of the soil, by stamping on it, to 
 lead his prey, the earthworm, to come to the surface, a cir- 
 cumstance usually attributed to the dread of its enemy the 
 mole, which makes a somewhat similar movement of the 
 earth in its mining operations. If the fact be as stated, and 
 its explanation be accepted, we must have here a distinct 
 
54 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 dread of one enemy, and a knowledge of its operations, with 
 ignorance, however, of the ruses of another more formidable 
 one. There must be an association of ideas, though an erro- 
 neous one an error of inference from, or interpretation of, 
 a sensation. There is, in short, an early illustration of the 
 fallibility of instinct. 
 
 Dr. Strethill Wright, a very competent authority, 
 obviously ascribes intelligence to the female Spio seticornis 
 when he says of her that she c has all her senses about her.' 
 The emotion of fear and the realisation of danger are 
 common in crabs, lobsters, and other Crustacea. Mrs. Treat, 
 of New Jersey, saw a Cypris, an entomostracous crusta- 
 cean, 6 slowly walking round a bladder [of Utricularia 
 clandestina], as if reconnoitring. . . . Coming to the 
 entrance of a bladder, it would sometimes pause a 
 moment and then dash away. At other times it would 
 come close up, and even venture part of the way into 
 the entrance, and back out as if afraid. Another, more heed- 
 less, would open the door and walk in. But it was no 
 sooner in than it manifested alarm drew in its feet and an- 
 tennae and closed its shell ' (Darwin) . 
 
 Will is involved in the opening and shutting of the cara- 
 pace of the common Cypris, while the search for food is 
 probably common to these and other minute aquatic animals 
 (Darwin), as it is even to the Protozoa. Bates and Gardner 
 assert that will, in the form of voluntary determinate action, 
 is displayed by certain Crustacea ; while Houzeau assigns 
 to them memory. There is perception of time also, as 
 illustrated by the observance of regular feeding hours 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 Buckland describes fear and the sense of danger in crabs 
 in presence of the octopus in the Brighton Aquarium. Of 
 the amphibious crabs of St. Paul's Rocks Professor Sir Wyville 
 Thomson writes, 6 They were much more wary than the birds. 
 It was by no means easy to catch them ; but they kept close 
 round the luncheon baskets in large parties, raised up on the 
 tips of their toes, with their eyes cocked up in an attitude of 
 the keenest observation. And whenever a morsel came within 
 their reach there was instantly a struggle for it among the 
 
IN THE INVERTEBRATA. 55 
 
 foremost of them.' c They had/ he adds, ' a look of human 
 smartness about them, which had a kind of weirdness, from 
 being exhibited through a set of organs totally different in 
 aspect from those to which we usually look for manifesta- 
 tions of intelligence.' Some other crabs post sentinels when 
 changing their shells (Watson). 
 
 The hermit crab seizes the dwellings of other animals the 
 shells of Mollusca killing the said animals themselves, accor- 
 ding to some authors ; but in some cases at least, when the shell 
 is inhabited by a living mollusc, waiting till its death, and then 
 tearing it out, devouring it, and taking possession of its empty 
 abode. According to Professor Alex. Agassiz, they carefully ex- 
 amine these shells, as to their suitability, before adopting them 
 as their homes, settling down ' with immense satisfaction ' in 
 those they select. The stratagems and manoeuvres, moreover, 
 of rival hermit crabs, desirous of possessing the same shell, 
 are described by a recent journalist as ' the funniest sight in 
 the world.' Further, a certain species of hermit crab shows 
 ' care and affection ' for the cloak anemone which is attached 
 to its shell home. ' He has been noticed to feed the anemone 
 with his pincerlike claws.' And when he casts his shell for 
 a larger one, ' he carefully detaches the helpless anemone from 
 the old habitation, and assists it in gaining a firm basis 
 and support on the new shell.' Hermit crabs are further 
 noted for their pugnacity and for their cunning in attack, 
 which they make at unawares. 
 
 Pliny credited the pea crab with observation, watchful- 
 ness, adaptation, friendship, and jealousy ; but his opinions 
 have been generally regarded as Utopian, the mental 
 qualities ascribed to such an animal as fabulous. That 
 certain crabs possess all these, and many other, mental 
 aptitudes is no longer, however, a matter of doubt, thanks 
 in great measure to the opportunities of studying their 
 habits afforded by marine aquaria. And this is just one 
 of the points in regard to which the most modern and 
 advanced have proved certain ancient or classical, and sup- 
 posed ignorant, authors to be correct, both in their observa- 
 tions and inferences. 
 
 Lobsters show mental qualities of a higher kind than 
 
56 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 those characteristic of crabs. Thus one described as a 
 lady's pet in Paris e seems to recognise its mistress, and is 
 so fond of music that it is always drawn to the piano when- 
 ever she plays.' 1 Lobsters show affection for their young, 
 warning them of danger, both young and old seeking shelter 
 when peril is threatened or imminent. The old lobster, in 
 alarm from danger, rattles its claws (Peach). According to 
 Pennant, lobsters ' fear thunder, and are apt to cast their 
 claws on a great clap. I am told they will do the same thing 
 on firing a great gun.' That these are facts has been proved 
 by the testimony of many subsequent observers. One of 
 the latest, a writer in ' Land and Water,' says in regard to a 
 ' most extraordinary clap of thunder .... forty lobsters not 
 only shed their claws, but many of their lesser legs,' a cir- 
 cumstance that seems parallel to the casting of the limbs by 
 the Ophiuridce. Among the Annuloida sudden exposure to 
 light is stated by the same writer to have produced a similar 
 effect. A large number of lobsters having been kept alive 
 in a dark coal-cellar for three or four days, till required for 
 the table, ' immediately upon being exposed to the light shed 
 all their large claws.' In both cases we have a marked in- 
 stance of a physical result instantaneously brought about by a 
 startling impression on the senses of hearing in the one case, 
 of vision in the other. 
 
 Among the Arachnida the intelligence, industry, inge- 
 nuity, perseverance, cunning, and other mental qualities of 
 spiders are well known. An Australian spider constructs a 
 door with bolts (Baden Powell). There are trap-door 
 spiders, that construct and make use of a self-acting hinge 
 to their door, which, as mere machinery, is superior to much 
 of man's (Baird and Moggridge). Our ordinary British and 
 other spiders devise means for overcoming difficulties, and 
 make repairs of their webs, temporary or permanent (Wat- 
 son). They must appreciate losses before making them 
 good ; they must estimate weakness before they strengthen 
 weak threads. They have a knowledge of mechanical strain ; 
 they vary the structure of their web with its position (Hou- 
 zeau). They even test the strength or security of their webs 
 1 'North British Daily Mail,' Feb. 8, 1875. 
 
IX THE INVERTEBRATA. 57 
 
 ('Percy Anecdotes'). They are liable to be deceived and to 
 commit errors, but they discover and rectify their mistakes. 
 Some of them are bold and courageous ; hence the specific 
 name of one of them, Galeodes intrepida (Baird) . 
 
 Others are weatherwise in a sense : they have a physical 
 presentiment of coming atmospheric changes, by being ex- 
 tremely sensitive to weather vicissitudes. These weather 
 changes produce an immediate effect on their habits, 
 inducing either industry or idleness, vivacity or languor, 
 as the case may be. As delicate indicators of weather 
 change, they are said to be superior to man's meteoro- 
 logical instruments ('Percy Anecdotes'). Lastly, they are 
 adepts at spinning or tapestry-weaving. The tarantula 
 spider and the scorpion sometimes attack man from revenge 
 or fear (Kirby and Spence). The scorpion is one of the 
 animals which seems deliberately to commit suicide by 
 stinging itself fatally, a circumstance that will be further 
 alluded to in the chapter on e Suicide.' It does so under 
 the influence of such motives as fear or despair. Hou- 
 zeau describes memory as a characteristic of the Arachnida, 
 as well as a certain perception of time, inasmuch as they 
 observe regular feeding hours, a phenomenon also exhibited 
 by certain Crustacea. A writer in 6 Science Gossip ' describes 
 a trap-door spider as c fairly trembling with excitement and 
 impatience ' on the approach of prey. 
 
 Certain Centipedes, among the Myriapoda, sometimes 
 attack man from revenge or fear, as do also the tarantula 
 spider and scorpion (Kirby and Spence). But we know very 
 little of the mental characteristics of the Myriapoda. 
 
 Of the class Insecta we know a great deal as to the mental 
 character of the bee, ant, and wasp, belonging to the order 
 Hymenoptera ; of the Termites, belonging to the order Neurop- 
 tera, and of many beetles representing the order Coleoptera. 
 So much has been written regarding the so-called instinct or 
 intelligence of the ant and the bee, so accessible are the works 
 of the Hubers, Kirby and Spence, Westwood, Wood, and other 
 authors, that it would be a waste of space to recapitulate 
 their descriptions here. But it would be equally improper 
 to dismiss the important class Insecta without illustrations 
 
58 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 taken from other orders and genera than those above 
 mentioned of their mental character, of the wonderful 
 degree or kind of intelligence that pervades it. Nor is it 
 possible or proper to omit a summary of the leading 
 psychical characteristics of such insects as the ant, bee, 
 and wasp, because it is most important by-and-by to com- 
 pare these characteristics with the mental endowments of 
 some of the highest even of the Vertebrata. 
 
 In a psychical point of view, by far the most interesting 
 order of the Insecta is that of the Hymenoptera while of the 
 Hymenoptera by far the most important genera and species 
 are the various ants. It is unnecessary for present purposes 
 to point out the names and number of these genera and 
 species, which are to be found in the Appendix ; but it 
 is always to be borne in mind that the term ' ant ' is a 
 very comprehensive one, infinitely more so than ' man,' 
 c dog,' 6 horse,' or 'cat,' of each of which there is only a 
 single species and genus. The mental character of one 
 species or genus of ant is not, therefore, necessarily that of 
 another ; on the contrary, there is the same kind, and even 
 a greater degree, of psychical variety among the different 
 genera and species of ant than among the different races or 
 breeds of man, the dog, horse, or cat, or among individuals 
 in man. This subject, however, is more fully treated of in 
 the chapter on ' Individuality.' 
 
 It is only possible here to summarise, by a sort of tabu- 
 lation, the leading psychical characteristics of ants as a 
 group. These characteristics include, then 
 
 1. Co-operation for a given purpose. 
 
 2. Division of labour, including the working by turns 
 and the use ef relief parties. 
 
 8. Use of, and obedience to, authority, including the 
 employment of a language of command. 
 
 4. Understanding each others' language a language 
 apparently of touch. 
 
 5. Organisation of ranks, including military organisation 
 and discipline. 
 
 6. Knowledge of the possession of power, and the use 
 of it, including the subjection of the weak by the strong, 
 
IN THE INVEETEBRATA. 59 
 
 and the subserviency or servitude of one race or rank to 
 another. 
 
 7. Judicial punishment of disobedience or rebellion. 
 
 8. Forethought or providence, real or apparent. 
 
 9. Practice of agriculture, including harvesting and 
 storage. 
 
 10. Eespect for, including interment of, the dead. 
 
 11. Mourning in bereavement, or its semblance. 
 
 12. Funeral or other ceremonies, including processions. 
 
 13. Use of natural tools or instruments and weapons, 
 
 14. The passion of rage or anger. 
 
 15. Imagination and its derangement in delusion e.g. 
 in the results of braidism. 
 
 Of the Neuroptera, the Termites or Termitidce, or white 
 ants, exhibit the same kind, and almost the same range, of 
 mental phenomena as the true ants. Some of them, for 
 instance, are represented as being agriculturists, cultivating 
 fungi in their subterranean galleries, on the walls of the 
 nurseries for the young. They exhibit foresight in the 
 construction of long clay chimneys for communication with 
 air or land, or both, during inundations (Houzeau). They 
 establish colonies (Kirby and Spence). There are ranks in 
 their societies, with corresponding division of labour (West- 
 wood) . They search for food, take care of eggs and young ; 
 recognise and perform certain duties and obligations ; have 
 a sort of worship even in the adoration of their queen. They 
 have an ideal and ideas of fecundity in connection with this 
 queen. Their soldiers exhibit wonderful pertinacity, and 
 are capable of self-sacrifice (Michelet). Their edifices or 
 constructive works include galleries and corridors, maga- 
 zines, nurseries, royal chambers and hall, offices, ordinary 
 rooms and egg rooms, floors and ceilings, pillars, and other 
 appurtenances. 
 
 Many of the Coleoptera beetles are distinguished for 
 their cautiousness. They experiment by touch, and thus 
 acquire convictions of safety or the reverse. They test the 
 strength of materials (Watson and Berkeley). They counter- 
 feit death when alarmed, in danger manifesting remarkable 
 self-possession or presence of mind. They ask and obtain 
 
60 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 assistance from each other ; they co-operate efficiently for a 
 common end, and they show marvellous ingenuity in com- 
 passing that end (Gleditsch). There is great readiness in 
 the seizure of opportunity for instance, to escape an enemy 
 or a danger (Figuier) . The Garabidce, in attack, use force, or 
 they entrap by ambuscades or pitfalls, as circumstances may 
 require (Baird). The tiger beetle is so called from its ferocity 
 of disposition, especially in war. Its pugnacity and perti- 
 nacity are notorious (Westwood). Not a few beetles show 
 the fortitude of the Red Indian in allowing themselves to be 
 roasted alive without flinching. Beetles, moreover, mani- 
 fest mutual affection (Darwin). 
 
 In the order Hemiptera, Aphides become domesticated, 
 and happy in their state of domestication, as servants or slaves 
 to ants. They occupy the position to ants that milk cows 
 do to man, yielding, at the desire of their masters, the 
 coveted honey-dew a saccharine fluid of which the ants 
 are very fond (Meldola, Figuier, Kirby and Spence). They 
 understand the mimic language of the ants when honey dew 
 is wanted the peculiar strokes or touches of their antennae, 
 which are used, perhaps, both to signify their wishes 
 and to stimulate the secretion. The ants caress their ser- 
 vants, coaxing them to the desired secretion. The herds of 
 Aphides are e milked ' regularly by their proprietors ; the 
 honey dew is drawn off very much as milk is. And so much 
 are this honey dew and its producers valued by the ants, 
 that the possession of honey-giving Aphides becomes a sub- 
 ject of questions of property, and thereby of ant wars (Hou- 
 zeau), which wars are undertakings of a very systematic kind 
 and on a large scale. The female water-bug exerts choice in 
 mating. She can and she does entertain and express her 
 aversion to particular males (White). 
 
 Among the Orthoptera, the male cricket expresses, by 
 means of sounds, pugnacity, rivalry, satisfaction, and alert- 
 ness ; and it foretells rain in the same way (White) . Baird 
 refers to its timidity or readiness to take alarm, and Figuier 
 also represents it as easily scared by certain sounds. On 
 the other hand, it is fascinated or charmed by vocal har- 
 mony, is attracted by man's imitation of its cry, and sings 
 
IN THE INVEKTEBRATA. 61 
 
 in concert with man (Figuier). The common earwig 'gathers 
 her young ones around her and under her in the most 
 affectionate manner/ as a hen does. It shows great anxiety 
 or solicitude concerning its eggs, brooding over them ; and 
 the young seek protection under their mother, just as 
 chickens do (Baird). 
 
 Of the Lepidoptera, butterflies have been tamed and 
 taught to come at man's call (Wood) ; there is a decided 
 observation of colours, as there is among bees also, with an 
 admiration of or preference for bright ones (Darwin) ; while 
 caterpillars exhibit adaptation of means to an end search 
 for suitable positions for safety, repose, or development, and 
 make ladders on glass (Buckton). 
 
 Among the general mental characteristics of the Insecta 
 as a class are the following: 
 
 1. Great variations of temper and disposition. 
 
 2. Likes and dislikes. 
 
 3. The passions, feelings, or emotions of fear, anger, or 
 rage, love, sorrow, impatience, pleasure, and pain. 
 
 4. Appreciation of beauty in form, colour, and sound, 
 including musical tones and call notes. 
 
 5. Ingenuity or fertility of resource in difficulty, in- 
 cluding the use of tactics and stratagems in procuring food. 
 
 6. Acquisition and application of knowledge gained from 
 experience. 
 
 7. Eeception and communication of information, in- 
 cluding the exchange of ideas. 
 
 8. Formation of associations for specific objects mutual 
 assistance, society, or emigration. 
 
 9. Obedience to orders. 
 
 10. Making deviations from routine in constructive or 
 other operations. 
 
 In the highest subkingdom of the Invertebrata, the Mol- 
 lusca are the most interesting class, containing, as it does, 
 the now well-known octopus a huge cuttle-fish, better 
 known as the poulpe of the French and the Terake of the 
 Norwegians. According to Lloyd, of aquarium celebrity, 
 this animal displays purpose amounting to forethought. It 
 manifests excitement, irritation, and restlessness in confine- 
 
62 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 ment. It protects its ova from danger, real or supposed. 
 The female guards the hatching ground, while the male is 
 prepared to fight in defence of the female and her ova. 
 When brooding the latter shows constant vigilance in the care 
 of her eggs, bestows unwearied attention upon them, protect- 
 ing them from every threatened injury, the male in the 
 meantime looking savage and making feints of attack upon 
 threatening intruders or enemies (Lee). There is every 
 reason to suppose that in such cases imagination is at work 
 in the mother or father, or both, creating ideas of danger 
 where no real danger exists, or exaggerating the character 
 of any danger that may be threatened. And if, as is 
 probable, imagination is at work in the parent octopus and 
 imagination, moreover, that may be morbid in its intensity 
 this mental quality or condition obviously exists in animals 
 very much lower in the zoological scale. 
 
 Professor Kollman, of Munich, who studied its habits in 
 the Naples Aquarium, describes the octopus as recognising 
 its keepers, 'actually manifesting attachment for these 
 men;' as resenting the intrusion of new-comers into the 
 tank with 'jealous hate;' as showing courage and persist- 
 ency in its attack on prey, as well as intelligence in the 
 mode of getting at its prey by climbing over a barrier 
 between two tanks ; as exhibiting rivalry in love, with its 
 usual result in much higher animals jealousy and com- 
 bativeness amounting even to ' ferocity ; ' as manifesting 
 ' energy, fierceness, and determination ' in the protection of 
 the eggs ; as expressing emotional changes or states by 
 play of colour through nearly all the shades of the rainbow, 
 ' so that it is easy to tell, therefore, whether he is angry, 
 pleased, frightened, or sleepy.' The squid in the Brighton 
 Aquarium is described as performing quadrille figures in 
 other words, as dancing (Lee). 
 
 In the Gasteropoda, pairing is preceded by courtship ; they 
 contract attachments, and there is association of ideas (Elain). 
 There is also a perception of time, inasmuch as stated feed- 
 ing hours are punctually observed (Houzeau). Snails are 
 capable of concerted action. 
 
 Now, if we review carefully, and analyse, the various 
 
IN THH INVERTEBRATA. 63 
 
 mental qualities that have just been described as character- 
 istic of various subkingdoms, classes, and orders genera 
 and species of the Invertebrata, or lowest half of the animal 
 kingdom, it will be found that we have already before us 
 all the elements or essentials of mind as it occurs in man. 
 Though not developed in equal degree, we have neverthe- 
 less the higher, as well as the lower, constituents of mind 
 reason, intelligence, thought, as well as mere sensation, 
 instinct, and reflex action. And, moreover, it is evident that 
 intelligence begins at the very base of the zoological scale. 
 
 Such a survey and analysis will show us that the Inverte- 
 brata possess and display the following attributes of mind as 
 it occurs in man : 
 
 1. General intelligence. In the ant especially it has been 
 noticed and commented on by countless writers of the most 
 diverse character, from the days of Solomon downward. 
 Cicero very properly endowed the ant with mind or reason, 
 including memory ; and the most modern and most com- 
 petent authors, such as Houzeau and Belt, do the same. So 
 high is their intelligence that ants have been by many 
 authors regarded as, in many respects or senses, prototypes 
 of man (Darwin). Their social or political organisations 
 represent semicivilised societies of man, according to 
 Houzeau, who indeed places the ant nearest to man in 
 regard to its social condition ; and Belt, who was struck 
 with the intelligence displayed by the foraging ants of 
 Nicaragua, remarks that ' perhaps, if we could learn their 
 wonderful language, we should find that, even in their 
 mental condition, they also rank next to humanity ' a 
 striking admission from an otherwise out-and-out Dar- 
 winian. Houzeau seems to me quite justified in saying that 
 there are in certain insects, such as the ant, intellectual 
 processes comparable in kind to those of man. The under- 
 mining by beetles of a stick with a spitted toad stuck upon 
 its apex, in order that, by the fall of the top-heavy stick, 
 they might reach their coveted food, involves the possession 
 of a high degree of intelligence or reason (Gleditsch, Kirby 
 and Spence). Professor Kollmann credits the octopus with a 
 high degree of intelligence. 
 
64 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 2. Memory must occur at a very early stage in the 
 zoological scale, and there are authors who ascribe it even 
 to plants. Among the Invertebrata it has been specially 
 noted in insects, Crustacea, and Arachnida (Houzeau), and 
 in Mollusca (Macalister). 
 
 3. Volition, or will in the form of perseverance, de- 
 cision, and intention in prosecution of a definite purpose, 
 end, aim, or object is also displayed among the lowest 
 animals, in connection especially with the search for, pursuit, 
 and capture of food or prey. 
 
 4. Feeling, emotion, and passion are exhibited in a con- 
 siderable variety of ways, including the conjointly physical 
 and mental feelings of pleasure and pain, as well as the 
 emotions of fear, grief, love, revenge, anger, patience and 
 impatience, cruelty or ferocity, jealousy, rivalry and compe- 
 tition. 
 
 5. Thought is involved in many of the operations of the 
 ant, bee, octopus, and other animals. Kirby and Spence 
 most properly assign both reason and instinct to various 
 insects ; and there is every ground for supposing that such 
 a combination characterises, in a different degree only, the 
 lowest of the Invertebrata. 
 
 6. Love (sexual), preceded by courtship and leading to 
 pairing. 
 
 7. Affection or attachment, including friendship or com- 
 panionship, parental or fraternal, is exhibited by the octopus, 
 hermit crab, and other animals. 
 
 8. Choice is illustrated in the selection of the proper 
 aliment or of a mate. 
 
 9. Adaptation of means to an end, including ingenuity in 
 the devising and use of the proper means ; and the applica- 
 tion of test or experiment. 
 
 10. Calculation or estimation of the strength or weakness 
 of material, and of space, height or distance, and weight, 
 involving the practical application of certain principles of 
 mechanics. 
 
 11. Appetite or desire for food, at least exists appa- 
 rently in the very lowest animals, based probably on the 
 sensation of hunger, which prompts, stimulates, or excites to 
 
IN THE INVEETEBEATA. 65 
 
 the satisfying of the craving for food. The use of means in 
 procuring coveted aliment, based upon a feeling of necessity 
 for food, is perhaps the earliest indication of mind in the 
 animal kingdom. Even here appetite becomes morbid, and 
 this morbid appetite sometimes assumes the form of canni- 
 balism. For instance, the male poulpe devours his own off- 
 spring, fondly as he behaves in general towards the eggs 
 and their mother. 
 
 12. Formation, association, and communication of ideas, 
 and ideas even of a generalised kind, such as those pertaining 
 to danger. 
 
 13. Imagination, especially connected with ideas of pos- 
 sible danger; apt to become as are sensation, conscious- 
 ness, ideation, emotion, volition (in short, all the faculties of 
 mind, lower or higher) perverted or deranged ; these morbid 
 states being the foreshadowing of the marked mental defect 
 or disorder insanity and idiocy that so frequently occur 
 among the higher of the Yertebrata. 
 
 14. Character or disposition is sometimes so well marked 
 as to amount to individuality. Of individual disposition tem- 
 per is sometimes a prominent feature ; and there are already 
 those inconsistencies those puzzling contrasts, antagonisms, 
 and combinations of virtues and vices that are so common 
 among the higher Yertebrata, including man himself. Thus 
 in the male poulpe we have a strange mixture of masculine 
 virtues and vices the chivalrous defence of the female on 
 the one hand, and the selfish cannibalism of his own off- 
 spring on the other. 
 
 15. Improvability, in so far as they profit by experience. 
 
 16. Liability to error, including, however, the discovery 
 and rectification of mistakes. 
 
 17. Simulation and other forms of deception. 
 
 18. Use of a language, intelligible at least to all indi- 
 viduals of the same species; including also, however, intelligi- 
 bility of human language, in so far as concerns, for instance, 
 man's orders ; along with that of other genera and species in 
 case already given of Aphides and ants. 
 
 19. Obedience to leaders or masters, including man in 
 other words, recognition of, by submission to, the authority 
 
 VOL. i. F 
 
66 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 of might, strength, or power. This implies, in insects that 
 are governed by queens, respect for, worship or adoration of, 
 royalty. 
 
 20. Sociality or sociability, including the formation and 
 enjoyment of companionships with other individuals, genera, 
 and species, involving domestic harmony. 
 
 21. Go-operation, on the principle that union gives 
 strength, implying an appreciation of the necessity for or 
 value of 'mutual aid. 
 
 22. ^Esthetic taste the perception of beauty in form, 
 colour, and sound. 
 
 23. Use of natural tools and weapons for instance, in the 
 capture of prey. Thus the sea-nettles, sea-blubbers, sea- 
 jellies, or jelly-fish various genera and species of Medu- 
 sidce, belonging to the Coelenterata benumb their prey or 
 their enemies by stinging with their thread cells. 
 
 24. Phosphorescence of certain Medusidce under irritation 
 or excitement (Nicholson), just as the octopus exhibits 
 colour-play , like the chameleon. 
 
 25. Perception, if not even the enjoyment, of musical 
 cadence and rhythm in certain Crustacea (Darwin) and 
 Insecta. 
 
 26. Observation, in the form especially of watchfulness 
 over the movements of prey or of enemies, and including 
 investigation, examination, survey, and search for food or 
 domicile; implying also a perception of external relations 
 or conditions, as well as a recognition of each other, of 
 friends and foes, and even of man ; and the discrimination 
 of differences, which involves a comparison of one thing with 
 another. 
 
 27. General energy or vivacity, even in apparently so 
 sluggish an animal as the earth-worm (Jesse). In such 
 insects as the ant it is very conspicuous in the form of 
 industry in the various trades in which they are engaged, 
 or in eagerness in carrying off prisoners, prey, or other 
 booty. 
 
 28. Physical sensitiveness to 
 
 a. Weather changes, and all the separate influ- 
 ences they involve. 
 
IX THE INVERTEBRATES^: 67 
 
 I. Chemical, electrical, and mechanical stimuli 
 or irritants. 
 
 29. Distinct conceptions of the nature and nearness of 
 danger, including a very decided recognition of enemies, and 
 its results in the various means adopted for concealment or 
 escape from or deception of them. 
 
 30. Self-control, involving firmness and coolness in emer- 
 gency. 
 
 31. Certain conservative vices, such as selfishness, a 
 careful and constant regard to their own physical interests, 
 with pugnacity or combativeness. 
 
 32. Certain virtues, such as courage, pertinacity, or re- 
 solute perseverance. 
 
 33. Judgment in the selection of one of several alternative 
 modes of escaping from enemies, avoiding danger, securing 
 food. 
 
 34. Appreciation of kindness, as illustrated by recognition 
 of and attachment to their masters or keepers by the octopus 
 (Kollmann), wasp (Lubbock), and butterflies. 
 
 35. Actuation by adequate motive. 
 
 If, now, we compare one subkingdom of the Invert ebrata 
 with another, as to their psychical characteristics, it may be 
 said that there is a sort of evolution or development of mind 
 as we pass upwards from the Protozoa to the Mollusca. There 
 are, however, many striking irregularities or exceptions, or 
 what at present appear to be so. Thus, while there can be 
 no doubt as to the superior development of mind in the 
 Annulosa as compared with any of the three subkingdoms 
 below it, the true ants, which belong to the class Insecta of 
 the Annulosa, with their allies the white ants, bees, and 
 wasps occupy a much higher place, intellectually and 
 morally, than any of the classes of the Mollusca, than most 
 of the Mammalia, and, according to some authors, even than 
 certain races of man himself. But it is probable that this 
 pre-eminence will be diminished in proportion as we become 
 better acquainted with the habits of other classes of the 
 lower animals. 
 
 A contrast between the psychical powers of ants, bees, 
 and wasps, on the one hand, and of other families of the 
 
 F '2 
 
68 MIND IN THE INVERTEBRATA. 
 
 Invertebrates, on the other, is of importance as bearing on the 
 question of difference in degree between the mental faculties 
 of man and of other animals. Thus Belt ranks the foraging 
 ant first in intelligence among the Annulosa, then wasps and 
 bees, and then other Hymenoptera ; and he points out that 
 6 between ants and the lower forms of insects there is a 
 greater difference in reasoning powers than there is between 
 them and the lowest Mammalian.' Objection may, and 
 probably will, be taken to every one of these generalisations 
 of Belt's. Thus most students of comparative psychology 
 may prefer to bracket the Hymenoptera and Neuroptera the 
 true ants in the one, and the scarcely less interesting white 
 ants in the other, as very much on a psychical equality, and 
 occupying a higher platform than wasps or bees ; while the 
 difference in the psychical development of man and the 
 lowest Mammalian depends altogether on the types of man 
 and Mammalian selected for the comparison. If we com- 
 pare the lowest type of lowest man with one of the lowest 
 Mammalians that has been trained by man, or accustomed 
 to association with him, the difference will probably be 
 altogether in favour of the lower Mammal. 
 
 But, in truth, we are not at present in a position to 
 compare, as to their psychical characters, the classes of any 
 one subkingdorn of animals, the orders of any one class, the 
 genera of any one order, or the species of any one genus. We 
 cannot be said to possess a proper knowledge of the psychical 
 character of the individuals constituting the various races of 
 the single species man ; for, even in him, it has yet to be 
 determined in what proportions and modes instinct and 
 reason are correlated, how they overlap or pass into each 
 other, what are the distinctives of each, if there is any real 
 demonstrable distinction between them. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MIND. 
 
 II. The Vertebrata. 
 
 AMONG the Vertebrata, as a whole, there is a much greater 
 variety and number of mental faculties the psychical 
 character is more diversified and more developed than in 
 the Invertebrata. There are certain anomalies, however, 
 due, perhaps, to our present defective knowledge, consti- 
 tuting as in the different subkingdoms of the Invertebrata 
 apparent or real exceptions to, or irregularities in, the 
 evolution of mind as we ascend in the zoological scale. 
 
 It would be an unnecessary waste of space to describe at 
 any length, or in any detail, the psychical characteristics of 
 the various classes, orders, or genera of the Vertebrata. All 
 that can or need be here attempted is to set forth, as much 
 as possible tabularly or concisely, those features intellectual 
 or moral which constitute an advance on the psychical 
 character of the Invertebrata. \ 
 
 In the lowest class, then, of th^ Vertebrata the Pisces, 
 or fish though there is a wide range\pf psychical character, 
 there is little if any advance compare^ with certain classes, 
 and particularly with certain genera and species, of the 
 Invertebrata. Most of their mental characteristics have 
 been met with among the Invertebrata. But many of these 
 characteristics are, among fishes, more highly developed ; or 
 at least appear to be so, possibly from our better acquaint- 
 ance with their habits, due to our greater opportunities of 
 studying them, as well as from the usually greater size and 
 conspicuousness of the animals themselves, and the facility 
 with which their behaviour especially in captivity may 
 
70 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 be examined or observed. Among the more noteworthy cha- 
 racteristics of fishes, then, are the following : 
 
 1. The formation of temporary alliances offensive and 
 defensive involving a common and specific object; with 
 action in concert. 
 
 2. Conjugal, parental, and paternal love. 
 
 3. The depressing passions, such as grief from bereave- 
 ment, sufficiently powerful sometimes to produce death. 
 
 4. Testing the durability and strength of material. 
 
 5. Fidelity in the discharge of duty. 
 
 6. Self-sacrifice to the death. 
 
 7. Development of cunning or wariness with age. 
 
 8. Capacity for education, for being tamed and taught. 
 
 9. Use of mechanical principles in the overcoming of diffi- 
 culties or attainment of ends, as in the case of a cod that 
 used a blast of air to propel a shelled mussel out of a basin, 
 so that it might use it as food (Jesse). 
 
 10. Other forms of adaptation of means to ends, as in 
 the case of eels driving prey for food by forming a circle 
 round shoals of small fish, forcing them ashore (Jesse). 
 
 11. Detection of deceit. 
 
 12. Feelings of indignation or disgust, with their appro- 
 priate expression ; expectation, anticipation or hope, joy, 
 anxiety, confidence or fearlessness, fury, bloodthirstiness, 
 gratitude. 
 
 13. Knowledge of locality, including boundaries. 
 
 14. Realisation of consequences. 
 
 15. Change or development of character with maturity- 
 shyness or timidity giving way to courage. 
 
 16. The development of suspiciousness, which is apt, as 
 in the higher Vertebrata, to become morbid. 
 
 17. Knowledge of and obedience to man's signals. 
 
 18. Variation of behaviour to friends, strangers, and foes 
 (Houzeau) . 
 
 19. Use of persuasion or solicitation, and address, in 
 courtship. 
 
 Of the psychical character of the class Amphibia (or 
 Ftatrachia) little can at present be said. So far as we yet 
 know, there is not only no decided advance as compared 
 
IN THE VERTEBRATA. 71 
 
 with the Pisces, but not the same variety or range of mental 
 operations that are to be found among fish. The frog is 
 best known to physiologists in its decapitated state, in con- 
 nection with the purposive actions it exhibits, usually re- 
 garded as reflex, independent of volition, and not involving 
 consciousness. In so far as these reflex actions which are 
 of the highest interest in relation to the basis of mind in 
 plants and animals are treated of in several other chapters, 
 they need not be dwelt upon here. The frog, in its normal 
 state, engages in trials of strength that is, in competition 
 and it shows disappointment in being forestalled in food- 
 capture, this disappointment being expressed by snappish- 
 ness, literal and figurative. The toad examines and tests the 
 size of crevices in walls in relation to the dimensions of its 
 own body (Wood) in other words, it takes measurements 
 makes calculations of size and shape. 
 
 In the class Reptilia and order Chelonia the tortoise 
 watches garden operations with interest ; shows antipathies 
 and predilections as to food ; manifests discernment and 
 uses precautions in the avoidance of danger ; examines the 
 means of escape from confinement ; is restless and irritable 
 in captivity (White and Jardine). . 
 
 In the order Ophidia the mental characteristics of snakes 
 or serpents are well known. Several of them become affec- 
 tionate, docile, drawing-room pets for instance, those of 
 Chplsea described by Buckland. They were the playfellows 
 of the children of the family ; knew individuals ; pined, by 
 refusal of food, in absence of their master, kissing and em- 
 bracing him on his return ; enjoyed fun, and showed signs 
 of pleasure and joy. Certain Indian snakes are called 
 * dancing ' snakes from their delight in, and movements in 
 concert with, music, displaying a knowledge of musical time, 
 as well as of tone or tune. They are enticed or lured 
 from their nests by music in the so-called process of snake- 
 charming. Nichols ascribes to certain Australian snakes 
 the repetition and improvement of experiments, or trials, 
 which are at first unsuccessful. In illustration of the heredi- 
 tary transmission and instinctive character of certain mental 
 qualities, White describes menace and defiance as exhibited 
 
72 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 by young English vipers removed by Csesarean section from 
 the abdomen of their mothers, and this though without 
 fangs to carry their threats into execution. 
 
 Of the Lacertilia nothing can be said that has not been 
 said of animals much lower in the zoological scale. Thus 
 the iguana knows its master and his dogs, and answers its 
 master's call (Nichols). But this recognition of the per- 
 sonality or individuality of other animal genera or of man 
 this understanding of and reply to man's signals occur 
 even among the Invertebrata. 
 
 In the class Aves, or birds, we make another marked 
 advance as regards psychical development. A great deal is 
 known of their mental endowments, especially in regard to 
 such birds as the parrot, starling, canary, and other cage 
 or pet birds, the domestic fowl and other barn-yard birds, 
 with various menagerie and game birds. So much, indeed, 
 has been written in illustration of the instinct or intelligence 
 of birds, that it must suffice here to summarise the leading 
 psychical characteristics of birds as a class. Their mental 
 aptitudes or acquirements, then, include 
 
 1. Articulate speech, including conversation, declamation, 
 and the power of appropriate remark and reply. 
 
 2. Language intelligible to man even when not articulate, 
 including that of sound, voice, look, gesture, action all as 
 described in the chapters on c Language : ' by which lan- 
 guage they make known to each other, or to man, their 
 physical wants or needs, or their other desires. 
 
 3. Fertility of resource, including the trying of means and 
 the selection of the best. 
 
 4. Improvement of dwellings. 
 
 5. Appreciation of domestic comfort (Carpenter). 
 
 6. Capacity for a high degree of education, especially in 
 song and speech. 
 
 7. Imitativeness in a high degree, including ventrilo- 
 quism. 
 
 8. Humanity to and sympathy with each other, in the 
 form of feeding or cheering their captive fellows. 
 
 9. On the other hand, malicious joy sometimes in the 
 sufferings of others. 
 
IN THE VERTEBRATA. 73 
 
 10. Foster-parentage, including the voluntary assumption 
 and faithful discharge of the duties of others. 
 
 1 1 . Perpetration of practical jokes, and enjoyment of them. 
 
 12. Capacity for deception, including simulation, strata- 
 gem, decoy. 
 
 13. The performance of services useful to man, including 
 fishing, fetching and carrying. 
 
 14. Seeking assistance from man, recognising his power, 
 and assuming his willingness to protect. 
 
 15. Punishment of conjugal and other offences. 
 
 16. Holding of assemblies for specific purposes, implying 
 a knowledge both of time and place. 
 
 17. Development of dramatic talent, involving the taking 
 of different parts. 
 
 18. Laws and order of battle. 
 
 19. Judicial trials and other ceremonials. 
 
 20. Pride in personal appearance or beauty, in their 
 voice, in the admiration they excite. 
 
 21. Coquetry in courtship in the paying and accepting 
 or refusing of love addresses. 
 
 22. Appreciation of the value of amusement, involving 
 efforts by some individuals for the amusement of others. 
 
 23. ^Esthetic taste, including the practice of decorative 
 art and a knowledge of symmetry and effect. 
 
 24. Distinct ideas of danger and safety ; taking the 
 proper means of avoiding the one and securing the other. 
 
 25. Use of intentional provocation by way of insult, chal- 
 lenge, revenge, or punishment. 
 
 26. The use of effort, and, if necessary, of repeated effort. 
 
 27. Making common cause against common enemies, the 
 cause of one becoming the cause of all. 
 
 But, in so large and important a class of animals as 
 birds, there is very great variety in the relative intelligence 
 of different orders, genera, species, and individuals. Houzeau 
 arranges in the order of their intelligence 
 
 1. The Psittacidce, 
 
 2. The Falconidce, and 
 
 3. The Gallinacece. 
 
 Undoubtedly the parrot is entitled to take first rank not 
 
74 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 only because of its high general intelligence, but also because 
 of its power of speech, whereby it can, intelligibly to man, ex- 
 press its ideas and feelings. In this respect, indeed, it ranks 
 next to man himself, above the dog and the anthropoid apes. 
 For similar reasons a prominent place must also be given to 
 such birds as the starling and magpie, belonging to the In- 
 sessores or Passeres, the Sturnidce and the Corvidce. On the 
 other hand, there are certain birds that have long enjoyed 
 an unenviable reputation for stupidity to wit, the booby, 
 noddy, goose, and guillemot, all among the Natatores. 
 Whether or how far they, in common with certain Mammals, 
 deserve such a reputation is discussed in the chapters on 
 6 Stupidity ' and ( Eeputation.' 
 
 Of the psychical characteristics of the leading types of 
 all the chief orders of the Mammalia much has been written, 
 and there is a superabundance of anecdotes illustrative of 
 the sagacity of such animals as the dog, cat, horse, elephant, 
 and, to a less extent, of certain apes and monkeys. As in 
 the case of birds, however, in so large and important a class 
 of animals, there is a great diversity in the degree of intelli- 
 gence that characterises different orders, genera, species, and 
 individuals. 
 
 The diversity of mental or moral endowments that charac- 
 terises individuals of the same species is specially discussed 
 in the chapter on 'Individuality.' Here we have mainly 
 to do with the psychical characters of the larger divisions 
 of the animal kingdom, of its subkingdoms, classes, and 
 orders, and, to a minor extent, of genera and species. 
 Among the Mammalia especially it is necessary to select 
 genera and species for illustration, and to regard them as 
 typical of the orders and classes to which they belong. It is 
 impossible in the present work to analyse, for the purposes 
 of comparison, the psychical character of all the important 
 animals belonging to the Mammalia ; but it is desirable to 
 dwell shortly on the higher mental or moral aptitudes of 
 one species the dog, among the Carnivora and of a group 
 of the Quadrumana the anthropoid apes. 
 
 The mental and moral qualities the virtues and vices, the 
 accomplishments of the dog are referred to in almost every 
 
IX THE VERTEBRATA. 75 
 
 chapter of this book, and are specially illustrated in such 
 chapters as those on ' Education ' and its results. And there 
 are many mental aptitudes that it possesses in common with 
 animals much lower in the zoological scale. To these I 
 cannot here do more than allude. But it is desirable to point 
 out specially the possession by the dog, or by certain dogs, 
 of 
 
 1. The religious sense, in so far as it includes, or is made 
 up of worship of a superior being. 
 
 2. The moral sense, or conscience, in so far as it involves 
 
 a. Honesty. 
 
 b. Sense of duty or trust. 
 
 c. Sense of guilt and shame. 
 
 d. Concealment of crime. 
 
 3. Self-sacrifice, even to the death for instance, in the 
 life-saving of other species or genera, including man. 
 
 4. Service to man in 
 
 a. Begging, and so supporting man's life. 
 
 b. Watching or guarding life or property. 
 
 5. Understanding man's language, verbal and other, in- 
 cluding the reading of human character and mood, the 
 interpretation of facial expression. 
 
 6. Use of money and knowledge of the practice and prin- 
 ciple of exchange or barter, of buying and selling. 
 
 7. Self-control in the restraint of natural and imperious 
 appetites. 
 
 8. Confederacy or co-operation with man, both in useful 
 service and in crime. 
 
 9. Sensitiveness to insult or affront, neglect, injustice, 
 punishment, reproof. 
 
 10. Discovery of murders and murderers, lost or stolen 
 property. 
 
 11. Ideas of time, tune, number, order, succession of 
 events. 
 
 The mental endowments of the anthropomorphous apes, 
 such as especially the chimpanzee and orang, are obviously 
 correlated with their structure and habits ; and a similar cor- 
 relation is to be observed throughout the animal kingdom. 
 Among the psychical characters of apes and monkeys the 
 
7fi EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 Quadrumana in general and the anthropoid apes in particular 
 are to be found the following : 
 
 1. Humanlike behaviour at man's table, including the 
 use of man's food and drink and of his table utensils viz. 
 cutlery, crockery, and glassware. 
 
 2. Humanlike conduct in human society, involving 
 manners, or politeness, and gravity. 
 
 3. Humanlike action in the domestic service of man, 
 including 
 
 a. Fruit- or leaf-collecting. 
 
 b. Furnace attendance. 
 
 c. Kitchen assistance. 
 
 d. Door-waiting. 
 
 e. Fetching and carrying. 
 /. Nursing children. 
 
 g. Message-going. 
 
 4. Humanlike use of their arms and fingers also in 
 
 a. Child-carrying. 
 
 6. Pocket- and lock-picking. 
 
 c. Face-washing in young. 
 
 d. Vermin capture in each other. 
 
 e. Driving horses in harness. 
 
 /. Use of hoe and other farm implements. 
 g. Fisticuffs. 
 
 5. Humanlike use of tools and weapons, both those which 
 are natural, such as stones or sticks, and those which are 
 fashioned by man, such as ropes or chains. 
 
 6. Humanlike use of shelter and bedding, of man's dwell- 
 ings, beds or bedsteads, blankets or pillows. 
 
 7. Love of finery in dress among the females (Pierquin), 
 and use of man's uniforms and dress by males. 
 
 8. Humanlike employment of signs or signals similar to 
 man's, and for similar purposes, in the form especially of 
 demonstrative or significant gestures. 
 
 9. Collection and care of the wounded (Houzeau) and dead. 
 
 10. Humanlike sports or games for self-amusement e.g. 
 hunting and riding. 
 
 11. Humanlike application of tact, patience, and perse- 
 verance in attaining an end. 
 
IN THE VERTEBRATA. 77 
 
 12. Humanlike musical accomplishments in instrumental 
 music. 
 
 13. Humanlike emotional language, such as their war 
 cry, and the language of abuse, reprimand, annoyance, joy, 
 grief. 
 
 14. Laughter and weeping, kissing, caresses, and em- 
 braces, as expressions of emotion. 
 
 15. Use of artificial intimidation to compass an end. 
 
 16. Government by chiefs or leaders. 
 
 17. Quarrels and reconciliations with man and with each 
 other. 
 
 18. The storage of missiles by way of ammunition. 
 
 19. Reconnoitring. 
 
 20. Curiosity. 
 
 It has for ages been subject of keen debate which of the 
 lower animals stands next to man in intelligence, and there 
 cannot be said to be anything like unanimity of opinion in 
 the conclusion arrived at. On the whole, the place next to 
 man, as respects both intellect and morals, is usually as- 
 signed to the dog a rank that is undoubtedly due to his 
 intimate association with and careful training by man for 
 countless generations ; for there can be no question as to the 
 hereditary transmission, and consequent accumulation, of 
 the results, good or bad, of education by, or mere imitation 
 of, man. 
 
 Among the Mammalia, however, the dog has rivals in 
 this supposed psychical pre-eminence in the elephant be- 
 longing to the Proboscidia on the one hand, and in the an- 
 thropoid apes belonging to the Quadrumana on the other; 
 while among the Aves the parrot stands forth as unrivalled 
 in the power of articulate speech, of conversation thereby, 
 and of appropriate remark and reply. And even among the 
 Iiir>_,tJjrata, as we have already seen, there are certain 
 respects in which some authors give the place next to man 
 to ants. Of them Wood says, ' Some of their performances 
 are absolutely startling, so closely do they resemble the 
 customs of human civilisation.' 
 
 In comparisons between different orders of the Vertebrata 
 and Invertebrata, as regards the degree of intelligence they 
 
78 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 possess, they do not all stand on equal footing, in so far as 
 some animal genera, species, races, or individuals have been 
 made the subject of man's training for ages, while others are 
 known to us only in their wild or natural state. In par- 
 ticular the anthropoid apes, and the Quadrumana in general, 
 are placed at this disadvantage that their training, where 
 training has been at all attempted, has been on a very 
 limited scale, utterly insufficient to enable us to judge of the 
 extent to which their intellectual and moral powers may be 
 cultivated. There can be little doubt, I think, that when 
 man bestows a careful training on certain of the Quadru- 
 mana, especially on those most closely resembling himself 
 in size, structure, and habits an education similar to that 
 which he now gives to sporting dogs, race-horses, working 
 elephants, and song birds the mental and moral aptitudes 
 of these apes and monkeys will be developed to an extent of 
 which at present we have scarcely an idea ; and when they 
 have had the benefits of systematic and judicious education 
 for ages as the dog has had apes and monkeys, in the 
 persons of their higher representatives, may be expected to 
 take the rank now so commonly conceded to the dog of 
 standing next to man in moral and intellectual power, as 
 well as in aspect and structure. 
 
 With Houzeau, I regard the power of talking the gift 
 of articulate speech as a possibility in the Quadrumana 
 one of the possible results of man's systematic efforts in 
 their education. And the possession of such a power can 
 scarcely be overrated in regard to the development of morals 
 and intelligence. How far the two are correlated is seen in 
 the parrot, on the one hand, and in the deaf-mute man on 
 the other. 
 
 On the other hand, many animals are at a disadvantage 
 quoad their physical organisation, in so far as it, being 
 very different from that of man, and physical organisation 
 being correlated with mental development or the degree of 
 intelligence, the latter must necessarily differ from that of 
 man. But the difference is less than might a priori be 
 expected, in illustration whereof we have merely to consider 
 the intelligence, on the one hand, as contrasted with the 
 bodily organisation on the other, of the ant. 
 
IN THE VERTEBRATA. 79 
 
 In such comparisons, in short, we must distinguish be- 
 tween high capacity and high development. There fre- 
 quently is undeveloped or non-utilised capacity, though there 
 cannot be development without capacity. Even in the dog, 
 and still more in the Quadrumana, there is a moral potenti- 
 ality or capacity yet remaining to be developed by man when 
 he realises the importance, and the probable productiveness, 
 of moral education in the lower animals. 
 
 The mental scale the scale of intelligence, of moral 
 development is, so far as our present data enable us to 
 judge, not quite synonymous with the zoological scale. The 
 most intelligent or moral animals are not necessarily those 
 nearest to man in the systems of classification commonly 
 adopted by zoologists. Neither as regards the six sub- 
 kingdoms of the animal kingdom, nor the classes of each 
 subkingdom, nor the orders of each class, nor the sub- 
 divisions of each order, nor the genera of each order or sub- 
 division, nor the species of each genus, can there be said to 
 be any unbroken line of continuity of psychical development. 
 In each subkingdom, class, order, genus, and species we 
 find some one or more groups standing forth pre-eminently 
 distinguished for their mental endowments, just as occurs 
 in the races, breeds, and individuals of a species. The 
 ant among the Invertebrata, the dog among the Vertebrata, 
 appear to constitute remarkable breaks in, or exceptions 
 to, the line of continuous or regular psychical evolution. 
 But such breaks or exceptions may be much more apparent 
 than real ; and the progress of our knowledge in comparative 
 psychology will probably render them less and less promi- 
 nent. 
 
 Even as regards man himself it must be borne in mind 
 that, as has been shown in other chapters, there are countless 
 thousands many whole races that are intellectually and 
 morally the inferiors of many well-trained Mammals, such as 
 the chimpanzee, orang, dog, elephant, or horse; or birds, 
 such as the parrot, starling, magpie, jackdaw, and various 
 crows ; as well as of many animals much lower in the 
 zoological scale, and that are not trained by man at all, such 
 as the ant, bee, and wasp. 
 
80 EVOLUTION OF MIND 
 
 Taking them one by one in the descending series, the 
 orders of each class of the Mammalia that manifest the 
 highest degree of intelligence are the 
 
 1. Bimana higher man only, however. 
 
 2. Quadrumana, especially the larger anthropoid apes. 
 
 3. Carnivora, including especially the dog and cat. 
 
 4. Proboscidia, especially the elephant. 
 
 5. Ungulata, especially the horse, mule, and ass. 
 
 6. Rodentia, especially the beaver and rat. 
 
 The other orders of the (7) Monotremata, (8) Marsupialia, 
 (9) Edentata, (10) Sirenia, (11) Cetacea, (12) Hyracoidea, (13) 
 Cheiroptera, and (14) Insectivora are not distinguished for 
 intelligence, so far as we yet know, though some of them 
 for instance, the two last rank in the mere zoological scale 
 above all animals save the Quadrumana and Bimana. The 
 Insectivora include moles, shrew mice, and hedgehogs ; while 
 the Cheiroptera consist of the bats none of them com- 
 parable, as regards intelligence, with the dog, elephant, 
 or other animals that rank lower in the artificial systems of 
 the zoological classificator. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered the psychical characters of 
 subkingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. But 
 another perhaps more convenient and interesting mode of 
 studying comparative psychology is to take some one mental 
 faculty or aptitude and trace its progress either downwards 
 or upwards. For instance, we may take up the moral sense 
 as it is developed in civilised man, and trace downwards its 
 modifications, until it disappears in lower or savage man, in 
 the Quadrumana, the dog, and other animals. Or we can 
 take memory, volition, emotion, thought, and trace their 
 dawnings in plants and the lowest animals up to their 
 highest developments in cultured man. Both plans should 
 be followed by the student; both have been followed through- 
 out this work, which contains abundance of data for a pre- 
 liminary study at least of such a kind. 
 
 For instance, let us take up obedience to a human master's 
 orders, with all that it implies such as the understanding 
 of one or more forms of man's language. We find this oc- 
 curing as low down as among bees (' Percy Anecdotes ') and 
 
IN THE VEKTEBRATA. 81 
 
 butterflies (Wood), fish such as eels (Houzeau), cod, carp, 
 gold-fish serpents (Houzeau), and the toad (Wood). But 
 the same performance or proceeding the obeying of an order 
 or command of man obviously varies in its character and in 
 the nature and number of mental powers involved. In order 
 to analyse such an apparently simple performance, we must 
 consider, on the one hand, the variety of man's orders, and 
 on the other the various forms of, and motives for, obedience. 
 In the lower classes of cases man's order is simply a call to 
 be fed, and he may use a whistle or a bell, or peculiar voice- 
 sounds of his own. This is common in the case of various 
 tame fish, such as those of the Irrawaddy, described by Dr. 
 John Anderson, of the Yunnan expeditions. In the higher 
 class of cases man gives verbal orders, or a mere look or 
 gesture sufiices, and his dog undertakes complex and difficult 
 commissions, which it executes with amazing promptitude 
 and sagacity. In the lower class of cases there is usually an 
 expectation to be fed, which is associated sometimes with a 
 partiality for being caressed ; while in the higher class of 
 cases there is not unfrequently a sense of duty, a pleasure 
 in giving gratification to man by the carrying out of his 
 behests, without any immediate, or perhaps even ulterior, 
 hope of reward, except that of a moral kind the expression 
 of human approbation. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 CERTAIN animals, like certain men, have reputations, based 
 upon or connected with moral or intellectual qualities. These 
 reputations are, as in man also, good or bad, deserved or 
 undeserved, from which the animals to which they belong 
 either derive advantage or suffer seriously. Reputation at- 
 taches itself either to the individual, as in the case of many 
 dogs, cats, horses, and other domestic animals or home 
 pets ; or to the species or breed, as in the cat or dog, sheep, 
 lion, tiger, camel, wolf, pig, mule, peacock, glutton, ox ; or 
 to the genus, as in the beaver, hysena, toad ; or to the class, 
 family, or group, as in serpents, bees, wasps, bears, eagles, 
 doves, or pigeons. 
 
 Individual animals dogs, cats, horses, or elephants have 
 frequently a good reputation for honesty, docility, or other 
 virtues, while others have as decidedly a bad one for theft, 
 ferocity, or other vices. They may and do possess a good or 
 a bad 6 moral character ' in the same sense in which such a 
 term is applied to man. Such reputations are usually local 
 and limited, known only to the possessor or custodian of 
 the animal and his friends within a limited circuit or dis- 
 trict. But in other cases a wider fame is acquired, either 
 
 1. By reason of their own noteworthy exploits or feats, 
 as in the case of c Greyfriars' Bobby,' Lady Davies's paro- 
 quet, the dog Minos, the gorilla Pongo, and many other 
 performing animals ; or 
 
 2. In connection with the lives and doings of their mas- 
 ters, who were or are historical, literary, or other celebri- 
 ties for instance, Sir Walter Scott's hounds, Byron's dog 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. 83 
 
 Boatswain, Cowper's hares, Poe's and Dickens's ravens, 
 Caligula's horse. 
 
 And, just as in man, fame in such cases becomes the sub- 
 ject of verse or story, and is rendered permanent and classical. 
 Certain animals acquire celebrity ; their achievements, their 
 virtues, their mere companionship it may be, are recorded 
 in pages that mankind will not willingly let die. 
 
 Man, however, is only too apt to form an erroneous idea 
 of animal character, and it is on this erroneous, popular, 
 frequently merely poetical, ideal that he bases his com- 
 parisons between human and animal character, and bases also 
 certain epithets applied to himself. He regards certain ani- 
 mals as the incarnation or embodiment of certain moral or 
 mental qualities that in himself constitute virtues or vices, 
 and hence he makes use of the names of the animals in 
 question, in popular as well as figurative language, as 
 emblems of the said virtues or vices. 
 
 The difference or divergence between the real and the 
 ideal character varies considerably. While certain animals, 
 like certain men, possess and enjoy a much better reputation 
 than they deserve, others suffer from a much worse one than 
 the reality exhibits. 
 
 Thus man ascribes to the following animals the following 
 qualities, or he adopts them as the emblems, types, or repre- 
 sentatives of the following qualities or conditions in himself 
 and his personal relationships : 
 
 1. Lion. Majesty of demeanour, dig- 
 
 nity of character, bravery. 
 
 2. Tiger. Ferocity, bloodthirstiness, un- 
 
 tamability. 
 
 3. Hyaena. Ferocity, uncontrollable rest- 
 
 lessness. 
 
 4. Wolf. Ferocity, rapacity. 
 
 5. Bear. Ferocity, bloodthirstiness, 
 
 awkwardness, roughness. 
 
 6. Cat. Spitefulness, selfishness, cold 
 
 cruelty, stealthiness, trea- 
 chery, attachment to place 
 and not to person. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 7. Dogs, or certain breeds 
 thereof, such as the 
 bull-dog. 
 
 'Cat and dog' com- 
 panionships. 
 Hare. 
 
 Stupidity, ferocity, blood- 
 thirstiness, pertinacity, 
 quarrelsomeness or pugna- 
 city, servile fidelity or ob- 
 sequiousness, want of all 
 affectionateness. 
 
 Domestic broils, connubial 
 unhappiness. 
 
 Timidity, recklessness or rash- 
 ness. 
 
 10. Beaver. Industry, pugnacity. 
 
 11. Glutton. Voracity. 
 
 12. Ox. Stupidity, stolidity or apathy, 
 
 meekness or uncomplaining 
 patience. 
 
 13. Mule. Stupidity, perverseness. 
 
 14. Dove. Innocence or guilelessness, 
 
 gentleness, connubial love 
 and fidelity. 
 
 15. Eagle. Nobility of mien and cha- 
 
 racter, magnanimity, bold- 
 ness. 
 
 16. Peacock. Personal pride or vanity. 
 
 17. Bee. Industry, orderliness, con- 
 
 structive skill. 
 
 18. Wasp. Irritability of temper. 
 
 We hear a great deal of the lion as the c king of beasts ' 
 and of its alleged bravery. It figures on the coat of arms of 
 England as the emblem of power and dignity, of all appa- 
 rently that is good and great. But African travellers and 
 sportsmen have exposed the pretensions of the lion, describ- 
 ing cowardice as its true character rather than courage. 
 The Rev. Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 says the lion is a ' pretentious humbug, and owes his reputa- 
 tion to his imposing mane. He will run away like a whipped 
 cur under circumstances in which the tiger will boldly attack 
 and kill.' It is not, however, without redeeming qualities. 
 Thus we are told of the occasional attachments of the lion 
 or lioness, or their cubs, to man or child, becoming their com- 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. 85 
 
 panions both in sleep and play, expressing their fondness by 
 fawning or caressing. They are equally affectionate to their 
 own young (Watson, 'Percy Anecdotes'). 
 
 The ideas man generally associates with the tiger are 
 ferocious courage, bloodthirstiness, untamability ; but, ac- 
 cording to Jamrach, the well-known wild animal dealer of 
 London, it is sometimes at least timid or easily frightened. 
 It can be tamed if taken young, and then forms harmless 
 companionships with dogs or other animals. When not 
 hungry it is ( frightened at the least noise/ An escaped 
 tiger in the streets of Calcutta, meeting a steam roller, be- 
 came at once so frightened that he ' turned short round, ran 
 back the same way, and finding the door of a house open, ran 
 in .... sprang over a table at which four people were 
 sitting at breakfast, out at the back door, and into the 
 kitchen, where he sat down in a corner,' from which he was 
 after a time decoyed by the bait of a live kid. 
 
 Tiger cubs are sometimes in India brought up with other 
 young animals, especially the common Indian jackal, so as 
 not to attack them. Such cubs become pets on shipboard 
 and elsewhere, forming close companionships with other 
 animals, such as the dog. We are told of a tamed tiger, 
 that it played with everyone on board a certain ship, and 
 that it formed a great friendship for and with a dog. The 
 mature, wild, powerful tiger possesses and exhibits certain 
 moral qualities that are considered admirable when they 
 occur in man ; for instance, it shows a wonderful magna- 
 nimity sometimes in the case of an adversary that displays 
 pluck, spirit, courage, manifesting its respect or deference 
 not only by sparing its life when completely in its power, 
 but even by contracting an attachment for it, taking it 
 under its protection, and, in short, making a companion of 
 it. All this has been done by a tiger towards a dog that 
 stood up to it in the fight, to the tiger's obvious amaze- 
 ment, followed by its admiration (Watson, Wood). 
 
 The tamability and tractability of the tiger are shown by 
 the fact that Indian fakirs travel about the country with 
 tame tigers, * which they simply lead with a slight string, 
 and which will allow themselves to be caressed by the hands 
 
86 ANIMAL KEPUTATION. 
 
 of children' (Wood). The tiger shows considerable intel- 
 ligence or ingenuity in its mode of catching monkeys, 
 giving the tree on which they are perched an unexpected 
 shake. 
 
 Next to the tiger the common hycena bears the most 
 decided reputation in the popular mind for ferocity. In 
 captivity it is the fancied embodiment of unrest; it is 
 regarded as incapable of domestication, as the most unpro- 
 mising subject for conversion into a pet. One of the hysenas 
 is called the 6 laughing ' hyaena, but its laughter is supposed 
 to be of the kind that we call c fiendish/ and ascribe to the 
 typical demons of operas. Nevertheless the hyaena may be 
 trained to act in place of a watch dog ; it becomes attached 
 to man, and is sensitive to kindness (Baird) . And there are 
 few, if any, of the higher animals of which the same may 
 not be said viz. that they may be tamed, and will repay 
 man's efforts in their training or tuition. All that is usually 
 required is to begin their education with the earliest stages 
 of their growth to remove them from their natural sur- 
 roundings while they are yet quite young if possible, when 
 new-born and to treat them with a prevailing kindness to 
 bring them up in an atmosphere of sympathy. 
 
 We are not accustomed to think of the wolf unless in 
 connection with incorrigible or untamable ferocity, voracity, 
 rapacity, and bloodthirstiness ; and yet various authors de- 
 scribe it as capable of being tamed, as being affectionate 
 and emotional, moved equally by joy and sorrow. Frederick 
 Cuvier gives the case of a tame one that was as tractable as 
 a dog, and as fond of its master, drooping in his absence 
 and making ' demonstrations of delight ' on his return, 
 6 planting its fore feet on his shoulders and licking his face.' 
 Such companionships, with all the affection they embody or 
 illustrate, must be borne in mind in judging of the probable 
 verity or authenticity of various current stories of the up- 
 bringing by Indian wolves of human children. 
 
 When we speak of a man being c a bear,' we usually 
 mean that he is all that is gruff and rough, uncouth, un- 
 polished, unfeeling ; and we, moreover, regard the animal 
 itself as stupid, callous, cold, and cruel. In reality, however, 
 
ANIMAL KEPUTATIOX. 87 
 
 the Arctic or Polar bear that with which we are most 
 familiar by name is intelligent, ingenious, active, energetic 
 affectionate, emotional, playful, companionable, and tract- 
 able. It is capable of generosity, of self-devotion or self- 
 sacrifice for or with its young, and it exhibits caution in the 
 avoidance of snares. 
 
 Bear whelps frequently become not only amusing but 
 harmless playfellows of children. Of a military bear pet we 
 are told that it played at ' hide and seek ' with the band 
 boys, wrestled or boxed with the men, standing on its hind 
 legs, and all in perfect good temper (' Chambers's Journal'). 
 There is, in fact, a rarity of bad humour, of any loss of 
 temper, in bear whelps brought up with children. Even 
 teasing by the latter is borne with wonderful equanimity 
 (Cassell). In some cases a decided affection is contracted 
 for some child companion, whom the bear cub may even 
 feed, protect, and caress ('Percy Anecdotes'). They may 
 be trained to sit at table and to behave becomingly, so far 
 as their ungainly structure for such a purpose will admit. 
 Tamed bears or bear whelps also mess amicably with cats, 
 dogs, and birds as well as with children (Cassell). The 
 solicitude of the mother bear for her cubs is notorious to 
 Arctic travellers. She is even demonstrative in her affec- 
 tion for instance, when they are wounded (Houzeau). 
 
 The bear displays, moreover, conspicuous sagacity and 
 ingenuity in its mode of killing the walrus. It is no peculi- 
 arity of the Arctic bear that it is sometimes unhappy, sullen, 
 angry, revengeful ; but it is under the influence of man's 
 persecution of or cruelty to their cubs, rather than them- 
 selves, that such moral or mental qualities or conditions are 
 developed. 
 
 The poor cat has probably been as much maligned and 
 misunderstood or misappreciated as it has been petted. We 
 are told that its apparent affection is only a ' cupboard love;' 
 and this cupboard love is popularly supposed sufficient to 
 account for its propensity to pilfer eatables and drinkables. 
 It is said to be attached to places, not to persons, to stick to 
 some given house even when a master or mistress who 
 has lavished kindness upon it has had occasion to change 
 
88 ANIMAL KEPUTATION. 
 
 quarters. Absurd stories are told as to its sucking children's 
 breath. 
 
 We speak of a scandal-propagating, unamiable, sour old 
 maid as being ' spiteful as a cat,' and we associate the so 
 frequently beautiful animal with ideas of stealthiness and 
 treachery, of the enjoyment of the torture of its captives, of 
 calculating cruelty. And yet Wood tells us, 'Instead of 
 being a greedy, selfish animal .... it is really a very un- 
 selfish and generous one, capable of great self-sacrifice.' Jesse 
 mentions one that fed a jay twice a day with mice. Another 
 cat always brought and laid at her master's feet the mice 
 she had caught before she would eat them ; she made use of 
 them as food only when they were given back to her by her 
 master. The attachment of the cat is frequently as great to 
 person as to place, such attachment, however, depending 
 usually on how far she is understood, sympathised with, and 
 kindly treated. Cases have been given of cats following 
 their masters from house to house, place to place, accom- 
 panying them on visits to other people's residences as 
 unconcernedly as the dog (Wood, Broderip). They may be 
 trained even to guard and defend like a dog. 
 
 In the East ' dog ' is a term of profoundest contempt 
 used by man towards his brother man ; and in many parts 
 of the East, where the poor animal is either utterly neglected 
 or cruelly ill-used, or both, it possesses many evil qualities 
 that are not developed in happier circumstances. In our 
 own country we use the term 6 dogged ' in a contemptuous 
 sense, usually as synonymous with a stupid, hopeless obsti- 
 nacy. But such self-willedness or perversity is no more a 
 feature of the natural character of the dog than it is that of 
 the ass, mule, or pig. When it really exists, it is usually the 
 fruit of man's training or usage (Walsh). 
 
 In the bull-dog, for instance, there is a remarkable te- 
 nacity or pertinacity of purpose, this purpose being the 
 6 holding on ' through thick and thin, even to the death, to 
 an enemy. Blaine tells us that ' no sufferings short of ex- 
 tinction can make him forego his purpose,' whether it be a 
 right or a wrong one. But this is a direct result of man's 
 training ; and what we call, with singular impropriety, its 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. fc9 
 
 ' brutal nature ' ' is mainly attributable to the savage human 
 beings with whom he associates,' says Walsh, and no doubt 
 quite correctly. This sort of obstinacy and ferocity is con- 
 sidered among the animal's greatest virtues. 
 
 Among dogs there is none in such evil odour as the 
 bull-dog, which is popularly supposed to be ' utterly in- 
 capable of anything but ferocity and combat ' an incarna- 
 tion of stupidity, of want of natural affection, of quarrel- 
 someness or irritability, of a bloodthirstiness rivalling that 
 of the lion, tiger, hysena, or wolf. But Webb, Jesse, Walsh, 
 Elaine, and other writers show how unfounded is such 
 a belief. Under favourable circumstances he becomes, or 
 may become, intelligent, faithful, companionable, good-tem- 
 pered ; he may even be taught tricks or feats like those 
 performed by the poodle or other dogs ; he may show attach- 
 ment to his master. Jesse even describes one that died of 
 grief on being transferred to another owner. He has saved 
 human life, for instance, by carrying a rope ashore from a 
 shipwrecked vessel, though he is not a water dog, and might 
 be excused for refusing to take to water at all even when 
 smooth and quiet. He is, moreover, an ' excellent watch, 
 and as a guard unequalled,' according to Walsh. Fearless- 
 ness and fortitude are also good qualities that cannot be 
 denied to him. 
 
 As in man himself, there may be a singular co-existence 
 of good and bad qualities. Thus we are told of a bull-dog 
 so ferocious as to bite its own mistress, that yet tended 
 gently a wounded kitten deserted by its own mother (Wood) . 
 
 When we speak of one man ' dogging ' another's steps, 
 we do not refer generally, or at all, to mere faithful and 
 close following by a person who would prove a defender 
 or protector in case of need, but to some spy or assassin 
 some follower whose purpose is nefarious or dishonourable. 
 Nor, when we say that one man ' hounds ' on another to 
 this or that action, do we allude to the legitimate barking 
 of or chasing at the sheep by the collie, or at or of the hare 
 by the harrier. We use the term, as we do the others, in a 
 bad sense. The object of the c hounding ' in man is usually 
 revenge or crime. 
 
90 ANIMAL EEPUTATION. 
 
 Again, we borrow the term f snappishness ' from the 
 dog not referring to the mere snapping at imaginary or 
 real insect tormentors, or at man interfering with its 
 rightful property a bone or deliberately provoking it by 
 blows, kicks, or otherwise. When we talk of a man or 
 his temper being ' snappish,' we refer to a kind of irrita- 
 bility shortness of temper that is much commoner in man 
 than in the dog, and which, when it occurs in the latter 
 animal, is usually at least produced by man's own provoca- 
 tion or bad usage. 
 
 One of the commonest and most serious, and at the 
 same time most undeserved, of the evil epithets or repu- 
 tations attached to the dog in this country is that of 
 6 madness,' by which is popularly meant rabies. The well- 
 known proverb, ' Give a dog a bad name, and you may as 
 well hang him,' probably arose in connection with its sup- 
 posed liability to rabies. Whether this be the case or not 
 the proverb is specially applicable to, and true of, these our 
 own times ; for while I am writing these pages the news- 
 papers tell me that no less than 1,200 dogs have been captured 
 within a few days in the streets of Glasgow, and destroyed 
 wholesale by drowning, while the survivors are ordered to be 
 muzzled, all because three fatal cases of supposed human 
 hydrophobia have recently occurred in the infirmary of that 
 city. As the real character of this reputed ' madness ' is 
 discussed in another chapter, I must not, however, further 
 allude to it here. 
 
 When a husband and wife fall out, when domestic un- 
 happiness pervades a dwelling in which connubial bliss 
 should tincture all things, when mutual bickerings and re- 
 criminations are substituted for mutual affection and respect, 
 when angry words lead to angry blows instead of the loving, 
 and cherishing, and obeying that ought to characterise the 
 relationship of human marriage we speak of such ill-matched 
 and ill-starred spouses as leading ' a cat and dog life.' And 
 it is quite possible that cats and dogs, under certain un- 
 favourable circumstances, may and do have their quarrels. 
 They may both figuratively and literally be ' set by the ears.' 
 It would be singular if they were not. But here, again, their 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. 91 
 
 quarrels and fights, when they do occur, are too frequently 
 the direct result of man's intervention, of his cruel propensity 
 for what he calls ( sport,' though cases occasionally occur 
 also in which a practical perhaps malicious animal joker, 
 such as the parrot, produces and enjoys the same effect. 
 When left alone, cats and dogs, so far from quarrelling with 
 each other, contract the closest companionships or friend- 
 ships, characterised by the strongest reciprocal affection. 
 
 Take a single suggestive case from c Nature.' As puppy 
 and kitten a mastiff and a cat had contracted so strong a 
 liking for each other that the latter voluntarily took up her 
 residence in his kennel. She ' never seemed happy ' when 
 away from him. ' She ate her breakfast out of the dog's bowl, 
 and slept in his kennel with his paws around her. She used 
 to catch mice and young rats and carry them to him, and 
 seemed quite pleased when he accepted friendship's offering.' 
 She duly made his kennel her accouchement chamber and 
 nursery, while he became nurse to her progeny in her fre- 
 quent absences. c Cato,' we are told, was ' quite proud of 
 his charge.' Her only surviving kitten in course of time 
 became as fond of the dog as its mother had been. It, too, 
 6 brings mice, young rats, and rabbits, and lays them ' before 
 him, looking 'beseechingly till he takes them. She con- 
 stantly plays with him, and gets on her hind legs to look 
 fondly into his face, while he puts his paws round her, as 
 he used to do to her mother.' 
 
 Here one of the most interesting and suggestive features 
 is the apparent hereditary transmission of fondness for an 
 animal that is so generally looked upon by man as the 
 cat's natural enemy. Dogs and cats, especially when both 
 are young, are indeed common playfellows, as I have myself 
 seen over and over again in many a household. The 
 alleged mutual antipathy, and consequent quarrelling, of the 
 dog and cat are, therefore, one of man's many fables, fictions, 
 or popular delusions concerning other animals. Many in- 
 stances of sympathy between the dog and the cat, of good 
 offices performed by the one towards the other most fre- 
 quently by the dog towards the cat and of the effects 
 produced on the whole character of the one by the other 
 
92 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 when companionship has been long and intimate, are cited 
 by Wood and other authors. 
 
 The timidity of the common hare is so proverbial that it- 
 derives its specific name, timidus, from this mental pecu- 
 liarity. Nevertheless it sometimes shows fearlessness of 
 dogs, and even commits rash assaults upon them, or romps 
 with dog companions (Cassell). It also becomes a house pet, 
 showing great attachment to a master, as in the well-known 
 case of the poet Cowper. Shakespeare is not the only person 
 who has spoken of certain kinds of men as being ' hare- 
 brained,' and to this day we constantly hear of this or that 
 person being as c mad as a March hare.' There is no good 
 ground, in the cerebral or psychical organisation or character 
 of the hare, for a comparison so damaging to the good name 
 of the poor animal. The terms are apparently applied to 
 people possessed of the most fanciful and impracticable pro- 
 jects; but why such vagaries should be connected with the 
 name of so useful and harmless a creature I confess myself 
 utterly at a loss to understand or explain. 
 
 Unlike the hare, the beaver is one of the animals whose 
 reputation is better than its real character warrants. It is 
 popularly supposed to be intelligent and industrious in the 
 highest degree ; but in the first place Grillmore describes it 
 as lazy, and we know that its constructive ' instinct ' is sin- 
 gularly fallible. 
 
 The wary wolverene, or glutton, is believed to be so vora- 
 cious that ' gluttony ' has become a by-word for a synonym 
 of inordinate appetite greed to the extent of gorging in 
 man or child ; but there is no reason for supposing that the 
 wolverene is more voracious than many other animals that 
 are closely hunted by man, that are often pressed with hunger, 
 and that are compelled by the exigencies of their existence 
 to gorge themselves with food when fitting opportunity 
 occurs. Savage man himself does the same, and both in his 
 case and in that of the wolverene there is, or may be, pro- 
 per excuse. But the gluttony of civilised man, or of his 
 pampered, over-indulged child, is something very different. 
 Here again the epithet borrowed from the name of one of 
 the lower animals is perverted in its use or application, and 
 
ANDIAL REPUTATION. 93 
 
 what is simply in the one the necessary satiation of appetite 
 with suitable food is in the other unnecessary and dan- 
 gerous repletion with substances, solid and fluid, that too 
 frequently are not entitled to the appellation of ' food ' 
 at all. 
 
 The useful oxen, our domestic cattle, do not get credit for 
 other psychical qualities than those that are virtually of a 
 negative or passive kind ; but what they may become under 
 proper training and kindly usage is, or was at one time, 
 illustrated by the condition and aptitudes of Hottentot oxen. 
 Whatever they may be now, they used to be trained to fight 
 for and to pay respect to man, to guard and defend his 
 flocks, so as to be employed instead of watch dogs; to under- 
 stand his signals and obey his commands; to distinguish, as 
 well as the different inhabitants of a kraal, friend or familiar 
 from foe or stranger, and to attack the latter (Watson). 
 
 When we speak of a man being ' stubborn as a mule,' we 
 little think that this stubbornness, when it exists in the 
 animal, is usually the result, direct or indirect, of man's 
 injudicious or bad usage. Nor do we give the animal credit 
 for the sagacity or shrewdness, the vanity or pride, which it 
 possesses. Nevertheless it is humiliating to man's self- 
 esteem to consider how conspicuously the mule shows its 
 superior sagacity in certain circumstances. Many a traveller 
 in Alpine countries, if he has not himself been both stupid 
 and stubborn, has been thankful to trust himself implicitly 
 to his mule and its guidance in way-finding or way- 
 keeping on unknown or dangerous ground: Few animals 
 are more intelligent than the mule in the means whereby, 
 in Central America, they avoid being lassoed by their masters 
 (Wood). It is one of man's delusions regarding this 
 useful and frequently beautiful animal that, like its relative 
 the ass, it is of an humble or meek, all-suffering spirit. 
 In point of fact, however, the mule is ' a very proud animal 
 and fond of good society,' and in Central America it 
 shows both in its partiality to the horse and aversion to 
 the ass (Wood). Like many men, it apparently despises its 
 ' poor relation ' the donkey, while it glories in its kinship 
 with the horse. On the other hand, it is said that the vanity 
 
94 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 of the donkey as regards its relationship to the mule leads it 
 to dangerous obtrusiveness on its proud relative (Wood). 
 
 The rat is universally denounced as mere vermin, to be 
 ruthlessly exterminated by all possible means terriers, 
 ferrets, or poison. It is known, moreover, as an incorrigible 
 thief and hoarder of stolen goods. But no credit is given to 
 it for its undoubted good qualities. Eats, however, show a 
 ' thoughtful tenderness for each other that may well put 
 Christians to the blush,' says the ' Christian Union,' an 
 American newspaper, that vouches for the truth of the 
 following incident, quoted in the ' Animal World : ' A young 
 rat had fallen into a pail of pig-food. Six older ones held 
 a consultation so earnest in its character as to lead them 
 to ignore the presence of human onlookers. They decided 
 on an ingenious scheme of rescue, and successfully carried 
 it out. Entwining their legs together, they formed a chain 
 hanging downwards over the edge of the pail. The fore- 
 most or downmost rat grasped the drowning and, as it 
 subsequently proved, drowned young one in its fore paws, 
 and both rescued and rescuer were then drawn up and out. 
 When found to be dead, the rescuers gazed at their young 
 comrade in ' mute despair .... wiped the tears from 
 their eyes with their fore paws, and departed without making 
 any attempts to resuscitate it.' 
 
 There is apparently no good ground for belief in the 
 alleged malignity of reptiles (Baird) . That the ' venomous- 
 ness,' figurative or literal, the torpor, mental and bodily, 
 the non-intelligence or stupidity, or the absence of affec- 
 tion, of snakes (or serpents) do not hold good in the case of 
 many of them is proved by the account given by Buck! and 
 of the tame snakes of Chelsea, that some years ago created 
 such a sensation in the London newspapers. He pointed 
 out that, so far from being dangerous, the animals in ques- 
 tion were amiable, innocent, amusing house pets; and he 
 properly drew attention to this illustration of what kindness 
 can do in the domestication of the most unlikely animals. 
 Like so many other animals, they act on the offensive only 
 when frightened, threatened, or provoked ; and if and when 
 they are dangerous to man, he himself is too frequently to 
 blame for the injury inflicted. 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. 95 
 
 Even more loathed than the serpent, an animal that 
 inspires in most men a feeling of intense disgust is the toad. 
 Nevertheless, Jesse assures us, ' everything about a toad is 
 worthy of our attention all that he is and all that he does.' 
 It affords aid to its maimed brother ; and if it does not wear 
 outwardly, as is alleged by fancy and fiction, ( a jewel in its 
 head,' it shows certain excellencies of moral or intellectual 
 character ( Percy Anecdotes '). 
 
 The hedgehog is usually regarded as a mere animate ball, 
 a, thing for boys to pelt; but it is tamable, becoming 
 quite domestic (Baird) ; acquires a familiarity with persons, 
 distinguishes them by their voices or otherwise, and answers 
 their calls (Jardine). 
 
 The dove, with its olive branch, is regarded as the em- 
 blem of peace and innocence. The philosopher is made to 
 say 
 
 In parental care and nuptial love 
 I know my duties from the dove. 
 
 We liken the course of ' true love ' to the ' billing and cooing ' 
 of the pigeon, and popular imagination finds it almost im- 
 possible to conceive anything unamiable as attachable to the 
 dove or pigeon. Nevertheless the facts are these : White 
 tells us of the fieriness or ferocity of certain young ones 
 of their general wildness of demeanour being such as to 
 frighten their foster-mothers and prevent their being fed, 
 and so of their dying of starvation. Other authors describe 
 the male dove as a regular libertine, instead of a pattern 
 of marital or conjugal affection and constancy. 
 
 Watson gives the case of a female deserting her mate ; 
 of the return of the faithless partner, who was refused re- 
 admission to marital favour ; of the use of her arts and 
 efforts to regain the lost regard, to revive the conjugal af- 
 fection of the justly offended spouse; of her importunity, 
 ending in her at last forcing her way into the nest, her old 
 home; of her death, probably from disappointment at the 
 failure of all her attempts at restitution to her old place in 
 her husband's affections ; and then, and not till then, of the 
 remarriage or re-mating of the widower. He also cites an 
 instance of a female deserting a mate forced on her, and 
 his young, to return to her ' first love.' So that the character 
 
96 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 of the dove is neither so good as represented by poets nor 
 so bad as depicted by certain other perhaps cynical 
 writers. 
 
 The eagle figures as the emblem of all that is majestic 
 on the national coats of arms of America, Russia, Austria, 
 Prussia, and other nations ; it was an emblem of dignity 
 also among the Romans ; and no doubt it has frequently, 
 in confinement, a certain dignity of mere look ; but, like 
 the lion, it is far from being the brave, bold bird it is gene- 
 rally supposed to be. Franklin himself points out that the 
 real characteristics of the American eagle are cowardice, dis- 
 honesty, injustice, sharping and robbery, or other forms of 
 bad morals. Other authors regard eagles, like ravens, as 
 'types of all that is violent, dark, and cunning.' But here 
 again their moral character is not altogether bad, for we 
 are told that eagles are really paragons of ' as sincere con- 
 jugal love [or fidelity] as [is to be found] among mono- 
 gamous mankind ' (Wood). 
 
 The beautiful peacock is the emblem of man's consequen- 
 tially and self-complacency, vanity or pride, using these 
 terms in their contemptuous or worst sense ; but we have 
 no proof that its peculiar strut, or the spread of its gor- 
 geous tail, arises from what Darwin calls ' conscious vanity.' 
 That it does so arise is merely man's interpretation of the 
 phenomenon ; and man is particularly liable to error in the 
 construction he puts upon the motives of action in other 
 animals, or even in other individuals than himself. As is 
 pointed out in the chapter on ( Courtship and Marriage,' the 
 peacock is one of many male birds that possess personal 
 charms, that have a knowledge of this possession and its 
 advantage in the eyes of the female, and that display these 
 charms to the greatest advantage. But all this does not 
 involve pride or vanity in the offensive sense in which man 
 so frequently applies these terms for instance, to frivolous 
 woman. 
 
 Few animals have been so highly esteemed by man as 
 the ' little busy lee ' of Dr. Watts. The supposed perfection 
 of its c instinct ' we never dream of connecting with ideas 
 of possible error, stupidity, confusion, temper, or idleness. 
 
ANIMAL KEPUTATION. 97 
 
 Nevertheless it is pointed out in other chapters how it 
 commits mistakes and exhibits stupidity for instance, in 
 constructive skill and in way-finding to its own hive and 
 we might record against it many other defects of character, 
 mental or moral. Huber tells us that bees are directed by 
 their queen, and if she is lost, they return to their hive 
 incapable of any kind of reorganisation. They are, more- 
 over, liable to mental confusion, to panic, to what has been 
 variously described as a sort of temporary epidemic excite- 
 ment, delirium, or mania, in or prior to swarming. Agitation, 
 disorder, aimless movements, general tumult, occur ; there is 
 forgetfulness of their ordinary work or duty ; nurses become 
 inattentive ; the guard deserts, and even assaults or insults 
 the queen. Again Lubbock has quite recently shewn that 
 bees are characterised by a certain kind or degree of stu- 
 pidity, a lack of ready observation, even when their own per- 
 sonal interests are concerned in regard, for instance, to the 
 discovery of honey. 
 
 On the other hand, the wasp suffers from an evil reputa- 
 tion it does not deserve. Homer, in his e Iliad/ book xxi., 
 addresses the 
 
 Wasp ! front of impudence, and past all bounds audacious 
 
 and from the earliest ages to the present day it h 
 regarded as the type of everything in the human charac 
 that is acrid, ill-natured, spiteful, revengeful. Hence we 
 speak of the ' waspishness ' of an irritable, unamiable man, 
 whose society is to be avoided. But, so far from being a 
 sort of insect Ishmael, ready with its sting on all occasions, 
 for the benefit or injury of friend and foe alike, the wasp 
 is one of those apparently unpromising animals that will 
 respond to and repay man's kindness and attention by 
 becoming both tractable and affectionate. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock has shown us that the wasp, or certain 
 wasps, can be tamed by a little trouble on man's part. No 
 credit, moreover, is popularly given to it for its skill and per- 
 severance as a paper-maker and nest-builder, for its division 
 of labour and system of promotion (Ormerod), for the energy 
 and adroitness with which it hunts its prey, for its desperate 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 
 
 courage, or for its tenderness in nursing. Its domestic life is 
 characterised by order and quiet, by cleanliness, by care for 
 the young. There is an atmosphere of good understanding 
 in the community ; its members co-operate harmoniously 
 for common ends ; there is a rarity of quarrels among 
 themselves. They are models of industry for instance, the 
 sand wasp (Baird). They display considerable artistic fancy 
 (Figuier) ; their nest is a sort of town, displaying symmetry 
 or regularity in its dwellings, streets, and walls (Eeaumur). 
 
 To say that the wasp is faultless that it is free from vices 
 while abounding in virtues would be to say what is not 
 true would be to assert that it is a singular exception to 
 the general rule that the character of all animals is made up 
 of various combinations of both vices and virtues. The wasp 
 has warlike propensities, and its pugnacity is sometimes a 
 marked feature. It is, or may appear to be, excitable, 
 irritable, even savage; it gets out of temper or into bad 
 temper. But it is fair to the insect's true character to say, 
 in this as in so many other cases, that this bad temper or 
 other similar vices, where they occur, are frequently in great 
 measure or altogether due to the provocation to which the 
 wasp is subjected occasionally or habitually /rom man. 
 
 We have seen, then, that in a great many cases man is 
 really to blame ; he is morally responsible for the evil repu- 
 tation which he attaches to the lower animals. If only he 
 give them fair play, they will show themselves in their real, 
 not in their fictitious, characters. It is proper, however, on 
 man's behalf, here shortly to advert to the fact that he occa- 
 sionally, though not often, suffers in reputation from the 
 misdeeds of other animals. Many a poor servant girl, for 
 instance, has been suspected of, charged with, or punished 
 for a theft of coin, jewellery, plate, or cutlery that was 
 really perpetrated by some roguish rat or pet bird. In the 
 chapter on ' Crime and Criminality ' it is shown how many 
 animals are arrant thieves-, how they hoard their stolen 
 goods, and how ingeniously and successfully they conceal 
 the evidences and results of their crime. And there is this 
 parallelism between the responsibility of man and that of the 
 lower animals for the undeserved evil reputation fixed upon 
 
ANIMAL REPUTATION. 99 
 
 the other, that in neither case, generally speaking, is there 
 any desire or intention of committing an injustice. Man 
 and other animals sin in ignorance of the results of their sin. 
 The rat or the magpie does not usually steal in order that 
 some poor girl may be blamed and punished for the sup- 
 posed theft by her of a spoon or ring. I say usually, for 
 parrots and other birds play jokes of such a kind for the 
 purpose sometimes of annoying their human foes, quite well 
 knowing that they are annoying them, and enjoying the 
 evidences or fruits of their annoyance. In the same way 
 man, when he habitually neglects or maltreats a donkey, is 
 for the most part ignorant that the stubbornness with which 
 he fancies he is dealing if present at all is the natural 
 fruit of his own behaviour. He sins in thoughtlessness, 
 perhaps from incapacity to understand or appreciate the 
 connection between cause and effect in the determination of 
 character in subject animals by the circumstances in which 
 they are placed. 
 
 H 2 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ALLEGED PSYCHICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN AND OTHER 
 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 IT is, and has for ages been, popularly believed that there exist 
 certain fundamental psychical or other differences between 
 man, on the one hand, and all other or lower animals on 
 the other. There are, it is alleged, certain mental or other 
 attributes which are distinctively or peculiarly human, abso- 
 lutely confined to and characteristic of man, and which con- 
 stitute therefore fixed and demonstrable points of differentia- 
 tion between him and other animals. Some of these sup- 
 posed exclusive prerogatives of man are physical; but the 
 physical are so blended with the mental that in such a 
 review of them as the present it is desirable not to separate 
 them. The differences in question are, however, so numerous 
 that it is equally impossible and unnecessary to analyse or 
 discuss all of them here. And, moreover, some are of such 
 a character that it could serve no good end to do more than 
 refer to them en passant as being mere verbal distinctions 
 mere ingenious refinements of men determined by any means 
 to prevent the occupation by other animals of the same 
 moral or mental platform as man. It is proper, nevertheless, 
 to give specimens of the different kinds of objections that 
 have been raised mainly by the prejudice of man against 
 granting to the lower animals a moral or mental status at 
 all approaching that of the vain lords of the creation. Let 
 us, then, enumerate the leading differences that have been 
 supposed to distinguish man from what he contemptuously 
 calls e the brute ; ' and in doing so let us determine for our- 
 selves how far the objections taken are real or substantial. 
 
ALLEGED DIFFERENCES. 101 
 
 The chief alleged distinctive psychical or other attributes of 
 man as compared with lower animals are, or include, the 
 following: 
 
 1. It is alleged at the very outset that the possession of 
 a soul or spirit places man on a platform by himself. I have 
 already explained (in the Introduction) my reasons for not 
 discussing, in the present volume, the subject of soul and 
 its immortality in the lower animals. In so far as soul is to 
 be held to be that part of man's nature which is destined 
 to exist in a future, any discussion of the question whether 
 such an attribute pertains to other animals must be purely 
 speculative, and unsuitable therefore in a work which pro- 
 fesses to deal only with the facts of observation, and with 
 scientific or logical inferences from these facts. In man 
 himself the existence of soul, with the probability or cer- 
 tainty of its immortality, is a matter of faith or belief, not 
 of scientific demonstration. By no kind of scientific evidence 
 can it be proved that soul exists, whether in man or other 
 animals. And as regards belief and hope, there are, and 
 have been, many eminent authors, including divines or theo- 
 logians themselves, who have expressed their opinion that 
 certain other animals, such as dogs, may have souls, which 
 may further be immortal, just as is man's. No man is, 
 therefore in a position to assert absolutely that the presence 
 or absence of a soul characterises either man or other 
 animals. Nor should it be forgotten that, according to 
 many writers, the word or term ' soul ' is regarded as 
 synonymous with 'mind;' in which case there can be no 
 question as to its possession by the higher animals ; while 
 the term 'soul' has also been applied in figurative senses 
 no doubt even to plants. It obviously lies with those who 
 assert dogmatically that all men have immortal souls, while 
 no animals possess them, to reconcile with such a conviction 
 the provable fact that many animals are superior to many 
 men, not only in general intelligence, but as regards also 
 moral sense and religious feeling, 
 
 2. The subject of immortality the knowledge of or 
 belief in a future destiny or state of existence is inse- 
 parably connected with the question of soul. Now, in the 
 
102 DIFFEKENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 first place, it is desirable to bear in mind how differently the 
 matter of immortality is viewed at the present day by men 
 of the highest scientific culture. We are told in one of 
 the most recent expressions l of scientific opinion regard- 
 ing human religion and especially regarding the peculiar 
 tenets of the Christian religion that some scientific men, 
 * professing themselves unable to conceive such an existence 
 as a disembodied spirit .... are forced to conclude, like 
 Priestley, that the soul in its nature is not immortal .... 
 believing, with Priestley and others, that immortality is a 
 fresh and miraculous gift conferred upon man at the Resur- 
 rection; another [section of scientific men] unable to 
 conceive the possibility of a miracle in the case of each 
 individual, denying a future state altogether ; while a third 
 section maintains that there is no use in discussing the 
 subject, because man after death has passed beyond the 
 sphere of human enquiry.' ISTor can it be pretended that a 
 knowledge of a future existence, that anticipations of a future 
 state, that ideas of immortality, are common to all men. 
 There are, indeed, no means of either proving or disproving 
 that such hopes or beliefs exist, on the one hand, in all men, 
 or do not exist, on the other hand, in other animals or 
 certain of them. It is, at all events, absurd to assert that 
 other animals live only in and for the present. The whole 
 phenomena of foresight, hope, expectation, contradict em- 
 phatically any such averment. The statement that they 
 live in and for the present only may indeed be made much 
 more really or truly of many men, perhaps the majority. 
 This subject is also touched upon in the chapters on ' The 
 Religious Sentiment in Lower Man and the Higher 
 Animals.' 
 
 3. Sense of religion, religious belief and ceremonies, ideas 
 of God, the worship of a deity. Even among men of the 
 highest scientific culture there are those who ' have main- 
 tained that we have no evidence of any such Being' 2 as the 
 God of the Christian ; while in other chapters it is shown 
 that whole races of lower man have no ideas of any 
 sort of divinity, no kind of worship, no religious feeling. 
 1 * Unseen Universe,' pp. 34-5. 2 < Unseen Universe,' p. 35. 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 103 
 
 On the other hand, it will be seen that certain animals 
 may, with perfect propriety, be said to have a kind or degree 
 of religious feeling, including the recognition and worship 
 of a god in the person of man, or of idols in the form of 
 fetiches. 
 
 4. Moral sense, including ideas of good and evil, the sen- 
 timent of justice, conscience, sense of decency. But, as has 
 been shown by Buchner, Houzeau, and others, notions of 
 good and evil do not exist among all men. In other chap- 
 ters it is pointed out that ideas of justice or right, that 
 feelings of decency or shame, that that combination or 
 essence of moral qualities known as conscience, are as cer- 
 tainly present in certain animals as they appear to be absent 
 in countless numbers of men. 
 
 5. Self -consciousness. The distinction drawn by meta- 
 physicians between consciousness and self-consciousness is 
 too refined for practical purposes. Whatever self -conscious- 
 ness may be, if it can be proved to be absent in the lower 
 animals the probability is that, like so many presumably pe- 
 culiar human attributes, it is equally wanting in whole races 
 of man. According to Max Muller, the assertion as to self- 
 consciousness is 6 either right or wrong according to the de- 
 finition of the word; ' and the same may be remarked of almost 
 every one of the alleged moral or mental distinctions between 
 man and other animals. Miss Cobbe and other authors hold 
 that self- consciousness is necessarily associated with moral 
 responsibility and abstract ideas, both of which are attributes 
 of certain of the higher animals. Professor Huxley, too, ap- 
 parently denies that self-consciousnesss is a good distinction, 
 or a distinction at all. f By perceiving objects as external, 
 they [the lower animals] practically recognise the differ- 
 ence between the self and the not self.' The supposed dis- 
 tinction of self-consciousness was first pointed out by the 
 schoolmen of the Middle Ages. Bayle, however, argues 
 against it (Wardrop). Among its leading modern upholders 
 was the late Professor Goodsir, of Edinburgh, but his defi- 
 nition of ordinary consciousness as instinctive in animals and 
 rational in man is based on an utterly untenable distinction. 
 
 6. Potentiality. Much is made a great deal too much 
 
104 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 of what is called the moral or mental potentiality of man. 
 It is alleged that, however abject and degraded man is, he 
 nevertheless has certain latent powers or capacities not pos- 
 sessed by other animals. In other words, it is held, though 
 not in the same sense with Burns, that 
 
 A man's a man for a* that 
 
 notwithstanding, that is, all the efforts which science has 
 made, or may make, to show that he is virtually but an 
 animal, and frequently in every sense a brute. Equally 
 truthfully, however, may it be asserted that the potentiality 
 of man must have frequently very narrow limits, while of 
 that of other animals we have as yet but glimmerings. We 
 know what is the actuality of mental and moral acquirement 
 or progress in the savage ; but it is as difficult to admit 
 it would be as inconsistent with fact to believe that his 
 moral or mental potentiality is that, or equal to that, of the 
 civilised European, as it is to admit or believe that the moral 
 or mental potentiality of the lower animals is on a par with 
 that of civilised man. Intelligence is limited alike in the 
 child, the civilised adult, the savage, the human idiot, and the 
 animal, though the limit is not the same in all these cases. 
 The possible range of mental or intellectual power has yet to 
 be determined even in man, and man has also to confess 
 his ignorance of either the latent psychical possibilities or 
 potentialities of other animals, or of their mental acquisi- 
 tions in relation to these potentialities. This subject of 
 potentiality, of possible lartent powers capable of development 
 under favourable conditions, is nearly synonymous with 
 
 7. The capacity for progress or improvement. As regards 
 man, we know that in whole races of savages progress is 
 either non-apparent or to a most limited extent; while 
 many nations have remained stationary for ages, and others 
 have not only retrograded, but perished. The Australian 
 aborigines, according to Madame Bingham, are incapable of 
 civilisation. ' The missionaries have long given up any 
 attempt to civilise them.' The East African negro ' for 
 thousands of years has made no progress, although he has 
 had sufficient contact with cultivated peoples,' according to 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 105 
 
 Captain Burton. Here, again, is what Baker thinks of the 
 Baris of Tropical Africa : ' How is it possible to improve 
 such abject animals ? They are not worth the trouble, and 
 they are only fit for slaves, to which position their race 
 appears to have been condemned.' A correspondent of 
 6 Nature,' writing quite recently from Samoa regarding the 
 present Polynesians, points out that, as a rule, savage races, 
 unaided, do not better their condition make no progress. 
 6 From personal observation of savage and semi- savage life, 
 I feel almost certain that a real savage is utterly incapable 
 of in any wa} r raising himself. He lacks the sensibility 
 which must serve as a fulcrum for the lever which is to lift 
 him.' China, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Eome, Palestine, 
 Mexico, Peru, afford illustrations of the fact that, even in 
 the most highly favoured nations, steady, progressive im- 
 provement is not the rule. So far, indeed, from there having 
 been progress in the human race as a whole, there are thou- 
 sands of worthy people who believe that man has degene- 
 rated in morals, if not also in mind from the Paradisiacal 
 type of perfection illustrated by Adam and Eve before the 
 Tall. 
 
 On the other hand, the whole phenomena of education 
 show the wonderful extent to which both the moral and 
 mental powers of the lower animals may be cultivated or 
 developed. 
 
 8. The love of knowledge for its own sake the wish to 
 know for the sake of knowing. This exists only in a limited 
 number of men. There are whole races without any desire 
 for knowledge even for selfish ends; and the little know- 
 ledge they possess the fruit, mainly, of stern necessity is 
 of the most limited kind. The crass stupidity or non- 
 intelligence of certain savage races has been dwelt upon by 
 travellers. Thus the Brazilian Botokudo ' is not interested 
 in anything uncommon. Nothing excites his curiosity or 
 attention' (Biichner). Sir John Ross described the Eskimo 
 as ' without any principle or rational emotion.' The ignor- 
 ance of primitive peoples, even about themselves, is some- 
 times astounding. According to Houzeau, negroes cannot 
 tell their own age, and the same has been said of the Apache 
 
106 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 Indians (Biichner). 'In the Australian aborigines the capa- 
 bility of considering and inferring appears to be very imper- 
 fectly developed. The reasons which the colonists use in 
 order to convince or persuade them are mostly such as are 
 employed with children and half-imbeciles ' (Biichner). 
 Whether, or how far, a love of knowledge ' for its own 
 sake' exists in the lower animals cannot be determined; 
 but their thirst for knowledge, their possession of know- 
 ledge, and their intelligent application of acquired know- 
 ledge are all indubitable. 
 
 9. The faculty of generalisation or abstraction, the power 
 of forming, or the possession of, general or abstract ideas. 
 But there are many abstract ideas that do not exist in 
 primitive man for instance, those concerning good and evil, 
 right and wrong, justice and injustice, or deity. Nor does 
 he appear to possess the faculty of generalising at all, or he 
 possesses it to a most limited extent. According to the 
 high authority of Bishop Colenso, there is little or no idea 
 of the abstract among the Kaffirs. ' The more common of 
 our abstract ideas such as spirit, soul, hope, and fear 
 appear to be absolutely wanting. But experience shows 
 that, in this respect, other negro tongues are not more 
 richly provided by nature.' The language of certain savage 
 races is so rudimentary that it contains no words to 'ex- 
 press general ideas.' ' The lowest among the Oceanians and 
 Africans .... are entirely destitute of general ideas or ab- 
 stract notions.' The language of the Australian blacks con- 
 tains no word to ' express a general idea ' or abstraction ; it 
 has no word, for instance, for the notion tree. The lan- 
 guage of many savage peoples is 'quite destitute of ex- 
 pressions for general notions or properties. . . . They have 
 a special word for each kind of colour, for each kind of 
 tree, but no general designation ' (Biichner) . The Veddas 
 of Ceylon have no word to express colour (Hartshorne) . 
 According to Dr. Ireland, there are human idiots with 
 no general or abstract ideas ; and the same may be said 
 of certain stages of infancy and childhood. It is indeed 
 instructive to compare the faculty of generalisation in 
 the human infant with the similar power, on the one 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 107 
 
 hand, in the civilised adult and the savage, and, on the 
 other, in Mammals such as the horse or dog, or in birds 
 (Houzeau). Miss Cobbe, the late Rev. Sydney Smith, and 
 other authors who have closely studied the higher mental 
 faculties of the lower animals, find themselves necessitated 
 to concede to them the power of forming abstract ideas. 
 The late Sir Benjamin Brodie thought it impossible to deny 
 to the lower animals the power of abstraction. Leroy points 
 out that the wolf has abstract, though frequently morbid, 
 ideas of peril. As in so many other cases, much, or every- 
 thing, depends, in determining whether this or that moral 
 or mental attribute is peculiar to man or common to other 
 animals, on the different possible definitions or nomenclature 
 of such attribute the terms by which it is popularly known. 
 
 10. The supposed absence in other animals of certain of 
 the higher moral or mental faculties, including 
 
 Eeflection. Wonder. Hope. 
 
 Veneration. Causality. 
 
 But it is abundantly shown in other parts of this work 
 that all of these faculties are possessed by certain of the 
 lower animals. It has, in fact, to be proved, by those who 
 carp and sneer at what they call the mere ; instinct ' of ani- 
 mals, that any one of the higher, as well as of the lower, 
 faculties moral or mental of man is altogether absent in 
 them, or certain of them. 
 
 11. Actuation by principle or motive. The lower ani- 
 mals are, it is alleged, actuated only by physical desires or 
 wants. But of how many men is this far more true? 
 Many savage races are actuated only by present and per- 
 sonal interests, as exhibited, for instance, in food procuring 
 (Houzeau). Their common motives to action are fear of 
 punishment or the hope of the acquisition of advantage. 
 In other words, their behaviour is determined, as is that of 
 children, and in many cases, no doubt, the lower animals, by 
 the principle or practice of reward and punishment. They 
 are characterised by the simplicity and fewness of their 
 wants, which relate mainly to the physical sustenance of 
 the individual and the perpetuation of the species. 
 
 12. The discovery, establishment, and observance of law. 
 
108 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 But a special chapter shows that, on the one hand, many 
 races of mankind neither possess nor obey laws, while cer- 
 tain other animals do both. 
 
 13. Yerbal language, or speech. But, as is fully shown in 
 the chapters on ' Language,' it is not absolutely absent in 
 other animals; nor is it always present in man, whether 
 civilised or savage, healthy or diseased. Max Miiller makes 
 a very artificial and futile distinction of ' rational ' language 
 as limited to man ; and his controversial opponent, Pro- 
 fessor Whitney, is no more felicitous in his description of 
 animal language as contrasted with man's ' instinctive ' 
 language. This is simply the old begging of the question 
 as between instinct and reason the prejudiced or ignorant 
 ascription to instinct in other animals of what is unhesitat- 
 ingly assigned to reason in man. It seems almost impos- 
 sible for men, even of the highest culture, to regard man as 
 what he really is, zoologically, morally, and intellectually 
 himself an animal. 
 
 14. The understanding of language is peculiar to man, 
 says Mill, who has made so many other mistakes in his 
 Mental Philosophy. His assertion is sadly contradicted 
 by a whole special chapter of facts showing that certain 
 animals not only understand each other's language but that 
 of man. 
 
 15. Printed or written language. There are no such 
 things as printed or written records among the lower ani- 
 mals, nor are there in numerous races of mankind; but 
 a power of rudimentary writing or drawing is possessed by 
 certain animals, which can draw lines or figures, or make 
 other marks, on the ground with their feet for instance, the 
 elephant (Houzeau) . Certain ( learned ' elephants are trained 
 to tell the age of visitors by making a certain number of 
 simple footmarks undoubtedly a rudimentary kind of nota- 
 tion (Houzeau). Certain other learned animals have been 
 taught to construct words by the arrangement of letters. 
 This points to a kind of 
 
 16. Orthography or spelling. Various learned poodles, 
 and other dogs, have been trained to place together, in 
 various combinations, the printed or painted letters of man's 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 109 
 
 alphabet, so as to form man's words. We have here a know- 
 ledge and use of printed letters far beyond what is attained 
 or attainable by whole races of man with all his 'poten- 
 tialities.' 
 
 17. Tradition. It has yet to be proved that all men 
 possess tradition in some form oral, written, or printed. 
 Mere oral tradition occurs not only among certain savages, 
 but frequently even among civilised or semi-civilised peoples. 
 But there may be nay, there is a kind of tradition that 
 exists without words, writing or printing, transmitted, as in 
 man, from old to young, from one generation to another 
 (Houzeau). We are too apt to forget the influence of here- 
 dity the transmission of ancestral knowledge and experience. 
 Many savage races have no oral traditions even that is, no 
 tradition of any sort, except that which may be involved in 
 organic heredity. It does not follow therefore that, among 
 the lower animals, in the absence of oral tradition, writing, 
 and printing, each individual has to begin its education and 
 experience de novo ; that it receives no benefit from the 
 wisdom of its ancestry ; that there is nothing like an accumu- 
 lation, a continuity, or a permanent record of the results of 
 observation, reflection, and experience. Heredity furnishes 
 such a record : the brain and nervous system where they 
 exist are to be regarded as an organised register of ancestral 
 knowledge and experience (Spalding). Traditionary informa- 
 tion has been described in bees (Stickney) and in many 
 other animals that is, the hereditary transmission of inform- 
 ation. It is more than possible, then, that certain animals 
 may possess traditions of a kind equivalent to some of those 
 which are oral in man. 
 
 18. Knowledge of the past. Various animals, however, 
 profit by past experience, and they have very retentive 
 memories for, or vivid recollections of, past events, as well as 
 of persons, places, and things. 
 
 19. Individuality. But this is quite as striking, for 
 instance, in the dog as in man, as is shown in a separate 
 chapter. 
 
 20. The power of will applied to self-control. But it is 
 impossible for man to exhibit self-restraint the repression 
 
110 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 of all his natural appetites, instincts, or passions in a more 
 marked form or degree than do many of the lower animals, 
 especially the dog. Mere will in other animals is frequently 
 as self-assertive and powerful as in man, as is evidenced by 
 their resolution, determination, and perseverance. 
 
 21. Taste for the beautiful, the good, and the true. ^Es- 
 thetic taste is superior in many birds to its standard where 
 any exists in large numbers of men even among civilised 
 races, and still more so in the majority of savage races. 
 Among ourselves it has become a proverb, f De gustibus nil 
 disputandum ; ' and if we confine ourselves to woman's taste 
 in dress alone, it must be confessed that she has much to 
 learn from the lower animals, especially birds. While it can 
 scarcely be asserted that other animals appreciate the good 
 or the true seeing that we have no means of ascertaining 
 their capacities or ideas in this direction it can with much 
 certainty be affirmed that whole races of man, and whole 
 classes of men in the midst of our highest civilisation, have 
 no conception of either moral goodness or of truth a 
 subject which is treated of in one of the chapters on the 
 'Moral Sense.' 
 
 22. Sense of ennui. But it undoubtedly exists in other 
 animals under the same circumstances as in man for in- 
 stance, among luxuriously kept house pets. In the dog it is 
 one of the causes of suicide. 
 
 23. Love of sport for its own sake. Dr. Eobert Brown, 
 however, tells us that ' no savage has any idea of sport,' 
 while dogs and other animals hunt for their own amuse- 
 ment, and share all man's pleasures in the race or chase or 
 in games of various kinds. 
 
 24. Laughter, tears, and sobbing. But a special chapter 
 is devoted to show that neither the one nor the other is 
 peculiarly human. 
 
 25. Use of tools and weapons. To this subject also a sepa- 
 rate chapter is devoted, showing how many instruments, 
 natural or artificial, are used by the lower animals, and 
 under what variety of circumstances. 
 
 26. Knowledge and practice of agriculture. Whole races 
 of savage man, however, have no agriculture of any kind, no 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. Ill 
 
 cultivation of the soil. There is, for instance, no digging 
 nor sowing among the Dokos (Biichner) ; no agriculture 
 among the Andaman Islanders (Owen). The Nuehr and 
 other savages ' depend for subsistence solely on what 
 nature produces, therefore neither sow nor plant, and conse- 
 quently are frequently on the verge of starvation ' (Biichner). 
 The Veddas of Ceylon live without 6 any system of culti- 
 vation ' (Hartshorne), and the Bushmen of Southern Africa 
 have neither flocks nor cultivated ground (Eicherer). On 
 the other hand, according to the observations of Dr. Lincecu 
 who has carefully studied its habits since 1848, there is in 
 Mexico, Texas, and other parts of the North American 
 Union an ant which has been distinctively called the ' agri- 
 cultural ' or e harvesting ' ant. It ' not only stores up seed, 
 but cultivates the plants which are to provide it, and care- 
 fully gathers in its crop at the rij^f season. ... In the 
 wet season the seeds in the anjXgranaries are apt to get 
 wetted and to sprout ; and accordingly on the first fine day 
 the ants bring out all the damaged grain and set it in the 
 sun to dry, returning to the store only such as is uninjured. 3 1 
 These ants may truly be said to cultivate their estates. 
 They have grass paddocks round their nests, and they weed 
 these paddocks. From their fields they clear off all herbage 
 save Aristida stricta, a grain-bearing grass, called by Dr. 
 Lincecum c ant rice,' and they sow the seeds of the same 
 grass. When ripe, the grain is harvested and the chaff 
 removed. Several other grains or seeds of grasses and 
 other plants are gathered and garnered in a similar way. 
 These ants, therefore, sow, reap, and store grain for 
 winter use. If the grain is set a-sprouting by damp from 
 inundations it is dried in the sun on fine days it is exposed, 
 that is, only during the day and during sunshine, being 
 taken indoors at night. According to Belt, certain leaf- 
 cutting ants of Nicaragua cultivate fungi on decomposing 
 leaves in their subterranean nests, 'the ants cutting and 
 storing the leaves for the sake of the fungi which are subse- 
 quently developed in the debris,' 2 and which fungi he sup- 
 
 1 ' Athenaeum,' January 16, 1875, p. 87. 
 
 2 'Nature,' April 8, 1875, p. 458. 
 
112 DIFFEKENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 poses are used as food. The growth of a fungus in the 
 interior of ant-hills has also been observed in India an 
 Agaricus of the section Lepiota but in this case there is no 
 apparent connection with the storage and decomposition of 
 leaves or other vegetable substance. It has been alleged, 
 though I have met with no evidence to substantiate the 
 allegation, that other insects besides harvesting ants culti- 
 vate the soil and collect its fruits. Certain Termites are 
 said to sow seeds (Houzeau). There is fuller evidence that 
 some of the higher animals that do not sow them yet gather 
 the ripe fruits of the earth and use them as food. A species 
 of harvesting occurs, for instance, in apes, that gather all the 
 fruits of a given spot. The Ladajac reaps, dries, and stacks 
 in short, gathers in its harvest. 
 
 27. Use of fire, including the art of kindling or pro- 
 ducing it. Unquestionably the lower animals, unaided, 
 cannot, or a,t least do not, produce fire by friction, or by 
 chemical, mechanical, or other means, as man does ; but 
 they certainly use fire if they do not make it e.g. in 
 warming themselves ; and certain anthropoid apes tend 
 fires and furnaces, bakers' ovens and cooks' galleys, as as- 
 sistants to or substitutes for man. Though I have no 
 record of any instances, there is nothing to prevent such 
 animals from using lucifer matches the only means of fire- 
 making known nowadays to perhaps the majority of civi- 
 lised men. On the other hand, there is absence or ignorance 
 of the use of fire either for cooking or for warmth among 
 various savage human races, such as the Dokos of Abyssinia 
 and the Mincopies (Biichner). It is, or was, unknown to the 
 Marianne Islanders and the Gouanches of Teneriffe ; so that 
 its use is not universal in mankind ; the art of making it is 
 not instinctive ; fire itself is not necessary to man's exist- 
 ence (Houzeau). 
 
 28. Use of the metals, including metallurgy. Certainly 
 the lower animals do not mine metallic ores, extract metals 
 from their ores, and fashion them into tools, ornaments, or 
 weapons ; but other chapters, such as that on the Use of 
 Tools and Weapons,' show to what extent, and in what variety 
 of ways, they make use of metallic substances and metallic 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 113 
 
 instruments fashioned by man. On the other hand, there is 
 no use of the metals probably no knowledge of them in 
 certain savage races of man (Biichner). 
 
 29. Cookery, or the preparation of food. A special chapter 
 on this subject shows how many races of man are ignorant 
 of all kinds of cookery using their food, whether animal, 
 vegetable, or even mineral, in its raw, crude state and how 
 many animals prepare their food in some way prior to using 
 it, and make use of foods, animal and vegetable, cooked by 
 man. 
 
 30. The use of hands by their mechanism and structure 
 in man ; the absence of true fingers and opposable thumbs 
 in other animals. Man is approached, however, in this 
 respect by the anthropoid apes, who use their fingers and 
 hands for many of the same purposes to which man applies 
 his for instance, in their behaviour at table, including the 
 use of table utensils. Many illustrations are to be found in 
 the chapter on the c Use of Tools and Weapons.' Moreover 
 paws, beaks, claws, probosces, horns, and hoofs form efficient 
 substitutes for hands e.g. in the arts of animals. Wood has 
 devoted a whole volume to the subject of ' Homes without 
 Hands,' constructed by the lower animals. 
 
 31. The use of clothing as a protection against cold, or as 
 a covering for nakedness, or both. But a separate chapter 
 shows, on the one hand, how many races of man wear ab- 
 solutely no clothing, and, on the other, how many other 
 animals improvise a dress or adopt that of man. 
 
 32. The construction of shelter or dwellings another of 
 the many alleged differences of sufficient interest to require 
 treatment in a special chapter. It is there pointed out how 
 many races of primitive or savage man avail themselves of 
 the natural shelter of rocks, caves, or woods, constructing no 
 sort of habitations, and how many of the lower animals 
 build themselves dwellings that excel in substantiality, com- 
 fort, and amenity the huts or hovels of men even in the 
 vicinity of the highest civilisation. 
 
 33. Blushing is not peculiar to man, though it is much 
 more readily seen in him by reason of the colour of his skin 
 and the bareness of his face. Cnlnnr-chaity? in the skin, or 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 various of its appendages, from the same cause as that which 
 immediately produces a temporary hypereemia of texture, 
 must or may be regarded as an equivalent to blushing, 
 while the feelings which give rise to the blush in man are 
 expressed in other ways in other animals, though not less 
 eloquently e.g. shame and modesty. 
 
 34. The human face, it is alleged, is an organ of expres- 
 sion an outward index of the mind whereas the brute face 
 is a weapon of offence and defence, an instrument to pro- 
 cure and prepare food (Lawrence) . There are special facial 
 muscles in man for the expression of emotion (Bell) . All such 
 statements are utterly fallacious, even absurd. It is shown in 
 the chapters on ( Language ' that the face of the horse and the 
 dog, for instance, in spite of all their covering of hair their 
 eye and look are quite as eloquent as in man, while compara- 
 tive anatomists have demonstrated their possession of the 
 same great groups of facial muscles. No doubt the ram, 
 goat, and other animals use their heads or horns to butt, 
 bruise, or tear. So does man frequently use his head to 
 butt his antagonist, and unquestionably man's mouth and 
 teeth are not invariably used in the harmless process of food 
 prehension or reception, but too frequently for the belli- 
 gerent purposes of biting or tearing. 
 
 35. The erect posture. But it is erect or semi-erect in 
 certain anthropoid apes, and it can be assumed temporarily 
 where it is not natural in various apes or monkeys, or in the 
 Quadrumana in general. The results are to be seen in their 
 behaviour at table, their equitation, their usefulness to man 
 as sailors, stokers, or domestic servants. 
 
 36. The size, strength, and general structure of body. 
 But man cannot compare in strength or size with the elephant 
 and many other animals, while the anthropoid apes resemble 
 him closely in the general structure of his body there being, 
 no doubt, differences in the degree of complexity of certain 
 organs, such as the brain. How little mere size, strength, 
 or bodily structure has to do with the degree or kind of 
 intelligence exhibited by an animal is shown by the ant, 
 which in many respects is the intellectual superior of count- 
 less numbers both of men and elephants. 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 115 
 
 87. The greater length or duration of human life man's 
 superior longevity in relation especially to time for the 
 accumulation of knowledge for exhibiting the fruits of 
 education and experience. In man, however, maturity is a 
 much slower process than in other animals; his progress, 
 mental and moral, is confined in general to his earlier years. 
 Man's advantage is therefore rather apparent than real. 
 Moreover, the elephant and certain other animals are 
 sometimes older than man, while many attain quite suffi- 
 cient an age for the maturity of their mental and moral 
 faculties. Thus at an exhibition held in London, in October 
 1874, in connection with a prize given by the Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts to costermongers, carters, waggoners, and 
 drivers for humane treatment of donkeys, horses, and ponies, 
 ' one pony was 38 years old, one donkey 34 and another 26 
 years old.' Orangs live for 40 or 50 years (Biichner). 
 'Dr. M'Bain, B.N., at Trinity, near Edinburgh, has an 
 Actinia, called Grannie (A. mesembryanthemum), which has 
 lived in a glass tumbler for 51 years, having been taken 
 from the Frith of Forth at North Berwick, in August 1823, 
 by the late Sir John G. Dalzell.' l I have myself been 
 introduced to Grannie by her present proprietor. But even 
 greater ages occasionally occur. Several instances are given 
 of animal centenarians. Thus the common grey parrot of 
 Africa 'has been known to attain the age of nearly 100 
 years' (' Chambers's Journal'). There is, or recently was, 
 a cat at Gundagai, in New South Wales, supposed to be at 
 least 100 years old. It was brought from England in 1788 
 (' Science Gossip'). A swan belonging to the Earl of Fife, 
 that lately died at Macduff, and is now preserved (in the 
 stuffed state) in the family museum at Macduff House, f was 
 supposed to be about 80 or 90 years of age.' 2 
 
 38. Preservation of the body in health the prolongation 
 of life by artificial means by knowledge of and attention to 
 the laws of health. This applies only to the sensible minority 
 of highly civilised races in man, while the chapter which 
 describes self-submission of the lower animals to medical and 
 
 1 'Globe Encyclopaedia,' Edin., 1875. 
 
 2 'Glasgow Weekly Herald,' January 20, 1877. 
 
 I '2 
 
116 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 
 
 surgical treatment shows that they are not less solicitous 
 sometimes about their bodily welfare than are mankind in 
 general. 
 
 39. The gregarious or social nature of man. But in this, 
 as in so many other respects, he has no advantage over other 
 social animals. 
 
 Such are samples of the more intelligible objections raised 
 by those who regard man as zoologically, morally, and in- 
 tellectually different from all other animals. But numbers 
 of less intelligible objections have been advanced by meta- 
 physicians, theologians, moral philosophers, and others, who 
 are determined, in one way or other, to make out that the 
 animal mind differs from the human not only in degree but 
 in kind if indeed many of these objectors go so far as to 
 admit the possession by other animals than man of anything 
 approaching ' mind ' at all. 
 
 For instance, to man is assigned the perception; and to 
 other animals the non-perception, of c speculative truth. 5 
 Animals c apprehend the object, not the subject,' says Goodsir. 
 They lack the f faculty of apprehending universal s,' according 
 to Sir Alexander Grant, and so on. What such expressions 
 mean I cannot profess to say, and I willingly leave it, there- 
 fore, to the coiners and users of such ambiguous expressions 
 to prove that the faculties or attributes to which these 
 expressions refer are present in all men including savage 
 or primitive man and absent in all animals save man, or 
 vice versa. The probability is that, if this or that moral or 
 mental quality can be shown to be absent in the lower 
 animals, it will prove equally so in vast numbers of 
 mankind. 
 
 On the other hand, there are a few writers who, feeling 
 the unsatisfactoriness of the distinctions immediately before 
 enumerated, have come to the conclusion and the proper 
 conclusion that which alone is based on the evidence of 
 fact that the difference between the animal and human 
 mind is one of 
 
 1. Degree of development of what are virtually the same 
 mental or moral powers ; and of the - 
 
 2. Mode or manner of manifestation of what are essentially 
 the same faculties. 
 
AND OTHER ANIMALS. 117 
 
 That these differences exist is incontestable. It is a 
 simple fact of natural history, and was to be looked for 
 a priori. The mode of exhibition of the mental and moral 
 faculties necessarily varies with the structure and habits of 
 the individual, species, genus, and tribe, as does also their 
 degree of development ; but not always to the extent that 
 might have been expected, sometimes rather to an extent 
 that proves very unexpected. Thus, contrasting man as a 
 whole with other animals as a whole, or the highest types 
 of man with the highest types of animals, it may be said 
 that the differences, both in the degree of development and 
 in the mode of manifestation of their mental and moral 
 powers, are very apparent and in favour of man. But if the 
 contrast be made between the lowest races of man whether 
 civilised or savage and the highest forms of animal intel- 
 ligence the best fruits of animal education it certainly 
 cannot be said that the comparison is in man's favour. This 
 subject is, however, more fully and further discussed in the 
 succeeding chapter. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 ALLEGED INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL SUPREMACY OF MAN. 
 
 THERE has always existed in man a tendency to overrate his 
 own mental powers and moral qualities in relation to, or in 
 contrast with, those of other animals. The preceding chapter 
 has shown that the psychical distinction between man and 
 other animals is so much less conspicuous than it is generally 
 believed to be, that it is most difficult of determination, de- 
 monstration, definition, or proof. It is much more easy, 
 indeed, to discover and demonstrate the points of resemblance 
 than to define those of difference. The differences between 
 the human and animal mind are sometimes scarcely or not 
 at all perceptible, or they are in favour of the lower animals, 
 not of man. Much, if not everything, depends on the cha- 
 racter of the men and animals that are the subjects of com- 
 parison. If we compare the most intelligent, virtuous, good- 
 tempered, best trained, or most thoroughly bred animals such 
 as the dog with the highest types of man, it is impossible for 
 man to excel the lower animal in the practice of many of the 
 highest virtues, on whose possession man so prides himself. If 
 we compare such dogs or other animals with countless thou- 
 sands of degraded men, in civilised as well as in savage life, 
 the former manifest indubitable superiority both in morals and 
 intellect. But if, on the other hand, we contrast the highest 
 type of man with the average, or with the lowest, type of 
 other animals, there can be no question as to the inferiority 
 of the latter in many points of morals and intellect, on 
 which inferiority metaphysicians construct a defence of man's 
 supremacy. We may sum up by saying that in certain 
 respects, as to moral and mental endowments, certain animals 
 
SUPREMACY OF MAN. 119 
 
 are the equals of certain men, while they are the superiors 
 or inferiors of certain others. The human infant or child, at 
 particular stages of its growth, is psychically on a par with 
 some of the lower animals ; whole races of savage man never 
 attain the moral or mental development of certain dogs, 
 while man of the highest culture is facile princeps of the 
 moral and intellectual world here below. 
 
 Civilised man possesses the following elements of supe- 
 riority over other animals : 
 
 1. The power of speech. 
 
 2. The use of hands. 
 
 3. Knowledge of the arts of 
 
 (a) Writing. (d) Glass-making. 
 
 (6) Printing. (e) Cooking, 
 
 (c) Metallurgy. 
 
 4. The production and applications of fire. 
 
 It is extremely difficult for man to realise the magnitude 
 or importance of these advantages in the development of his 
 moral and mental nature, and to make all due allowance for 
 the disadvantage under which other animals labour in the 
 non-possession of these accomplishments. The influence of 
 dumbness, for instance, in man in the non-development of 
 mental power has been pointed out by Huxley and other 
 writers. But be it remembered always that some at least 
 of these advantages are possessed by only a limited number 
 of men even of civilised men as has been fully pointed out 
 in other chapters. 
 
 On the other hand, dogs or other animals that may be 
 considered in their way civilised or humanised both as 
 regards the individual and the race or breed that have been 
 subjected to persistent and judicious training by man ex- 
 hibit a manifest superiority to whole races or classes of man, 
 both civilised and savage, in the following respects, which 
 include the noblest of the human virtues : 
 
 1. Heroism, patriotism, self-sacrifice. 
 
 2. Compassion or sympathy, charity, benevolence, for- 
 eness. 
 
 3. Love and adoration of a master. 
 
 4. Fidelity to trust, duty, or friendship. 
 
120 SUPREMACY OF MAK. 
 
 5. Disinterestedness of affection. 
 
 6. Self-control, forbearance, magnanimity, repaying evil 
 with good. 
 
 7. Industry, frugality, foresight or providence, diligence 
 or perseverance. 
 
 8. Honesty or integrity, and honour. 
 
 9. Ingenuity or inventiveness, including fertility of re- 
 source. 
 
 10. Presence of mind in emergency. 
 
 11. Strength or force of will, persistency of purpose and 
 effort. 
 
 12. Submission to authority or obedience to law. 
 
 13. Moral sense and religious feeling, including good 
 feeling and right conduct. 
 
 14. The marriage, parental, maternal, and social rela- 
 tionships. 
 
 15. General intelligence or intellectual capacity. 
 
 16. Sexual chastity, and modesty or decency. 
 
 17. Sobriety. 
 
 18. Personal cleanliness. 
 
 19. Power of reflection and deliberation. 
 
 20. General amiability, from goodness of disposition or 
 character. 
 
 21. Government by leaders. 
 
 22. Power of way-finding. 
 
 23. Acuteness of the senses. 
 
 24. Administration of public affairs. 
 
 25. The artistic or aesthetic sense. 
 
 26. The construction of dwellings. 
 
 27. Knowledge of their business or professional occupa- 
 tion, and its due performance as to regularity, and readiness 
 or willingness. 
 
 Many authors have discoursed on the moral goodness -and 
 intellectual achievements of the lower animals on the one 
 hand, and on the moral baseness or badness and the intel- 
 lectual degradation of man on the other. Even clergymen 
 are to be found who feel themselves bound in honesty to 
 admit that ' some of the more intelligent of the brute crea- 
 tion show actually higher powers of mind than some of the 
 
SUPREMACY OF MAN. 121 
 
 debased races of mankind.' 1 Scripture itself sends man to 
 certain of the lower animals the ant, locust, spider, and 
 coney for lessons in such essential virtues as industry, 
 forethought, perseverance, and co-operation. Miss Cobbe 
 describes the nobleness of the dog's general character, or of 
 many of its higher impulses, as at least comparable with 
 man's highest. Poets and novelists writers of almost every 
 class have concurred in bearing testimony to the moral worth, 
 as well as to the high intelligence, of the same animal the 
 dog. The horse, the mule, and even the despised ass are 
 frequently man's superiors in sagacity as in amiability. The 
 elephant gives to man important lessons in reflection, deli- 
 beration, ingenuity, perseverance, politeness, obedience, and 
 affection. The beaver, the e busy bee,' and many other ani- 
 mals practically teach him diligence, industry, and providence. 
 Ants show him their model societies, and make him feel, if 
 he is at all sensitive and sensible, his own real littleness, 
 moral and mental, compared with their real greatness. And, 
 in general terms, animal humanity and animal sagacity may 
 well be studied and emulated by only too many men. 
 
 On the other hand, the evidence of facts has compelled 
 many competent and frequently unwilling authorities to 
 regard many men as not only brutes, but as morally and 
 intellectually inferior to many brutes. Thus the Veddas of 
 Ceylon are, according to Hartshorne, ' so little looked upon 
 as human beings that, when a Vedda was tried and sentenced 
 at Kandy for killing another Yedda .... the jury prayed 
 for mercy for the criminal as being only an animal ; and he 
 was fastened up like a caged monkey.' 2 These Veddas, 
 indeed, as they have been described by Sir Emerson Tennent 
 and other residents or travellers in Ceylon prior to Mr. 
 Hartshorne's fuller account in 1875, are scarcely to be dis- 
 tinguished, even zoologically, from the monkeys of the jungle 
 in which and among whom they live. The South African 
 Bushmen are by the Eev. Mr. Eicherer (a missionary) and by 
 other travellers said to be ' lower than the beasts around 
 them in moral qualities, intelligence, and foresight.' The 
 
 1 Rev. J. F. Moor, M.A., in 'Animal World,' February 1876, p. 20. 
 
 2 Daily Telegraph,' August 30, 1875. 
 
122 SUPREMACY OF MAN. 
 
 Bari of Tropical Africa, says Sir Samuel Baker, is e below 
 the brute. . . . The human beings of Central Africa live as 
 animals, simply using the brain as a director of their chief 
 wants.' Livingstone tells us that the soko kidnaps children, 
 carrying them in its arms. But if tempted by a bunch of 
 bananas it lets the child drop, 'while the young soko in 
 such a case would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. 5 
 The Manyuema natives say that the ' soko is a man, and has 
 nothing bad in him,' thus voluntarily and honestly confessing 
 his moral and mental superiority to themselves. According to 
 Sir John Koss, the Eskimo is ' a beast of prey, without any 
 other pleasure than that of eating. . . . He devours as long 
 as he can and as much as he can get, like the vulture or the 
 tiger. . . . He eats only to sleep, and sleeps only as soon as 
 possible to eat again. 3 
 
 Man's inferiority to many of the lower animals is not 
 only illustrated, however, by the moral and mental condition 
 of savage, primitive, and prehistoric man, but also by certain 
 degraded or degenerate, or uncultured classes or indi- 
 viduals in the midst of the highest civilisation for instance, 
 by the psychical condition of the human idiot, imbecile, 
 lunatic, and criminal, as well as of hosts of persons who 
 are simply illiterate, vicious, or of low intelligence and 
 devoid of any refinement of feeling. 
 
 It is desirable here to give some attention to the re- 
 markable differences in moral and intellectual quality that 
 occur in man in different races, classes, and individuals. 
 It is most instructive to study, for instance, the nature and 
 extent of the psychical differences between 
 
 1. The infant or child and the adult, in the same indi- 
 vidual, among the cultured classes. 
 
 2. The two sexes in the civilised adult. 
 
 3. The moral, religious, virtuous man and the criminal. 
 
 4. The individual who possesses the normally developed 
 mens sana in corpore sano y and his idiot, imbecile, lunatic, 
 and criminal brother. 
 
 5. The poet, mathematician, theologian, naturalist, na- 
 tural and moral philosopher, collectively or individually, 
 and the collier of Lancashire, the labourer of Dorsetshire, 
 
SUPREMACY OF MAN. 123 
 
 the pottery worker of Staffordshire, the hind or yokel of 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 6. The civilised or cultured adult and the existing 
 savage or the prehistoric troglodyte. 
 
 These differences are very remarkable, whether considered 
 as regards their nature or their extent so much so that 
 various authors regard them as pointing to kind as well as, 
 or rather than mere, degree. The intellectual difference is 
 not so great, perhaps, between an idiot and a person of 
 average intelligence as between the latter and a Shake- 
 speare or a Newton. The theological and the scientific mind, 
 the poetic and the prosaic, the masculine and the feminine, the 
 logical or mathematical and their antitheses, are by many 
 regarded as essentially differing in kind or character. Those 
 who support such a view argue that no cultivation of the 
 one, as a rule, ever produces the other that the agricultural 
 peasant of the Cambridge fens cannot be metamorphosed 
 into the wrangler of the Cambridge University. In other 
 words, it is held by certain authors that there is a psychical 
 difference in kind between higher and lower man even in the 
 same race, inhabiting the same district or country. By other 
 authorities, again, equally competent, it is contended that 
 all these and other singular contrasts, however great, are 
 mere differences in degree. In short, even as regards man 
 himself there has been endless discussion as to whether the 
 striking psychical differences that characterise certain indi- 
 viduals, classes, and races are distinctions of degree or of 
 kind, or of both in various proportions. There have been 
 many able advocates of all these views, and in a sense all 
 have been right, though here, as in so many other questions 
 affecting our views of mind and its constituents, all or much 
 depends on our definition of the terms employed. 
 
 All that we have to do, however, with such unsatisfactory 
 discussions here is to show that, whether such differences in 
 man are to be regarded as of degree merely or of kind, of 
 the same nature are the mental and moral differences that 
 distinguish, or that are supposed to distinguish, man from 
 other animals. In truth, the psychical difference between 
 certain animals and certain men is much less obvious than 
 
124 SUPREMACY 'OF MAN. 
 
 between different individuals, classes, and races of man 
 himself. Thus the difference is not more striking between 
 different ages, sexes, and other conditions of man than be- 
 tween the lowest savage races of man and the anthropoid 
 apes, the dog, or even the ant. Pierquin held that the 
 psychical difference is less between the human infant and a 
 lower animal such as the dog than between persons of 
 different sexes in a civilised state of society ; and Houzeau 
 considers the difference between savage and civilised man as 
 great as that between man and the ape. But, whatever be 
 their extent, that such differences are simply of degree is a 
 doctrine held by the foremost naturalists of the day, and b}' 
 an increasing number of those who allow themselves to 
 study the subject of mind throughout the animal kingdom 
 dispassionately and comprehensively. That the differences 
 in question are of kind is the belief as yet, nevertheless, 
 of the majority of men, including those more ingenious 
 than ingenuous philosophers who, like Sir Alexander 
 Grant, try to evade the obvious difficulty of determin- 
 ing whether given psychical differences are of degree or of 
 kind by suggesting that they are of degree among the 
 individuals, classes, and races of man, but of kind between 
 man and all other animals. In other words, because the 
 lower animals are not man, they possess a different kind of 
 mind that, namely, which consists wholly or mainly of in- 
 stinct, as contradistinguished from man's true prerogative, 
 reason. This, however, is but a remnant of the kind of 
 vicious and futile arguments that are daily being made to 
 give way before the rapidly accumulating mass of scientific 
 evidence and inference. 
 
 The moral and intellectual differences, then, that sepa- 
 rate cultured and savage man, or infantile and adult man, 
 or the two sexes in man, are the same in kind, though not 
 necessarily in degree, as those which separate man from 
 lower animals. They are quantitative, not qualitative. 
 Houzeau regards the real distinction as confined to the 
 higher potentiality of man, his higher mental powers, as 
 well as the actuality of their higher development ; and this 
 
SUPKEMACi' OF MAN. 125 
 
 conclusion commends itself as a judicially fair inference 
 from the facts. 
 
 Man's claim to pre-eminence on the ground of the unique- 
 ness of his mental constitution is as absurd and puerile, there- 
 fore, as it is fallacious. His overweening pride or vanity has 
 led to his futile contention with the evidence of facts. He has 
 trusted to a series of gratuitous assumptions.- The supposed 
 criteria of human supremacy, as the preceding chapter has 
 shown, the alleged psychical distinctions between man and 
 other animals, cannot stand examination. One after another 
 they have proved to be fallacious, built upon unsatisfactory 
 grounds. A careful consideration of the whole argument 
 for and against man's psychical supremacy, a thoughtful 
 analysis of the alleged or supposed mental differences be- 
 tween him and all other animals, must lead to the conclusion 
 that these differences are superficial and apparent rather 
 than radical and real. That man's specific designation, then 
 Homo sapiens is far from being generally deserved or 
 appropriate becomes obvious when we compare him in his 
 lowest savage or primitive condition with such other animals 
 as the dog or the ant. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 INTER-RELATIONS OF INSTINCT AND REASON. 
 
 THE terms instinct, instincts, and instinctive are used in so 
 many different senses, their definitions are so various, con- 
 flicting, confusing, ridiculous, or unsatisfactory, or it is so 
 difficult to define them at all, that it would be a great ad- 
 vantage could they be dispensed with altogether, and other 
 terms substituted possessing at least less ambiguity. 
 
 In the first place, the term instinct is too generally used 
 as a synonym for animal intelligence in contrast with human 
 reason, judgment, or intellect. Operations that in man are 
 ascribed to reason are in other animals, on no proper grounds, 
 assigned to instinct. The most diverse opinions exist, how- 
 ever, as to the possibility or propriety of separating animal 
 intelligence from that of man, call the two by what names 
 we may. Some authors, as will be seen in the sequel, hold 
 that there is an absolute identity between instinct and 
 reason as to kind, though not as to degree ; others think 
 that they are separated by a perhaps puzzling borderland ; 
 others believe that they overlap or pass into each other, or 
 that they may co-exist or be associated in different degrees, 
 or that the one may, and does, supersede the other ; while 
 others, lastly, consider that they are so strongly contrasted 
 by their very different attributes or characteristics as to be 
 diametrically opposed the one to the other. In the next 
 place, many of what are called instincts in other animals are 
 what in man are described as feelings, emotions, propensi- 
 ties, passions, appetites, desires, impulses, and habits ; but 
 some of these propensities in man belong to the lowest class 
 of animal instincts for instance*, his whining or barking 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 127 
 
 like a dog in hydrophobia, his eating or chewing grass like 
 a ruminant in various forms of insanity. 
 
 It is both instructive and suggestive to compare current 
 popular with modern scientific definitions of instinct. Popu- 
 lar, and especially theological, opinion has for ages delighted 
 in representing instinct as 
 
 1. Perfect at birth. Whereas education is required, even 
 in such so-called ( natural ' acts as sucking the teat or other- 
 wise seeking proper food. Spalding has shown that instinct 
 is never perfect at birth, that its development is gradual, and 
 that there is, therefore, progressive improvement in or of it. 
 
 2. Unerring or infallible. But our chapters on the ( Errors 
 of Animals ' show how frequent and glaring are the failures 
 or mistakes of so-called instinct, how identical these errors 
 are in kind with those of human reason, and how absurd it 
 is to set up any such plea as infallibility on behalf of animal 
 instinct. 
 
 3. Invariable or undeviating. Our chapters on ' Educa- 
 tion ' and ' Adaptiveness,' as well as other chapters, contain 
 abundant evidence of the incessant and almost infinite 
 variability or plasticity of instinct ; and even in the present 
 chapter it is desirable to make a few special remarks on the 
 variations of instinct. The whole phenomena of improva- 
 bility as developed, for instance, by education show how 
 unfounded is man's belief in the invariableness of instinct. 
 
 4. Blind and independent of observation. But our chapter 
 on 'Investigation' including observation and experiment 
 in and by the lower animals shows that these animals are 
 guided by impressions on vision and other senses just as 
 much as man is, probably more so. 
 
 5. Independent of volition involuntary or non-voluntary. 
 But will is manifested among the very lowest animals, as is 
 pointed out in the chapter on the ( Evolution of Mind in the 
 Ascending Zoological Scale,' while every degree of strength 
 of will is to be met with in such animals as the dog. 
 
 6. Independent of experience and instruction. But the 
 chapters on ' Education ' and its results prove that this sup- 
 posed attribute of instinct is as fallacious as any of the 
 others. 
 
128 INSTINCT AND REASON. 
 
 7. Without consciousness. But, on the one hand, con- 
 sciousness occurs not only among the lowest animals, and 
 even among plants, while, on the other, there are many so- 
 called mental operations in man that take place in the 
 absence of consciousness such, for instance, as the phe- 
 nomena of what is now called unconscious cerebration, and 
 of cerebral, spinal, or nervous reflex or automatic action. 
 
 8. Without knowledge of the end in view. But it is 
 shown in many parts of the present work that animals are 
 actuated by very definite motives, and have very distinct 
 purposes, objects, or aims in view. 
 
 9. Its object is simply the physical well-being of the 
 individual the preservation of the species. But the count- 
 less instances of sympathy and self-sacrifice of life-saving 
 of other animals, including man himself emphatically con- 
 tradict such an ungenerous and unjust assertion one that, 
 like so many others relating to animal instinct, we can 
 scarcely believe to have been seriously propounded by any 
 person acquainted with the character and habits of such an 
 animal as the dog. 
 
 10. Beyond control. We know, however, that many ani- 
 mals in many ways exercise an amount of self-control that 
 would do credit to man even in his highest states of 
 civilisation. 
 
 11. Rapidity of action is such that there is no time forre- 
 flection. And yet we know that many animals in proportion 
 to their maturity or age, their experience and the necessity 
 for the employment of such mental faculties exercise reflec- 
 tion in the same ways and under the same circumstances that 
 self-sufficient man himself does. They take time to consider 
 the probable results or consequences of different lines of 
 conduct, and after most mature deliberation including the 
 balancing of chances or probabilities they resolve on a 
 given course and carry it into effect. 
 
 12. Arising without effort as impulses. But so do ideas 
 and feelings of all kinds in the most intellectual man. 
 
 13. Without choice. But we know that, in an infinitude 
 of ways, animals show preferences and make the most deli- 
 berate selections. 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 129 
 
 So much, then, for the current popular and especially 
 theological conceptions of the character or attributes of 
 animal instinct conceptions that have for ages barred the 
 way to all progress in comparative psychology. Modern 
 scientific ideas may possibly constitute or create too great a 
 reaction in a very opposite direction. The favourite concep- 
 tions of instinct formed and expressed by our most eminent 
 naturalists especially of the evolution school of thought 
 are that 
 
 1 . All instinct is what is shortly denned as * inherited 
 experience. 9 The idea implies that experience is acquired 
 
 and transmitted, being accumulated, intensified, modified in 
 the direction of improvement or otherwise, and organised in 
 the transmission. 
 
 2. Instinct is only a lower or obscure kind or form of 
 intelligence 'or reason. 
 
 3. Instinct is not a thing, power, faculty, per se, but only 
 a mode of action eommon to all classes of mental aptitudes, 
 
 There is, no doubt, much that is true in all these modern 
 views, but no one of them is unexceptionable. All are too 
 sweeping in their generalisation. They aim at explaining 
 and including all the phenomena of instinct ; but they fail 
 to do so, because the phenomena in question really belong 
 to three different, though perhaps provisional, categories 
 to wit 
 
 1. Phenomena already explained or that are, or appear 
 to be, capable of explanation by the laws of heredity, 
 habit, acquisition, knowledge, intelligence, or reason. 
 
 2. Phenomena that are unexplained at present, but which 
 will probably, in the course of time, be as satisfactorily ex- 
 plained as those belonging to the preceding category; and 
 
 3. Phenomena which, at present inexplicable, may long 
 or always continue so. 
 
 That there are what may, with perfect propriety, be 
 designated acquired artificial, hereditary, inherited, or 
 transmitted instincts there can be no doubt. Such, for 
 instance, are 
 
 1. The fear of man. 
 
 2. The dread of other enemies as of the hawk by the 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
130 INSTINCT AND EEASON. 
 
 sparrow or chicken, the lion by the horse, (Estridce by horses, 
 cattle, sheep, and reindeer. 
 
 3. Terror of fire, water, or other elements that are dan- 
 gerous to life. 
 
 4. Barking in the dog. 
 
 5. The finding of lost travellers by the St. Bernard breed 
 of dogs. 
 
 6. The slave-keeping of Aphides by ants. 
 
 7. The sense of superiority, and its expression by obe- 
 dience to leaders. 
 
 8. The moral sense as is pointed out in a special chapter. 
 As regards any individual animal, however, such instincts 
 
 may have been either congenital or acquired. They may have 
 been originally acquired as knowledge, experience, or habit by 
 some ancestor intensified, modified, and transmitted through 
 successive generations of offspring ; in which case they be- 
 come congenital in these offspring. Or they may have been 
 acquired by the individual, as we constantly see taking place 
 for instance, as regards the dread of man and his instru- 
 ments of destruction in the birds of unvisited oceanic 
 islands. But in this case we refer the acquired dread to 
 knowledge or experience, because we see for ourselves its origin 
 and growth; and it is only when a dread so acquired is 
 transmitted to and through generations of offspring that 
 are subject to a like experience, and when this natural fear 
 appears at or immediately after birth in any such offspring, 
 prior to the possible acquisition of experience by them, 
 that we describe it as an instinct, as innate or intuitive, 
 implanted by nature, not contributed or produced by ex- 
 perience. 
 
 It is frequently most difficult, if not impossible, in given 
 cases to distinguish congenital from acquired, aptitudes. One 
 would suppose a priori that sucking the milk receptacle of a 
 mother, or the selection of other suitable food, or the lap- 
 ping of water or milk by the dog or cat, must be an ' innate ' 
 faculty ; and yet we are assured by careful and conscientious 
 experimentalists that these operations, with many others that 
 appear to be congenitally instinctive or intuitive, are really 
 acquired arts y the result of education and time. 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 131 
 
 It appears to me, in the present state of our knowledge 
 of tlie inter-relations of, or confusion between, instinct and 
 reason, convenient at least to assume that certain instincts 
 are congenital, certain mental powers natural, innate, or 
 instinctive. Such, for instance, are to be regarded the 
 following instincts or groups thereof : 
 
 1. The more purely physical ones of 
 
 a. Hunger and thirst, including the so-called predatory 
 or prey-catching instinct. 
 
 1. Self-preservation, or the love of life, including self- 
 defence and self-protection. 
 
 c. Pleasure and pain. 
 
 d. Sense of existence. 
 
 e. Physical comfort, such as that arising from warmth. 
 /. Play or sport playfulness, sportiveness, or friskiness 
 
 in the young. 
 g. Migration. 
 h. 'Feeling of need of shelter or covering. 
 
 2. Those connected with external sensorial impressions, 
 such as 
 
 a. Weather-forecasting. 
 
 6. Sense of locality and direction, with perhaps the power 
 of way-finding. 
 
 3. Those connected with the sexual appetite, including 
 pairing, propagation, and incubation. 
 
 4. Those connected with the social or family relationships, 
 including 
 
 a. Adhesiveness, or the tendency to form attachments to 
 person or place. 
 
 I. Love of society or companionship. 
 
 c. Longing for love and being loved, including maternal, 
 parental, filial, and fraternal longings, yearnings, or affec- 
 tion. 
 
 d. Sympathy, compassion, or pity, charity or benevolence, 
 with their opposites. 
 
 5. Destructiveness, including cruelty. 
 
 6. Acquisitiveness the accumulation of property. 
 
 7. Combativeness. 
 
 8. Selfishness. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 INSTINCT AND REASON. 
 
 9. Love of power and glory, including pride and am- 
 bition. 
 
 10. Love of liberty. 
 
 11. Sense of dependence. 
 
 12. Love of the beautiful in sound, form, or colour. 
 
 13. Love of novelty and variety. 
 
 14. Imitation. 
 
 15. Constructiveness, including technical skill and art. 
 
 16. Feeling of modesty or decency. 
 
 17. Defiance, and its expression by menace. 
 
 18. Sense of benefit, with its expression by gratitude. 
 
 19. Fear, including, or leading to, suspiciousness. 
 
 20. Sense of supernatural agency one of the bases or 
 forms of the religious sentiment. 
 
 There are, however, endless difficulties in the application 
 of the term instinct to many of the mental aptitudes just 
 enumerated. One of the most obvious is the contradiction 
 involved in two such conjoined terms as the ' instinct of 
 imitation.' As Spalding points out, the two things facul- 
 ties or qualities are antithetical or antagonistic, inasmuch 
 as imitation leads to incessant modification of what is sup- 
 posed to be unerring and unchangeable. Again, fear is 
 probably invariably developed in connection with ideas of 
 danger, real or supposed, and of the means of escaping or 
 avoiding it. 
 
 Then metaphysicians, with a passion for elaborate mental 
 analysis, tell us that many, or perhaps all, apparently simple 
 instincts are really compound. What appears to be the very 
 simple and intelligible desire for the conservation of life, 
 for instance, is represented by authors of the phrenological 
 school as being really a sense of danger, a fear that gives 
 rise to caution or precautions. 
 
 It is obvious that such instincts as are mentioned in the 
 foregoing enumeration vary much in their character. While 
 we may easily conceive the possibility or probability of some of 
 them having been originally acquired, we have a very different 
 feeling in regard to others. No doubt all may have been 
 originally acquired, and may have become congenital by here- 
 ditary transmission ; and it is possible nay, likely that, 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 133 
 
 in the course of time, investigation may furnish evidence 
 that not a few of them were, or must have been, at one time 
 acquired ; but I very much doubt whether proof will ever be 
 furnished that all classes of instincts in man and other ani- 
 mals for what are instincts in other animals must be equally 
 so in man were acquired. 
 
 Whether or not, however, we are to regard certain in- 
 stincts as part and parcel of the original constitution of the 
 genus, species, or individual, and certain others as acquired 
 either by the individual or his ancestry, there are undoubted 
 attributes of instinct that deserve or demand here a little 
 special attention. These attributes include, for instance 
 
 1. The variability of instinct. 
 
 2. The loss of old instincts, and the 
 
 3. Acquisition of new ones. 
 
 4. Their perversions or derangements. 
 
 5. Their latency. 
 
 6. Their vicariousness. 
 
 7. The dominance of certain of them, and 
 
 8. The antagonism of others. 
 
 The vaoriationsat instinct are illustrated in other chapters 
 for instance, those on 'Adaptiveness,' * Education,' c Errors' 
 but, even though there should be some unavoidable recapitula- 
 tion, a few remarks on the subject are here desirable. Some 
 of the best illustrations of the modification of instinct, with, 
 by, or according to circumstances, are to be found in the 
 phenomena of nidification in birds. Nest-building is popularly 
 supposed to be conducted on the same uniform plan, under all 
 circumstances, by the different individuals of the same species; 
 but this is very far from being the case. The variation of 
 instinct in the nidificatiou of birds was long ago shown by 
 Audubon; and recently the late Dr. Pouchet, of Rouen, pointed 
 out the effect of change in the domestic architecture of man 
 on the nest-building operations of the swallow. Adams 
 refers to change of habits as to nidification in the cliff 
 s\v;illow of North America, which is now also taking advan- 
 tage of man's dwellings. Town birds very commonly build 
 differently from country birds of the same species, selecting 
 a different site, shape, or materials, or all their methods 
 
134 INSTINCT AND REASON. 
 
 of construction, protection, repair, vary. The same occurs 
 in birds or other animals still of the same species - 
 inhabiting different parts of the same country, or different 
 and distant parts of the world. For instance, artificial are 
 sometimes preferred to natural nests, materials, or sites ; 
 man's refuse wool, hair, tow man's dwelling, even his 
 prepared artificial nests, are selected, rather than those 
 materials and localities that were or are made use of by 
 the species when at a distance from man and his works. 
 Such variations in nidification are obviously determined, 
 more or less, by various specific motives, purposes, or cir- 
 cumstances, such as necessity or desirability, or the saving of 
 trouble, or the love of society, or the desire for protection, or 
 by conditions of climate or temperature, or they are the 
 results of experience and knowledge. The art of building 
 fire-proof nests, moreover, is an acquisition on the part of the 
 swallow. 
 
 Birds, however, are not the only animals that modify the 
 character of their nests according to circumstances. A cer- 
 tain trap-door spider of New Zealand, as has been recently 
 pointed out by Gillies, according to conditions of soil, loca- 
 lity, and surroundings, ' constructs an entirely different type 
 of nest.' It shows, he says, an ' adaptation to special cir- 
 cumstances as they arise ; ' and he describes it as conceal- 
 ing its nest in an ' endless variety of ways,' the materials 
 being ' as numerous and various as nature or accident has 
 provided in the neighbourhood.' The commoner so-called 
 ' geometric ' spider also varies the construction of its nest 
 (Blackwall). The nest of the same species of wasp is some- 
 times differently constructed, according to the locality, the 
 cause, however, not always being apparent (Eouget). 
 
 Even less liable to modification than the operations of 
 birds, constructive or other, are popularly supposed to be 
 those of the bee. And yet Huber tells us that in some of 
 his experiments humble-bees, in the absence of the usual 
 material for roofing their nests, tore up linen clothes, or the 
 cover of a book, and carded the disintegrated material into a 
 felted mass, for use as an efficient substitute ; while he gives 
 many instances of their ' variety of resource .... in adapting 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 153 
 
 the form and size of their cells to the particular places or 
 circumstances of their work' (Macaulay). In many other 
 ways bees abandon routine, make deviations from custom, 
 vary their operations with emergency. 
 
 Again, the manners and customs of the same species of 
 ant differ according to its residence in England, the south 
 of France, or India. 
 
 Instincts may be abrogated or lost in consequence of 
 changed conditions of life. Thus domesticated and captive 
 animals that are kindly dealt with by man, and that are sen- 
 sible of the advantages involved in their changed mode of life, 
 appear frequently to lose the instinct of liberty or freedom, 
 in so far as no advantage is taken of the power or opportu- 
 nities of flight or escape. In other circumstances instincts 
 are commonly lost when they are not required : they lapse 
 under disuse. But not always, for there is sometimes a use- 
 less and even a troublesome retention of the old instincts 
 for instance, in the captive beaver. There is frequently a 
 loss of one or more, or all, the natural instincts in various 
 kinds of disease, mental or bodily. 
 
 Just as old instincts lapse where they are not required, 
 new ones are called into existence, or are developed, where 
 they are needed ; and these new or acquired instincts, it is 
 important to bear in mind, are as transmissible hereditarily 
 as the old ones. Nor is it less interesting to note that new 
 instincts may be and are developed, if not created, by man. 
 As an instance of the natural acquisition of a new instinct 
 in the wild state may be cited the development, since man's 
 settlement, of a flesh-eating propensity in the fruit-feeding 
 ' kea ' of New Zealand, a forest bird ; whereas illustrations 
 of the new instincts developed, directly or indirectly, by 
 man are to be found in those which appear in domesticated 
 animals. 
 
 It does not follow, however, that all instincts described 
 as new appearing for the first time in an individual or spe- 
 cies are so in reality, have been created where or when they 
 did not previously exist. Many of them may have been 
 merely latent or dormant, waiting to be developed to be 
 rendered conspicuous or operative by necessity or by favour- 
 
136 INSTINCT AND KEASON. 
 
 able circumstances. Thus the new mental qualities deve- 
 loped by such physiological changes as maternity the 
 courage, affection, daring, self-sacrifice, which distinguish 
 maternal love in birds and so many other animals, may be 
 regarded as belonging to the category of latent instincts 
 ready to show themselves whenever the need for their display 
 arises. Other illustrations of dormant instincts, requiring only 
 to be roused into activity by some such slight impression on 
 the senses as a casual sight or sound, are to be found in the 
 desire for freedom being awakened in the domesticated goose 
 by the distant cries of its migrating wild fellows, leading 
 the former at once sometimes to join the latter, thereby 
 sacrificing all the advantages of man's association (Houzeau) ; 
 or in the Eskimo dogs in a team leaving their track and their 
 duty to follow game if it happen to cross their path, no com- 
 mand of the driver having then any power over them (Parry) . 
 
 There is frequently a substitution or transposition of the 
 supposed distinctive instincts of one sex or species for those 
 of another; and this may occur naturally, but it more 
 generally happens under artificial and exceptional conditions, 
 as the result of association, imitation, or education. Such 
 instincts may variously be described as adopted, acquired, 
 unnatural, vicarious, and transferable. The phenomena of 
 foster parentage abound in illustrations of this class of trans- 
 ferred instincts, including, as they do, the assumption of 
 feminine duties by the male and the upbringing, by disap- 
 pointed barren females or by bereaved mothers, of the 
 young of other genera, species, or individuals. 
 
 There is frequently also a signal perversion, vitiation, 
 or derangement of the natural instincts for instance, of 
 those of 
 
 1. Self-preservation or love of life, in suicide. 
 
 2. Love of young, in cannibalism. 
 
 3. Love of proper food, in morbid appetite. 
 
 4. Sexual desire, in erotomania. 
 
 5. Destructiveness, in murder and self -mutilation. 
 
 6. Acquisitiveness, in kleptomania, which includes useless 
 hoarding. 
 
 7. Migration, in wholesale sacrifice of life. 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 1ST 
 
 8. Corabativeness, in morbid pugnacity and irritability. 
 
 9. Adhesiveness, in morbid aversions and causeless an- 
 tipathies. 
 
 10. Love of liberty, in indifference to captivity. 
 
 Ample illustrations of these perversions are given in the 
 chapters on ' Mental Defect or Derangement,' ' Suicide,' and 
 'Murder.' In a minor degree, vitiation of instinct occurs as a 
 necessary result of pampering in household pets. This cate- 
 gory fitly includes the non-gratification or repression, as well 
 as the excessive gratification, of the more imperious physical 
 instincts particularly the sexual one the effects of which 
 are specified in the chapters relating to the ' Physical Causes 
 of Mental Disturbance.' 
 
 Certain instincts are either naturally dominant at all 
 times in certain individuals, or they are so at particular 
 times or under special circumstances. There would appear 
 to be a constant or occasional antagonism, or conflict for the 
 mastery, in the individual character between various power- 
 ful instincts, just as there is also between virtues and vices, 
 good and bad impulses ; and sometimes one, sometimes an- 
 other, gains the ascendency for the time, or permanently. 
 Thus love of her offspring maternal affection frequently 
 overcomes the love of life in a mother, developing that 
 recklessness of personal safety which is so characteristic a 
 feature of maternity. In other ways parental solicitude is 
 constantly dominating over, neutralising, natural fear or 
 timidity not always, however, in a way tending to the 
 welfare of the young ; for among the instincts set aside in 
 such cases for the moment there may be some whose abro- 
 gation is fraught with direct or immediate danger. In the 
 dog not a water dog that rescues a child from drowning 
 compassion must overcome not only its natural love of life, 
 but its equally natural fear of water. Timidity, and even 
 suspiciousness, are frequently mastered by wonder or cu- 
 riosity. 
 
 The physical instincts such as hunger and thirst are 
 naturally imperious, overruling sometimes all others. Thus 
 Gould tells us of parrots and honey-eaters in Australia 
 rushing to the edges of pools for water, utterly regardless 
 
138 INSTINCT AND EEASON. 
 
 of his presence, ' their thirst for water quite overcoming their 
 sense of danger. 3 Hunger constantly conquers the fear of 
 man in the robin, as does in other birds the sense of immi- 
 nent danger. In both cases the bird confidingly seeks the 
 shelter or food-supply of man's dwelling or person. The 
 instinct of self-preservation is often overcome by voracity in 
 animals, like certain vultures, given to gorging themselves to 
 repletion with animal food. But those instincts also which 
 are more purely moral or mental such as sympathy, gene- 
 rosity, benevolence, or charity frequently conquer the purely 
 physical instincts of fear of danger or love of life. The 
 migratory instinct is more powerful than the maternal, lead- 
 ing parent birds to desert their young broods (Darwin and 
 Adams). This collision of the migratory and maternal in- 
 stincts, and dominance of the former, frequently occurs, for 
 instance, in the swallow (Nichols). 
 
 While many instincts are intelligible probably from their 
 simplicity and natural relationships such as motherly love, 
 self-preservation, or imitation others do not at present ad- 
 mit of satisfactory explanation ; for instance, certain forms 
 of way-finding over previously untraversed ground. This 
 class of dubious instincts is fully illustrated in the chapter 
 on ' Unsolved Problems.' 
 
 The number of instincts in a given individual, species, 
 genus, or class depends, of course, on the view taken of what 
 is or constitutes an instinct. Kirby and Spence regard the 
 determination of the number of separate instincts among 
 insects as an insoluble problem. Among nurses alone in 
 bees these authors describe or refer to thirty distinct in- 
 stincts, and they infer therefrom that the flexibility, plasti- 
 city, or variability of instinct is greater in insects than in 
 higher animals. Different instincts occur in different castes 
 of the same species or community for instance, in ants 
 (Houzeau) and there are special instincts in different breeds 
 of domestic animals, such as the dog, both breeds and in- 
 stincts being gradually developed by man's selection and 
 culture. 
 
 So long as it is impossible satisfactorily to define instinct 
 and reason so long at least as we possess no satisfactory 
 
INSTINCT AND EEASON. 139 
 
 definition, so long as we cannot draw the boundary line 
 between them it is impossible to determine the range of in- 
 stinct and reason respectively in man and other animals, or in 
 any individual, species, or genus of the latter. Using the 
 terms in their present vague and contrasted acceptations, we 
 are quite justified in asserting that, even in man the lower 
 races and the least cultivated of the higher races instinct 
 predominates over reason, impulsive over deliberate action ; 
 while in many of the lower animals such as well-bred, 
 thoroughly trained dogs reason predominates over instinct, 
 reflection over impulse. 
 
 Just as there is a frequent marked dominance of one in- 
 stinct over another, there is an equally common dominance, 
 then, of instinct over reason, or of reason over instinct. The 
 former is illustrated by the well-trained elephant that be- 
 comes bogged in a quicksand. The instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion causes it to forget all its obedience and discipline 
 the results of education, which could operate only on 
 improvable reason so that it seizes its well-known, and 
 probably well-loved, mahout in order to give itself some 
 solid purchase for its feet ; and, knowing this, the mahout 
 in such a case betakes himself at once beyond the animal's 
 reach, for to be caught by it in such extremity would be 
 equivalent to certain death to the man. On the other hand, 
 the dominance of reason, or of the results of reason obe- 
 dience, discipline, self-denial is illustrated by a team of 
 Eskimo dogs watching by themselves over and beside a dead 
 reindeer for hours, and at last delivering it up untouched to 
 their human masters (Wood), the imperious sense of hunger 
 being here successfully overcome, the extreme temptation 
 successfully resisted. Education, training, discipline in- 
 volving, it may be, a wholesome dread of punishment 
 overcomes natural antipathies and appetites for instance, 
 in predatory animals, such as a wild cat that was trained to 
 take care of a tame sparrow, or in dogs brought up to watch 
 sparrows, blackbirds, partridges, and hares, their natural 
 game (Wynter). 
 
 It is important, in all considerations as to their real 
 nature, to bear in mind that, just as various instincts co- 
 
140 INSTINCT AND REASON. 
 
 exist in the same individual at the same time, and may 
 modify, neutralise, or supplant each other, the same happens 
 with instinct and reason. They co-exist in different degrees 
 in different individuals of the same species, and the one 
 variously modifies, neutralises, or supplants the other. 
 Even in civilised man instinct and reason vary in their inter- 
 relations with the age of the individual. The child is 
 moved more by instinct than reason, while the mature or 
 adult man is actuated more by reason than by impulse. 
 "Bis judgment guides and controls his instincts, while in the 
 infant free vent is given to the latter and their control is a 
 matter of education. We must never forget, however, how 
 little reason frequently guides, or how often rather it fails 
 to guide, children and savages, the idiotic and insane, and 
 even philosophers themselves in their acrimonious disputa- 
 tions. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that by many recent 
 authors instinct is regarded but as a lower and peculiar, 
 obscure and not as yet intelligible or understood, form of 
 intelligence. Whether or not this view be generally adopted, 
 there can be no doubt of the intimate relationship between 
 the two an intimacy of connection that is illustrated by 
 the impossibility of properly differentially defining them ; 
 for it has been shown in the earlier part of this chapter that 
 all the current definitions by so-called mental philosophers 
 including, for instance, those of Paley, Whately, Hamilton, 
 Brougham, Reid are more or less faulty and mischievous 
 or a,bsurd. 
 
 On the whole, it does not seem, to be yet possible conve- 
 niently to discard the term instinct. No doubt it has long 
 been a cloak for our ignorance and prejudice. The con- 
 tinued use of such an ambiguous, indefinable term must be 
 held tantamount to a confession of ignorance. There is no 
 reason, however, for a concealment of ignorance where igno- 
 rance really exists ; so that, even from this point of view, 
 the employment of such a provisional and objectionable term 
 is defensible. At present we have no better term to sub- 
 stitute for it. We cannot yet refer all the mental or pseudo- 
 mental phenomena exhibited either by man or other animals 
 
INSTINCT AND EEASON. 141 
 
 to reason or intelligence ; and until we can do so, or other- 
 wise satisfactorily name and classify them, it is at least an 
 advantage or convenience to retain the term ' instinct ' as a 
 provisional designation for all the phenomena in question that 
 are not at present classifiable under or assignable to reason. 
 But when the study of comparative psychology attracts the 
 attention it so well deserves, and in proportion as it is pro- 
 perly studied, more and more of the mental operations of 
 the lower animals will be relegated to intelligence, more and 
 more will it come to be recognised that what is instinct or 
 intelligence in man is equally so in other animals in short, 
 that their psychical organisation is alike. 
 
 Physiologists and mental philosophers tell us that rea- 
 soning in man consists of comparison, abstraction, generali- 
 sation, recollection, reflection, and imagination (Carpenter) ; 
 that is reason when fully developed and in its higher 
 forms. For it need not be affirmed by the enthusiastic 
 philanthropist that all men, lower as well as higher, and 
 in all their stages of growth in infancy and old age as in 
 maturity, and in disease as well as health can abstract, 
 generalise, reflect, compare, imagine, or even recollect. In 
 so far, however, as it can truthfully be said that man, as a 
 species, possesses such mental faculties, it must equally be 
 admitted that all of them occur also in certain other ani- 
 mals not necessarily in the same degree, or manifested in 
 the same way, though the difference, as has been shown in 
 other chapters, is not always or often in favour of man. 
 The constant exercise of reason, indeed, is absolutely neces- 
 sary to many of the commonest or most familiar actions of 
 animals. In other words, they are necessarily, in varying 
 degree, rational creatures if man's actions under similar 
 circumstances are to be considered rational. As contrasted 
 with popular conceptions of instinct, reason in other ani- 
 mals, as in man, is fallible, progressive, slow in action; 
 while, so far from being simple, it involves operations of 
 considerable complexity. Obviously certain of the lower 
 animals can and do engage in regular or irregular courses 
 or trains of reasoning or thought, and the process of reason- 
 ing in them is essentially what it is in man. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LOWEK 
 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 We have seen, or have yet to see, how many of the doings 
 of animals, formerly ascribed to instinct, are really attribut- 
 able to reason or intelligence, to observation and reflection ; 
 but there are many other phenomena connected with their 
 habits which at present we cannot explain satisfactorily. 
 To ascribe such phenomena to instinct is merely to confess 
 our ignorance by the use of a term that has in such a case 
 no definite signification, that has for ages been applied to 
 phenomena that belong to the province of reason. The use 
 of such a term in such a context is mischievous, as consti- 
 tuting an obstacle to scientific investigation. 
 
 It is much better to relegate all such puzzling faculties 
 or phenomena simply to the category of the unexplained, so 
 that special attention may be drawn towards them and may 
 lead to their experimental investigation. It is quite possible 
 that it may be necessary further to relegate certain of these 
 faculties or phenomena to the category of the inexplicable. 
 We may never be able to explain them satisfactorily on the 
 theory either of reason or instinct. But, on the other hand, 
 the probability is that due investigation will enable us to 
 remove the majority of such problems from the category of 
 the unexplained or even the apparently inexplicable to that of 
 those that admit of satisfactory explanation, as being deter- 
 mined by, or dependent upon, ordinary intelligence or in- 
 stinct. It may be that we have to look for missing links in 
 the chain of evidence, or that we have simply to exclude by 
 experimental tests certain suggested explanations, and so 
 gradually limit the issue. 
 
UNSOLVED PKOBLEMS. 143 
 
 Possible solutions of the problems in question have from 
 time to time been offered by ingenious, imaginative men. 
 Such suggestions are not to be despised or rejected until at 
 least they have been rigorously applied by competent expe- 
 rimentalists to the facts. The suggestions alluded to, that 
 are applicable, or that have been applied, to different cases, 
 include the following : that 
 
 1. The lower animals use their senses in ways unknown 
 to man ; their senses, moreover, though the same in kind 
 with his, being much more acute or delicate. The special 
 senses involved are smell, vision, and hearing. 
 
 2. Certain animals, and perhaps man himself, possess 
 additional or supplementary senses, such as a sixth sense of 
 direction, locality, way-finding or homing, or of polarity 
 an intuitive knowledge of the points of the compass. 
 
 3. The lower animals, or certain of them, are susceptible 
 to various influences that do not affect man. 
 
 4. There may be much unconscious observation on the 
 part of the animals, unnoticed observation on the part of 
 man. This may include, for instance, attention to the posi- 
 tion of the sun, the noticing of landmarks and their topo- 
 graphical relations. 
 
 5. Uiiknown faculties, instincts, or susceptibilities may 
 exist. 
 
 6. Powers or capacities that are usually latent may be, as 
 Bishop Butler suggests, called into action. 
 
 One of the commonest and best illustrations of pheno- 
 mena at present or as yet unexplained is the way- or home- 
 finding by the dog, horse, ass, cat, and other animals over 
 ground previously unvisited by and therefore unknown to 
 them. I am leaving out of view all cases in which, by any pos- 
 sibility, memory or observation could have been, or probably 
 were, operative for instance, in the flights of courier or car- 
 rier pigeons and refer only to those numerous cases in which 
 various pet animals have been taken by masters or mistresses 
 long distances from home by routes previously untraversed, 
 in conveyances varying extremely in their character, and 
 have found their own way home by a different route, usually 
 the shortest and most direct, equally unknown to them, and 
 
144 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 generally on foot where land alone had to be traversed. 
 Authentic instances, incidents, or anecdotes of this kind are 
 simply innumerable. Here it is desirable to refer only to a 
 few, as illustrating their varying character in detail. 
 
 1. A collie (dog) found its way home by itself from Cal- 
 cutta to Inverkeithing (Fifeshire, Scotland). It had come 
 from Calcutta in a ship bound for Dundee, and from Dundee 
 in a collier bound for Inverkeithing (Wood). 
 
 2. Certain French bees having been sent abroad in order 
 to their acclimatisation in a French colony, found their way 
 home in French vessels (Pierquin). 
 
 3. A dog was taken, by the most different modes of con- 
 veyance, including country roads and city streets (walking), 
 market boat, railway, and steamer, from Holywell (Wales) 
 to Manchester. It found its way back in a couple of days, 
 performing part of its journey in the dark (Wood). 
 
 4. A fox twice found its way on foot from Westmoreland 
 to Kent (Jesse). 
 
 5. A King Charles spaniel made its way from Lincoln- 
 shire to the Isle of Wight (Jesse) . 
 
 In all such cases the presumable motive is attachment to 
 and memory of locality or person, home love, perhaps home 
 sickness. It has to be remarked that the animals usually 
 credited with the possession of the homing or way-finding 
 faculty are those that are domesticated, which show, on the 
 one hand, the strongest attachment to home and master, 
 and on the other the greatest general intelligence. But, 
 whatever it be, the motive must be strong, for the peril and 
 fatigue involved are usually great, and starvation, exposure, 
 exhaustion, and death frequently result from the effort. 
 
 Accepting the facts as narrated, it would be easy to specu- 
 late to an unlimited and unprofitable extent as to how, for 
 instance, the Scotch collie came to select the proper vessels to 
 bear it to Scotland and to Inverkeithing. It is quite credible 
 that the dog should have recognised the language of its 
 master as spoken by Scotch sailors, for we know full well 
 that shepherds' dogs and other dogs are acquainted with 
 human words and phrases and their meanings; but it by 
 no means follows that what is credible actually occurred, 
 
UNSOLVED PEOBLEMS. 145 
 
 nor would the supposition that this particular collie recog- 
 nised Scotch as contrasted with Hindoo words help us far 
 in the explanation of all the phenomena of its remarkable 
 journey. We should still have to account for its discrimi- 
 nating between a Scotch- and English-bound vessel, and 
 even were we to assume that it shipped itself accidentally in 
 a vessel for Dundee, we must still explain how it came to 
 select another vessel bound for Inverkeithing. 
 
 One of the most remarkable forms of way -finding by ani- 
 mals is their frequently taking a direct course homewards 
 from any given point. From the bee's habit of doing so in 
 returning to its hive after honey-collecting, such a straight 
 homeward course is usually spoken of as a bee line. Frogs 
 make bee lines for food or water ; horses do the same for 
 their favourite pasturages, and they take the straightest 
 route back when they have been led or driven circuitously 
 from home (Houzeau). There are certain other forms of 
 way-finding that are as insusceptible of explanation as those 
 already described for instance 
 
 1. In the dark, or in snow-storms. 
 
 2. In dangerous or trackless localities. 
 
 3. In the din and confusion of battle or of the battle- 
 field. 
 
 Mules in dark mines know and find alone, unaided, their 
 respective working places. Not only so, but, as in so many 
 other cases, man's presence and attempted direction serves 
 simply to mislead and annoy the more sagacious and trust- 
 worthy ' lower ' animal. The leader of Eskimo dog-teams 
 finds his way through blinding snow (Parry). The horse 
 and mule show their superiority in some respects to their 
 riders by way-finding in dangerous Alpine or other paths, 
 where it is usually the best policy to leave them to their own 
 guidance, their own observation, judgment, and discretion. 
 (Farley). They may be trusted to find their way when their 
 rider is ignorant of the road, has lost his way, deviated from 
 some scarce perceptible track, or is incapable of directing 
 the animal's movements when, for instance, he is drunk 
 and has fallen off, or has been shot off in battle. Another 
 puzzling form of way-finding is connected with the discovery 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 by pet dogs of their masters' bodies among the slain after or 
 during battle as at Sedan or Waterloo ('Animal World'). 
 
 It must be obvious that all the forms of way -finding above 
 mentioned are not precisely of the same class or character. 
 In certain cases the route may have been, or certainly had 
 been, previously travelled, as in the case of the Eskimo dog 
 leader, that finds its way in blinding snow only when it has 
 formerly traversed the same route ; or the animal may, and 
 obviously does, make use of its senses, such as scent, as well 
 as of its intelligence, observation, and memory ; but in other 
 cases of previously untraversed land and sea, and of great 
 distances, the numerous discussions that have been recorded 
 in ' Nature ' and elsewhere as to the parts respectively played 
 by a sixth sense, or by smell and vision, show that it cannot 
 be said that any satisfactory solution of the problem has yet 
 been offered and accepted. 
 
 In studying the interesting subject of way -finding in 
 other animals it is important to enquire how far such a 
 power occurs in man, and what is its nature if and when it 
 is displayed by him. In the first place, then, many savage 
 races are known to possess a power not enjoyed by the civi- 
 lised white man of way-finding over trackless prairies and 
 through pathless woods. The red men of North America 
 are good instances of such prairie trackers, and the Austra- 
 lian blacks of bush way-finders. In both cases, just as it 
 is also among the lower animals, the faculty in question 
 has been popularly regarded as an instinct (Watson). As 
 regards the North American Indians and their path-finding 
 through the forests of Canada and New Brunswick, Dr. 
 Adams points out that they are guided by observation for 
 instance, of 
 
 1. The direction of the bent or fall of trees. 
 
 2. The position of their lichen-coating both of which 
 show the prevalent winds. 
 
 3. The course of streams. 
 
 4. A certain amount of star knowledge. 
 
 In other words, according to him, their faculty, know- 
 ledge, or skill is simply the result of observation and experience. 
 Unfortunately, it is said that so useful a faculty is usually 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 147 
 
 obliterated by civilisation. Not always or necessarily, how- 
 ever ; for it has been shown that white settlers in new coun- 
 tries, who are called upon by the necessities of life to develope 
 and cultivate the same closeness of observation of natural 
 objects or phenomena, to acquire the same kind and amount 
 of experience, acquire also the same useful path-finding 
 faculty through forest or over prairie. 
 
 Unerring accuracy in way-finding has been alleged on 
 behalf of the Mongols, as on that of the lower animals, while 
 the hunters of Kansas make use of a straight or bee line in 
 certain cases ; but there is no good ground for believing 
 that this so-called c instinct ' is less fallible than other forms 
 or faculties^ whether of instinct or of reason. Equally in 
 man and other animals, such way-finding as we have been 
 considering is rare and exceptional, while way -losing is ex- 
 tremely common even in short distances and on ground 
 previously traversed. It is only exceptionally intelligent 
 animals and men, and under exceptional circumstances, 
 that find their way over long stretches of previously untra- 
 versed land or sea. Nichols, who has had great experience 
 in the Australian bush, and has studied way-finding there 
 by the horse, referring to the remarkable rapidity with 
 which it frequently makes its way home, explains that this 
 faculty is exhibited only occasionally, by certain horses, 
 under certain circumstances. Success in way-finding is, 
 he thinks, in proportion to the animal's intelligence. He 
 ascribes it to the use of no mysterious or occult power or 
 knowledge. It is determined by attachment to home and 
 by some knowledge of locality, both involving memory of 
 places and persons and attention to landmarks. Home- 
 coming depends on distance from home, the duration of 
 absence, the discomforts of change of residence and of a new 
 home, the sense of strangeness therein. But the home- 
 longing may be overcome by kindness of treatment ; attach- 
 ment to a new home and master may gradually weaken and 
 dissipate the first home sickness, until the animal loses both 
 its desire for return to its old quarters and its memory of 
 the way. 
 
 Nor must we leave out of view the singular and accurate 
 
 L 2 
 
148 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 way-finding of blind men in the crowded, noisy streets of our 
 Inrge cities. The blind beggars of London, for instance, find 
 their way safely through all its intricacies, apparently by 
 sound and touch, while they recognise each other probably 
 by voice-sounds (Greenwood). In these men certain senses, 
 such as hearing and touch, apparently become preternatu- 
 rally acute by high cultivation and constant use. 
 
 It may safely be affirmed that, equally in the lower ani- 
 mals and in man, whether civilised or savage, in the Mongol 
 or Eed Indian, white settler or blind man, the frequently 
 remarkable power of way-finding depends in great measure, 
 if not entirely, upon intelligence, observation, and experi- 
 ence. That in many cases of way-finding, observation of 
 locality or landmarks is necessary is shown by such facts 
 as that birds engaged in long flights make them by day, 
 resting at night, and that rooks, losing their way in fog, 
 wait as prudently as men would for a clear and light atmo- 
 sphere to resume their journey (Nichols) . Way-finding occurs 
 in the most intelligent, observant, and experienced animals, 
 and in men whose intelligence, observation, and experience 
 have been exercised in special directions ; and there are no 
 instances of its occurring under opposite conditions in unin- 
 telligent or stupid, inexperienced, or young and unobservant 
 animals or men. But it cannot yet be affirmed that in no 
 case are other faculties or acquisitions involved than intelli- 
 gence, observation, and experience, or that their operation 
 is sufficient to explain satisfactorily all cases or kinds, or all 
 the phenomena, of way-finding in the lower animals. For 
 there are cases, immediately to be considered in connection 
 with the wonderful phenomena of migration, that cannot be 
 properly explained on the supposition that ordinary intelli- 
 gence, observation, and experience are alone involved or 
 applied. 
 
 Migration in various animals illustrates certain special 
 kinds or forms of way-finding or way-making as well as of 
 way-losing, and it also serves to illustrate a number of other 
 phenomena of an even perhaps more puzzling kind. 
 
 The swallow and other birds make their way to the same 
 nesting localities year after year over thousands of miles of 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 149 
 
 land and sea. Here we have, in the first place, instead of 
 individual animals, large bodies or flocks traversing great 
 distances. It may be that all members of the flock have 
 previously traversed the same ground or distance, or at 
 least that many of them have done so, and that there are 
 leaders, specially intelligent, observant, and experienced, 
 who are implicitly followed by the others ; but it is difficult 
 or impossible to understand what means the birds can have 
 at sea of judging of locality, or how they can recognise land- 
 
 ks across the whole continent of Europe and the whole 
 length of the British Islands. No proper explanation is 
 offered as to the sort of guidance the birds have in crossing 
 long stretches of sea or land by night. 
 
 According to Eae, Mackay, and other travellers in Arctic 
 America, such animals as the reindeer and buffalo, at certain 
 seasons or under certain conditions, travel due south or north, 
 as the case may be, the procedure being invariable in given 
 circumstances in the same species. In such a case there is 
 no evidence that any special locality is sought for, nor does 
 it appear how far north or south the animal herds wander, 
 for their travel is more like an indefinite wandering than a 
 specific way-finding. But it is asserted that the animals at 
 least maintain a course that is northerly or southerly, or 
 due north or south, while it is suggested that they do so by 
 reason of a sense of polarity. 
 
 Immense migrations of butterflies occur annually in 
 Central and South America, always from and in the same 
 direction, there being no return swarms (Belt). The same 
 occurs in the Norwegian lemming, in which, however, the 
 point ultimately reached by the mass of emigrants is usually, 
 if not always, deteriniuable. In their case it is the sea, into 
 which they rush headlong and perish wholesale by drowning. 
 Their migrations have, moreover, frequently been observed 
 at various of their stages. They are characterised inter alia 
 by the following singular phenomena : The animals march 
 in armies, in straight lines unswervingly, climbing labori- 
 ously up and over physical obstacles instead of simply avoid- 
 ing them, exhibiting a morbid pertinacity or determination 
 in adhering to their own mode of way-making, committing 
 
150 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 the gravest errors in relation to their own lives and safety 
 biting reindeer, for instance, and getting trod to death by 
 the pain- and panic-struck animals ; entering rivers or lakes 
 unnecessarily, and so being drowned in swarms ; and finally 
 losing their way apparently in the sea. As in the case of 
 the butterflies, none ever return, and the exact locality 
 whence they come is equally unknown. In the lemming 
 migrations we have again the use of a bee line a straight 
 march apparently towards the sea, a march that allows no 
 obstacles to stand in the way. But while in many cases of 
 bee lines there is or may be some knowledge of the ground 
 to be traversed, of the point of departure and of the goal or 
 home, here there appears to be absolute topographical ignor- 
 ance associated with other singular and no doubt morbid 
 forms of stupidity. 
 
 Obviously the mode of way-finding is not the only puzzle 
 among the phenomena of migration, nor is it perhaps the 
 most interesting of several problems that suggest themselves 
 for solution an connection with these phenomena. Thus of 
 the causes of migration itself, on the one hand, and of certain 
 of its results on the other, we have at present no satisfactory 
 knowledge. As regards bird migrations, it has been sug- 
 gested that their cause is or may be 
 
 1. Search for food or water, or for 
 
 2. Breeding ground, or for 
 
 3. Light or warmth, or both conjoined. 
 
 No doubt some or all of these causes or motives may be 
 operative in certain cases, as in autumnal southward migra- 
 tions; but such suppositions do not account for all the 
 phenomena for instance, for the periodicity, apparent sud- 
 denness, and imperiousness of the impulse in the swallow, 
 salmon, or lemming. There are migrations on the small 
 scale the reason of which is obvious and intelligible for 
 instance, the daily or regular migration of a hen and her 
 chickens in search of food, or the less regular but equally 
 familiar migration of the reindeer to avoid insect pests, such 
 as the gadfly. But it does not follow that migrations on a 
 larger scale differ from these migrations of the hen, reindeer, 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 151 
 
 or other animals only in degree, the probability being that 
 they are quite different in kind. 
 
 Among the most remarkable results of wholesale migra- 
 tions is wholesale destruction of life in a great variety of 
 ways. In the lemming alone loss of life occurs on the large 
 scale by 
 
 1. Hunger. 
 
 2. Cannibalism. 
 
 3. Falling a prey to feral animals. 
 
 4. Provoking fatal injury by the reindeer. 
 
 5. Drowning 
 
 as well as in other ways ; for it will face fire or other 
 dangers as readily as it does water, and perish rather than 
 avoid, or at least instead of avoiding, peril of whatever cha- 
 racter. Here we have the element of will, deliberation ; so 
 that in one sense the self-immolation of the animals in the 
 sea is to be considered an act of suicide proper. The whole 
 phenomena have a morbid character from the irresistible 
 impulse which urges the lemming armies to set forth their 
 utter improvidence as to maintenance en route, their inca- 
 pacity to appreciate and avoid dangers, their suicidal im- 
 molation. Possibly these lemming migrations are simply 
 singular illustrations of epidemic morbid impulse, leading to 
 epidemic suicide. 
 
 Wholesale destruction of life, however, is not confined to 
 the migrations of the lemming or other animals. Other 
 illustrations are to be found in the annual or periodical 
 massacre of the neuters by wasps (West wood), or of the 
 drones by bees (Kirby and Spence). In none of these cases 
 can we explain the object or cause of such dire waste of life. It 
 is easy to assume and to say that a murderous instinct or impulse 
 is developed at certain times or under certain circumstances 
 in the wasp or bee ; but this is more a mode of describing the 
 massacre itself, and the fury, unrelentingness, or merciless- 
 ness that characterise it, than an explanation why and how 
 such an impulse should be periodically developed or such a 
 waste of life become necessary or desirable. 
 
 Many animals show a singular prescience of certain classes 
 
152 UNSOLVED PBOBLEMS. 
 
 of coming events. Thus certain birds and other animals 
 appear to know when a given district or country is becoming 
 infected with epidemic disease, in which case they leave or 
 avoid the infected district or country till the epidemic has 
 disappeared. This has been specially noticed prior to out- 
 breaks of such diseases as cholera in man. In the autumn 
 of 1874 a paragraph taken from a foreign (German) journal 
 called the ' Jardin Zoologique,' and relating to supposed or 
 alleged foresight in birds, went the round of British medical 
 journals and newspapers. It stated that 6 a few days previous 
 to the terrible ravages of cholera in Galicia in 1872 all the 
 sparrows suddenly quitted the town of Przemysl, and not a 
 single bird returned until the end of November, when the 
 disease had entirely disappeared.' 1 'The same circum- 
 stance was remarked in Munich and in Nuremberg. During 
 the attacks of cholera at St. Petersburg and Riga in 1848, 
 in Western Prussia in 1849, and in Hanover in 1 850, every 
 swallow and sparrow forsook the towns, and remained ab- 
 sent until the eradication of the scourge.' 2 In various con- 
 tributions to the ' Natural History of Cholera,' published 
 nearly a quarter of a century ago, 3 I gave other similar in- 
 stances of the apparent influence of the epidemic cholera 
 poison on a considerable variety of animals. In all such 
 narratives it is obviously necessary, in the first place, to 
 determine whether the coincidence is as stated whether it 
 be a fact that sparrows, swallows, jackdaws, or other birds 
 or animals do desert cholera-stricken towns or districts prior 
 to the outbreak of the epidemic in man and in the next 
 place we have to assure ourselves that the coincidence, if 
 proved, is not merely accidental, but has occurred so fre- 
 quently under the same or similar circumstances that some 
 relationship of cause and effect must be admitted. Assum- 
 ing that the coincidence has been indubitable and frequent, 
 the only sort of foresight or prescience that at present we 
 can safely ascribe to such cautious animals is of the same 
 kind as that which enables them to forecast weather change. 
 
 1 < British Medical Journal,' vol. ii. for 1874, p. 312. 
 
 2 < Daily Keview ' (Edinburgh), August 31, 1874. 
 * Vide Bibliography. 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 153 
 
 The phenomena are capable of explanation on the supposi- 
 tion that certain other animals are more sensitive than man 
 himself to the influence of, to him unknown, atmospheric 
 conditions a proposition that has been stated and discussed 
 in the chapter on ' Sensitiveness.' 
 
 Other illustrations, varying greatly in their character, of 
 apparent foresight or prescience in the lower animals are to be 
 found in 
 
 1. The discovery of a master's thoughts or intentions by 
 the dog or cat, including, for instance, the discovery of in- 
 tended murders or robberies. 
 
 2. The discovery of water supply in the desert, steppe, 
 or prairie by horses, cattle, camels, frogs, baboons, as well 
 as by the blacks in the central deserts of Australia. Here 
 again the so-called instinct of the lower animal or savage 
 accomplishes that which too often baffles all the intelligence 
 of the white man. 
 
 3. The discovery of coming ships long before they are 
 sighted by man. Thus long before a ship is sighted off the 
 coast of Tahiti she is signalled by the simultaneous crowing 
 of all the cocks on the island. ' It is next to impossible to 
 attribute the fact to a fortuitous coincidence, as it repro- 
 duces itself regularly without any exception ' ] so regularly 
 indeed that pilots, both French and native, act upon this 
 species of signal by putting off to sea in their canoes in 
 search of the coming vessels. So it is said, but in such a 
 case it is undesirable to attempt explanation of the alleged 
 fact until the fact itself is proved to be indubitable. 
 
 4. Premonitions or presentiments of death, danger, or 
 misfortune, especially by the dog (Berkeley), cat, and horse. 
 These premonitions include a forewarning of coming earth- 
 quakes on the part of the ox, sheep, and horse, which take 
 alarm and betake themselves to flight and safety. They 
 also include the fear of the shambles by oxen a dread per- 
 haps arising from the smells or sights to which they are 
 there exposed. Here again we have to do probably the 
 facts being admitted simply with a greater acuteness of 
 certain of the senses, enabling other animals much earlier 
 
 1 ' Constitutionnel,' November 1874. 
 
154 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 than man, or perhaps even his instruments, to feel or hear 
 the very slight shaking motion or rumbling noise that con- 
 stitutes the first symptom of the earthquake. 
 
 There are doubtless many kinds of coming events that can 
 be foreseen and prepared for by such animals as the dog 
 for instance, its master intending to take a walk or to go to 
 church, market, fair, or chase. It may see its master's pre- 
 parations, understand their significance, and make its own 
 arrangements or hold itself ready for orders from its master. 
 And in some of the more puzzling cases above given similar 
 keenness of observation, similar shrewdness in drawing 
 inferences, similar general intelligence, may be the fons et 
 origo of the apparent power of prevision. 
 
 The mode or modes by which the individuals of a species 
 intercommunicate for their common benefit have yet in many 
 cases to be determined. We know a great deal concerning 
 the language of animals, and we have indubitable evidence 
 that they can, and do, constantly communicate to each other 
 intelligence of all kinds warnings of dangers, requests for 
 aid, grievances that have been borne and that require redress, 
 plans of foraging or warlike campaigns, and so forth. But 
 in many cases we are yet ignorant what is the precise nature 
 of the language used, by what means intercommunication 
 is effected. Thus the c American Whaleman ' (Davis) states 
 that i sperm whales have a means of communicating with 
 each other at long distances how long has never been de- 
 termined, but certainly at distances . . . . of six or seven 
 miles. The means are a mystery, but every whaleman has 
 observed the fact, and has based his operations in the chase 
 upon it. It has been suggested that, as water is so good a 
 conductor of sound, it may be sound ; but the distances are 
 too great for any sound which the whale is capable of making 
 to penetrate, and it is observed that the telegraph is as 
 perfect as ever in high winds, when a thousand waves are 
 breaking.' We know just as little, however, of the lan- 
 guage used by dogs to each other for instance, when a 
 small one tells a larger that it has been cruelly used by a 
 bully, whom it cannot itself punish, requesting co-operation 
 in revenge ; or when the pariah dogs of Damascus, as de- 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 155 
 
 scribed by Mrs. Burton, pass on a stranger under their escort 
 from one dog sentinel to another. 
 
 In many animals there are periodical assemblages of 
 great numbers, sometimes from all points of the compass, 
 of the object of which, and the nature of the singular pro- 
 ceedings that frequently characterise them, we must also be 
 said to be ignorant. Some of these assemblages and pro- 
 ceedings in birds are believed to be judicial, and their 
 observers have described judges, jury, culprit, advocates, 
 officers of court, conviction, condemnation, and summary 
 punishment. But in other cases such a supposition does 
 not explain the phenomena. Thus a writer on the habits 
 of the Indian crow says, ' In addition to their bathing as- 
 semblages, they have remarkable parliaments .... always 
 held in quiet, out-of-the-way places, and always on the 
 ground. . . . The proceedings are absolutely silent, and 
 seem mainly to consist in small knots of individuals ex- 
 hibiting their graces before one bird. They will hop round 
 him iii various attitudes, look at him first with one eye, 
 then with the other, and all the while the central in- 
 dividual will be supremely indifferent to their attentions. 
 Perhaps the proceedings will be varied by a disconcerted 
 crow hopping to another group, there to exhibit his or her 
 charms. This silent session will be maintained for an hour, 
 and then suddenly break up with loud cawing, just as if the 
 crows were being released from a disagreeable duty and 
 were rejoicing in their escape. I never could make out what 
 these assemblages are for. They are not amatory, for they 
 occur as often after as before the breeding season, and they 
 are not judicial, for they are absolutely silent and 110 results 
 follow.' 
 
 There are many curious companionships or attachments 
 between animals of different species and genera, including 
 those between the lower animals and man, the cause, origin, 
 or object of which does not appear, if indeed any intelligible 
 motive can be said to exist. In some cases there has been 
 an intelligible cause, such as gratitude for benefit, or desire 
 for protection or for co-operation in defence ; but in many 
 others the only explanation that suggests itself and it can 
 
156 UNSOLVED PBOBLEMS. 
 
 scarcely be said to be an explanation at all or always is that 
 certain singular attachments or companionships are deter- 
 mined by caprice. That such attachments, however, are of 
 the most various kind, differing probably in their nature or 
 causation, is shown by the following examples of them :- 
 
 1. The sudden attachments of dogs to human strangers, 
 whom they had never before seen, and of whom they conse- 
 quently knew nothing. 
 
 2. The association of the pilot fish and shark ; or of the 
 
 3. Sucking fish and the other larger fishes to which it 
 fastens itself ; or of the 
 
 4. Zigzag (bird) and the crocodile. 
 
 5. Of certain fishes and hermit crabs with certain sea 
 anemones. 
 
 6. Of certain ants and blind beetles. 
 
 7. Of certain pea crabs with mussels. 
 
 8. Of the fishing frog and a kind of eel. 
 
 Equally difficult of explanation are the remarkable anti- 
 pathies or aversions so frequently shown by dogs to certain 
 persons or things. There are many cases in which dislike, 
 more or less decided and permanent, is accounted for on 
 the ground of previous cruelty by a given person, and it is 
 quite possible that certain other cases are to be explained by 
 cruelty inflicted on some progenitor, in which case dislike 
 to a particular class of men may become hereditarily trans- 
 mitted. But, even accepting such an explanation, it remains 
 to be determined how, by what means, dogs become aware 
 of the presence of a man belonging to a hereditarily hated 
 class. A few years ago much discussion took place in the 
 columns of ' Nature ' as to the hereditary hatred of butchers 
 by dogs. It was shown inter alia by several well-known 
 authors that young dogs, that had never had any cause to 
 dislike fleshers or fleshers' shops, avoided, dreaded, or de- 
 tested both as thoroughly as older dogs that might themselves 
 have suffered from the cruelty of butchers when visiting 
 butchers' shops or otherwise, and that certain dogs could 
 detect a butcher even when well washed and dressed, far 
 away from his shop, and under circumstances that might 
 well have thrown the animals off their guard. In order to 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 157 
 
 judge of the force of this fact it must be borne in mind how 
 readily dogs commit errors of identity, how easily they fail 
 to recognise their own loved masters under unusual circum- 
 stances for instance, as to mere dress. There are many in- 
 stances of dogs not knowing their masters when the latter 
 were simply nude as when bathing or had changed their 
 ordinary dress for a hunting or fancy costume, or had ap- 
 peared in the unexpected role of burglars or otherwise. The 
 marked antipathy to butchers, and the discovery of butchers 
 simply as such in any company and under any circumstances, 
 by certain dogs, is usually attributed to the use of their 
 keen powers of smell or scent ; but that this is the proper 
 explanation cannot be said yet to have been determined. 
 Other singular antipathies, the nature or causation of which 
 has also yet to be determined, include 
 
 1. That of European dogs to negroes, according to Mon- 
 teiro. His own dog never got over this aversion, one that is 
 set down to the odour of the negro's skin, which is described 
 as abominable. But it may be due partly also, or altogether, 
 to mere colour. 
 
 2. That of nearly related birds which * in their earlier 
 years .... are close companions and friends,' such as the 
 swift and chimney swallow. 
 
 It may be by smell or hearing, but it may also be by some 
 means at present unknown, that the dog or cat, even when 
 blind or when vision is otherwise impossible, discovers the 
 approach or presence of friends or foes, masters or strangers. 
 I have myself repeatedly seen an old blind cat at once detect 
 the presence in a room of a domestic servant who was un- 
 kind to it, and seek safety from the dreaded kick apparently 
 by immediate flight or concealment. It was impossible for 
 me to determine from what I saw whether smell or hearing 
 was chiefly at work, whether the animal recognised the girl's 
 footfall or smelt her person or dress, nor had I the desirable 
 opportunity of putting the matter to the test by experimental 
 enquiry. Somewhat similar in character are 
 
 1. The vague uneasiness felt and shown by the dog in 
 proximity to a master whose person is unseen, or whose pre- 
 sence is presumably otherwise unknown. 
 
158 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 
 
 2. The recognition, by a still more marked degree of 
 mental excitement, of the body of a master or mistress, 
 though coffined and brought from a distance. 
 
 3. The recognition of a mistress's propinquity by Lady 
 Davies's paroquet on the occasion of an experimental visit 
 paid to it, when it could neither hear her voice nor see her 
 face. 
 
 4. Dogs pursuing dog-skin sellers (Pierquin). 
 
 5. The recognition and avoidance of human dog-stealers 
 and police stray-dog killers (Low). 
 
 6. The detection of frozen travellers buried in snow. 
 
 7. The finding, collecting, guarding, or home-bringing of 
 sheep in the dark (Hogg). 
 
 8. The detection of murderers or thieves ; or of 
 
 9. Lost or stolen and buried property or treasure. 
 
 10. A dog, though blind, becoming aware of a master's 
 death (' Percy Anecdotes '). 
 
 11. The distinction of a dead master on the battle-field 
 from heaps of other bodies, all mutilated and unrecognisable 
 by their features to man. 
 
 We have no clue at present to the nature of the attraction 
 that bright, glittering metallic objects have for many ani- 
 mals, to their reasons for hoarding them, to the possible use 
 that could under any circumstances be made of them. We 
 know that rats, starlings, and other animal thieves pilfer 
 coin, spoons, and other similar but heterogeneous articles 
 that are apparently utterly useless to them, and that they 
 accumulate them in hoards without making any other or 
 further use of them. In the Vischaca such hoards are com- 
 parable to the midden heaps of primitive man (Cassell), ex- 
 cept in so far as concerns the uselessness and heterogeneity 
 of the articles accumulated, and those of the rat are fre- 
 quently also both large and varied as to their constituents. 
 Were it not that the most miscellaneous articles are piled up 
 in unutilised heaps, we might conceive their being rendered 
 available either as playthings or ornaments. If in any of 
 these cases there is a distinct object in committing such 
 thefts, making such acquisitions of useless property, it has 
 yet to be determined what that object is. My own belief is, 
 
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 159 
 
 as expressed in other chapters, that we have here to do with 
 a sort of morbid acquisitiveness of the character of that which 
 in man is known as kleptomania. 
 
 And there are many other phenomena connected with 
 the habits of animals which at present puzzle us, which we 
 cannot satisfactorily explain, for which we cannot assign any 
 intelligible or obvious motive, cause, or object, and which 
 are really, or may be, morbid in their character, referable to 
 the category of disease, mental or bodily, to morbid impulse, 
 morbid feeling, morbid thought, morbid will, morbid fancy ; 
 while there are many other phenomena that may not be, 
 or appear to be, morbid, or the result of morbid mental 
 action, that are yet unexplained and that cannot be enume- 
 rated here. Sufficient illustrations as to number and variety 
 have already been given to indicate the kind of mental phe- 
 nomena, or phenomena connected with mental action, in the 
 lower animals that constitute puzzles or problems awaiting 
 solution, and which will probably repay careful experimental 
 enquiry. 
 
MIND IN THE LOWER 
 ANIMALS: 
 
 ITS NORMAL MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MORAL SENSE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 PRIOR to any consideration of the nature or extent of the 
 moral sense in other animals, it is necessary that we should 
 study in man 
 
 1. The absence of morals, morality, or conscience appa- 
 rent or real, comparative or absolute. 
 
 2. The genesis and slow evolution or gradual development, 
 and the cultivation, of the moral sense. 
 
 3. Its manifold perversions in disease or otherwise. 
 
 4. Its decay or degeneration in age. 
 
 Hence it is incumbent on the student of comparative 
 psychology, before he can be in a proper position to judge 
 of the moral status of other animals, to acquaint himself 
 fully with the moral history or status of the following races, 
 groups, or conditions of mankind : 
 
 1. Early states or stages of human society, as illustrated 
 by primitive or savage man. 
 
 2. The infant or child of civilised parents. 
 
 3. Idiots, as illustrating mental defect. 
 
 4. The insane, as illustrating mental disorder. 
 
 5. The criminal classes, as embodying, to various extents 
 or in various senses, both mental defect and disorder. 
 
 6. What may well be called the vicious though popu- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 MOEAL SENSE IN MAN. 
 
 larly regarded as non-criminal classes, higher and lower, 
 among civilised nations. 
 
 7. Eunuchs, as illustrating certain peculiarities of corre- 
 lated physical malformation and mental degeneration. 
 
 8. The second childhood of old age, even in the midst of 
 the highest civilisation. 
 
 We have first, then, to consider the moral condition of 
 such savage or primitive races as the following : 
 I. African. 
 
 1. East tropical or subtropical 
 
 a. Johanna men, Mpongwe (Burton), and other 
 
 negroes. 
 
 b. Dokos of Abyssinia (Biichner). 
 
 2. West tropical or subtropical. 
 
 c. Natives of Dahomey (Ellis) . 
 
 d. Natives of Angola (Monteiro) . 
 
 e. Suahali tribe of Sierra Leone (Krap, Vidal) . 
 /. Negroes of the Soudan (Biichner). 
 
 3. Central tropical or subtropical. 
 
 g. Bari, Nuehr, Latooka, and other tribes of the 
 White Nile and Albert Nyanza districts (Baker) . 
 
 4. Southern. 
 
 h. Bosjesmans and Kafirs (Wood, Andersson). 
 
 II. Asiatic. 
 
 a. The ' wild men of the woods,' the jungle Veddas 
 
 (or Weddahs) of Ceylon (Hartshorne). 
 
 b. The f wild men of the woods,' the apelike tribes, 
 
 the Samangs or Jacoons of the Malay Peninsula 
 (Bradley). 
 
 c. The Andaman Islanders or Mincopies (Biichner, 
 
 Owen). 
 
 III. American. 
 
 1. North. 
 
 a. Mexican, Apache, and other Indians (Biichner). 
 
 2. South. 
 
 b. The ' men of the woods,' or Botokudos, of Brazil 
 
 (Biichner) . 
 
 IV. Australasian. 
 
 a. The aborigines or c blacks' of Australia (Biichner). 
 
MOKAL SENSE IN MAN. 165 
 
 b. The Maoris of New Zealand (Colenso) . 
 
 c. The Fijians (Wood). 
 
 Among these and in many other savage races we find 
 according to the concurrent testimony of travellers and 
 residents, including missionaries on the one hand and 
 naturalists on the other the following negative or positive 
 moral qualities or conditions : 
 
 I. Negative. 
 
 1. No sense of sexual decency, modesty, chastity, virtue, 
 purity, propriety, or shame. 
 
 2. No marriage tie or rite. 
 
 3. No family arrangements. 
 
 4. No love maternal, paternal, conjugal, parental, filial, 
 or fraternal. 
 
 5. No idea of paternity or of other relationships. 
 
 6. No kindness to or consideration for each other, what- 
 ever the natural or other relationship. 
 
 7. No respect for woman or sex. 
 
 8. No compassion, pity, sympathy for suffering. 
 
 9. No mercy. 
 
 10. No regret, remorse, self-reproach, or repentance. 
 
 II. No gratitude or other form, of response to kindness 
 received. 
 
 12. No sense of guilt or criminality. 
 
 13. No idea of duty or responsibility. 
 
 14. No conception of right and wrong, of moral good or 
 evil. 
 
 15. No sense of justice or equity. 
 
 16. No respect for the rights of property or possession. 
 
 17. No self-denial or self-control. 
 
 18. No knowledge of truth. 
 
 19. No honesty. 
 
 20. No ideas of honour. 
 
 21. No generosity, magnanimity, or charity. 
 
 22. No respect for or obedience to authority of any kind, 
 unless embodied in the form of superior power. 
 
 11. Positive. 
 
 1. Indiscriminate or promiscuous association, mingling 
 or intercourse of the sexes, and of all ages. 
 
166 MORAL SENSE IN MAN. 
 
 2. Lust, lewdness, and debauchery. 
 
 3: Desertion, including exposure and mutilation of or 
 insults to the young and aged, sick, weak or disabled, and 
 dead. 
 
 4. Cruelty to, including the torture of, captives or ene- 
 mies, and pleasure in witnessing the sufferings of their 
 victims. 
 
 5. Bloodthirstiness, propensity to murder, including 
 cannibalism. 
 
 6. Dishonesty, envy, covetousness, greed, proneness to 
 theft, robbery, plunder of all kinds or degrees. 
 
 7. Prevalence of perjury, mendacity, lying. 
 
 8. Selfishness. 
 
 9. Ingratitude, including the repayment of good with evil. 
 
 10. Treachery, deceit, cunning. 
 
 11. Dominance of the instincts, appetites, and passions. 
 In describing the moral condition of savage races of man, 
 
 some authors content themselves by speaking generally of an 
 utter or comparative want of the moral sense or of conscience, 
 while others specify and dwell upon the individual moral 
 defects that have arrested their attention. 
 
 Of the first class of descriptions or opinions the following 
 are illustrations : Among the apelike tree-men of the 
 Malay Peninsula ' not even the rudiments of morality 
 seemed to exist' (Bradley). The negro of Eastern Tropical 
 Africa 'has, or knows, no conscience' (Burton). The natives 
 of the White Nile districts are 'inaccessible to all moral 
 feeling,' while the Bari ' has not a moral human instinct ' 
 (Baker). The Brazilian Botokudo is 'quite destitute of 
 moral notions .... entirely destitute of moral ideas. . . . 
 Immorality is normal ' (Biichner). 
 
 Of individual moral defects not a few traveller-authors 
 have been struck by the absence of gratitude, or any feeling 
 or expression thereto akin, in savages. ' No benefit or good, 
 however great .... is appreciated or recognised by him. 
 Such a thing as gratitude is quite unknown ' in the West 
 African negro (Monteiro) . ' The results of emancipation 
 have proved that the negro does not appreciate the blessings 
 of freedom. Nor does he show the slightest gratitude to 
 
MORAL SENSE IX MAN. 167 
 
 the hand that broke the rivets of his fetters. ... He is 
 utterly obtuse to all feelings of gratitude' (Baker). 'Dr. 
 Krap was unable to find any word expressing the idea of 
 gratitude in the language of all the Suahali (Wasawahili) 
 tribes a fact significant enough as to the total absence of 
 the moral feeling denoted by that name' (Yidal). 'To a 
 New Zealander gratitude was wholly unknown. They have 
 no word for it in their language no way of expressing a 
 feeling that never existed in their breast. To a deeply 
 reflecting mind this sad fact may appear to be a far worse 
 one than their cannibalism ' (Colenso). 
 
 The want of filial love is even more striking as illustrated 
 in the treatment of parents, of the aged, weak, sick, feeble 
 or disabled, and of the dead. The Fiji an s ' have not the 
 least scruple in burying a father alive when he begins to be 
 infirm, and assist in strangling a mother, so that she may 
 keep him company.' As to the Bosjesmans of South Africa 
 and the aborigines of Australia, 'I very much doubt whether 
 they ever have possessed the least idea that any duty was 
 owing to a parent from a child.' Among the North Ameri- 
 can Indians, as among the Fijians, c the idea of being 
 subject to their parents never enters their heads, still less 
 does the idea of loving them. It is the glory of a North 
 American Indian boy, at as early an age as possible, to 
 despise his mother and defy his father,' while the young 
 women ' utterly despise the elder and feeble women, even 
 though they be their own mothers.' In short, filial love 
 6 barely exists at all among them, and certainly does not 
 survive into mature years' (Wood). 
 
 On the other hand, the 'parental love of a savage does 
 not last longer than that of a bird, a cat, or a dog, taking 
 into consideration the relative duration of life ; ' nor, while 
 it does last, is it of a very commendable kind. Among 
 the Bosjesmans and the Australian blacks 'the father is 
 just as likely as not to murder his child as soon as it is born 
 perhaps rather more likely than not. And if he be angry 
 with anyone for any reason, he has a way of relieving his 
 feelings by driving his spear through his wife or child, which- 
 ever happens to be nearest. Even the mother treats her child 
 
168 MORAL SENSE IN MAN. 
 
 rather worse than a cow treats her calf, and leaves it to shift 
 for itself at an age when the children of civilised parents 
 can scarcely be trusted to pass a quarter of an hour alone ' 
 (Wood). 
 
 All other kinds of affection are naturally at an equally low 
 ebb conjugal and fraternal, for instance. The Angola negro 
 has no words or expressions c indicative of affection or love;' nor 
 does he show such emotions themselves (Monteiro). Among 
 the African Latookas ' there is no such thing as love. . . . 
 The feeling is not understood. . . . Women are so far ap- 
 preciated as they are valuable animals. ... A savage holds 
 to his cows and his women, but especially to his cows. In a 
 razzia fight he will seldom stand for the sake of his wives, 
 but when he does fight it is to save his cattle' (Baker). 
 Girls among the North American Indians ' will tear out of 
 the hands ' of elder women, including their own mothers, 
 6 the food which they are about to eat, on the plea that old 
 women are of no use, and that the food will be much better 
 employed in nourishing the young and the strong. ... If 
 the tribe be on the move, and those who are old and infirm 
 are felt to be hindrances, they settle the matter by leaving 
 them behind ' (Wood) . 
 
 Anything like sexual decency or modesty is scarcely to be 
 looked for. The sexual passion of the Angola negro is 
 6 purely of an animal description ' (Monteiro) ; and it cannot 
 be said to be more than this in countless thousands of men 
 and women even in civilised societies. The ape men of the 
 province of Wellesley in the Malay Peninsula are 6 even more 
 degraded and lost to a sense of decency than the lowest 
 orders of the animal creation ' (Bradley) . In certain savage 
 races coition frequently takes place in public (Houzeau) . The 
 Australian black women are 'destitute of all sense of shame, 
 and never think of covering their pudenda.' If not prevented 
 by the police in Australian towns, these natives ' would daily 
 violate public decency, after the manner of monkeys in a 
 menagerie.' The Brazilian Botokudo, too, ' is without the 
 slightest sentiment of modesty,' and in other savage tribes 
 6 no idea of shame has ever caused them to think of veiling 
 their sexual parts' (Biichner). Defcecation is another prac- 
 
MOBAL SENSE IN MAN. 169 
 
 tice often of the most open or public kind, not only in savage 
 peoples, but in the midst of our own boasted civilisation. 
 There is probably not a town or village in not a part of our 
 own country in which so revolting a practice does not con- 
 stitute a prevalent public nuisance. Evidences of its ex- 
 istence as such obtrude themselves on my own notice literally 
 daily. 
 
 Want of honesty a propensity to steal, utter disregard for 
 any rights of property is a common feature in the character 
 of savage man ; and disregard for truth untruthfulness is 
 almost an invariable accompaniment. The natives of Daho- 
 mey ' are not ashamed to be detected in lying and in the 
 performance of base and dishonest actions' (Ellis). Of the 
 negro of Angola Monteiro says, c His constant want of truth 
 and his invariable dishonesty are the result .... of the 
 impossibility to understand that there is anything wrong in 
 being either a liar or a thief.' Of certain African negro 
 slaves in the North American States a German traveller 
 writes, ' Almost all are thieves and liars. Hence the evidence 
 of a black has no validity in a court of justice' (Buchner). 
 The Sultan Abclallah, King of Johanna, in a letter to Dr. 
 Kirk, H.B.M. Consul at Zanzibar, printed in one of our 
 Government Blue Books, remarks, apropos of the want of 
 veracity that characterises his subjects the Johanna men, 
 of whom we have heard so much in connexion with the 
 various Livingstone relief expeditions, ' A nigar .... was 
 never born to tell the truth. . . . Our law never allows a 
 nigar to swear as witness.' And there are hosts of travel- 
 lers, and of residents, in countries in which the ' nigger ' 
 is a native, who constantly bear similarly strong testimony 
 to his untruthfulness. Certain African tribes are * lying and 
 deceitful to a superlative degree ' (Baker.) 
 
 Indifference to human suffering, deliberate cruelty to the 
 weak or helpless, enjoyment of the results of torture of vic- 
 tims, mercilessness or relentlessness, are also common attri- 
 butes of the savage character. And in this respect, as in so 
 many others, the human savage compares most unfavourably 
 with the Camivora or other animals. The Carnivora prey 
 on living victims; but not only savage frequently also semi- 
 
170 MORAL SENSE IN MAN. 
 
 civilised or semi-barbarous man does the same. For in- 
 stance, the Hamram hunters of Abyssinia cut steaks out 
 of living cattle. The Angola negro ' has not the slightest 
 idea of mercy, pity, or compassion for suffering. A fellow-crea- 
 ture or animal writhing in pain or torture is to him a sight 
 highly provocative of merriment and enjoyment' (Monteiro). 
 
 The human child, even among the most highly civilised 
 nations, has to be taught by rewards and punishments what 
 is right and wrong, just as in the case of the lower ani- 
 mals. It has to learn to distinguish simply between what is 
 forbidden and what is permitted long before it acquires any 
 abstract ideas of moral right or wrong, if indeed in many 
 cases it ever acquires such ideas. In other words, its moral 
 sense or conscience has to be developed ; it is not innate or 
 congenital, and, as will afterwards appear, it is sometimes 
 never duly developed. Cruelty, however, is natural or innate 
 in the child. It appears to be an ' instinct.' Children have 
 to be taught kindness to and consideration for each other 
 and for other animals. Mercilessness or pitilessness is a 
 frequent characteristic of childhood. The child often revels 
 in its cruelty, takes the same evident pleasure in torture that 
 the Eed Indian does as regards his victim, the cat with the 
 mouse, or the eagle with its captive (Houzeau). Infants and 
 children, indeed, torment animals for ' sport ' to themselves ; 
 and the same instincts of cruelty, love of sport, and destruc- 
 tiveness break out at a later stage amongst adults of the 
 highest ranks, including royalty itself, when they revel in 
 the butchery of battued pigeons or hares. Children, then, 
 obviously require education or training in kindness, in jus- 
 tice, in a sense of right and wrong, in the doing of the 
 right and avoidance of the wrong. 
 
 The human idiot shows the same conspicuous moral de- 
 fects that characterise many savage races man in a primi- 
 tive state. He has no sense of decency or modesty. There 
 is incapacity for moral as for mental development. Among 
 the mental phenomena presented by wolf children in India 
 are insensibility to kindness, the absence of shame, joy, 
 gratitude. 
 
 In various forms of human insanity moral degradation 
 
MORAL SENSE IN MAX. 171 
 
 is also common. There is a whole group of phenomena de- 
 nominated moral insanity, and moral perversion is perhaps 
 the most frequent of the precursors of insanity that which 
 first attracts notice. Just as in idiots and imbeciles, and 
 among many savages, human insanity in the midst of the 
 highest civilisation is marked frequently by absence of all 
 decency, modesty, chastity ; by incapacity, in certain cases, 
 of understanding or conceiving ideas of right and wrong ; by 
 propensities to theft, debauchery, and other vices. In short, 
 there may be said to be, for the time, no moral sense. 
 
 A want or perversion of the moral sense characterises 
 also the whole criminal class of the most highly civilised 
 peoples. In French as in British criminals Dr. Despine 
 and Dr. Bruce Thomson alike describe even entire absence of 
 a moral sense, with a singular want also of emotionalness. 
 There is no sense of duty to control the will, the criminal's 
 acts being the ' result of the strongest instinct, appetite, or 
 passion prevailing at the time. . . . Like brutes, savages, 
 and idiots, they yield to natural appetites and passions, un- 
 restrained and unreproached by any feeling of impropriety.' 1 
 
 Of American criminals Dr. Macdonald, of the State 
 Asylum for Insane Criminals, Auburn, New York, tells us, 
 e According to my observation, the chief characteristics of 
 these cases are absence of moral sense, absence of delusions, 
 while the intellectual faculties, such as they are, apparently 
 remain intact. They seem to have the arts of lying and theft 
 developed to the highest degree, the former of which they 
 diligently make use of to create mischief and disturbance. 
 They have bad tempers, which they not infrequently exhibit, 
 their paroxysms of passion being followed by a sullen, moody 
 state.' 2 These defects or perversions of the moral sense, then, 
 are equally common in the insane and the criminal, and are 
 equally familiar to the physicians of lunatic asylums and of 
 prisons. Such phenomena are matters of daily observation 
 to myself in my professional rounds as a hospital physi- 
 cian. 
 
 In classes that are not distinctively criminal, and some 
 
 1 Reviewer in the London Medical Record ' of May 1875. 
 
 2 Seventeenth Annual Report of said Asylum (1877), p. 14. 
 
172 MOKAL SENSE IN MAN. 
 
 of which are composed of members not necessarily illiterate 
 or otherwise unrefined, there is a low development or a great 
 degradation or perversion of the moral sentiment. The evi- 
 dences of this vary both in their nature and number, accord- 
 ing to the class whose habits are matters of enquiry. Of 
 modern white savages those that approach most nearly to the 
 primitive peoples of lands and islands beyond the pale of 
 civilisation are, for instance, the cave-dwellers of Wick Bay 
 (Caithness-shire, Scotland), as described by Dr. Mitchell, of 
 Edinburgh a group or tribe of wandering gipsies (or 8cot- 
 tice tinkers). f He found them to be of the lowest type; 
 poor weak creatures morally, intellectually, and even physi- 
 cally. They were the analogues of the inhabitants of our 
 city closes, and were not a whit more degraded. . . . Among 
 them virtue and chastity feebly existed ; honour and truth 
 even more feebly.' L Of a group of twenty-four persons some 
 were wholly, others partially, nude, in both cases with c no 
 sense of shame.' 
 
 On the other hand, the recreations of the miners, col- 
 liers, or navvies of the central counties including their 
 wife-kicking and of the aristocracy of the metropolis in- 
 cluding their treatment of the lower animals illustrate 
 eloquently and painfully the present state of moral feeling in 
 Christian England among upper and lower classes alike. 
 Even in the higher ranks, that boast of their culture or 
 refinement, their advanced civilisation, their high mental 
 endowments, their morality and religion, as distinguishing 
 them from what are contemptuously spoken of as ( the 
 brutes that perish,' intemperance, the social evil, debau- 
 chery, fast life, commercial immorality, battue-shooting and 
 other forms of the pursuit of ' sport' nay, the very wars 
 that have devastated in our own day portions of the continent 
 of Europe and of the United States of America all point to 
 bloodthirstiness, lust, selfishness, dishonesty, untruthfulness, 
 and other moral vices as perpetually cropping up and con- 
 taminating society even in its highest forms of development. 
 
 1 Report of a lecture on Cave Life in Scotland,' Daily Review (Edinburgh) 
 of February 10, 1877. 
 
MORAL SENSE IN MAN. 173 
 
 Very appropriately does Goldsmith, in his c Deserted Village,' 
 speaking of tigers and their ferocity, refer to 
 
 Savage men, 'more murderous still than they. 
 
 In short, c man's inhumanity to man ' may well make 
 1 countless thousands mourn ' in senses and to an extent 
 hitherto unthought of. It transcends in reality all the con- 
 ceptions of the missionary, poet, or philanthropist. In 
 order to estimate its enormity we must place it alongside 
 the humanity of the lower animals to each other and to 
 man himself, their tyrant. And, considering his opportu- 
 nities and theirs, his moral and religious status and theirs, 
 we cannot fail to be brought to regard these, in one sense, 
 inferior creatures such as the dog as morally the superiors 
 of hosts of human beings. 
 
 Darwin dwells on the differences of opinion that exist as 
 to whether the moral sense is instinctive or acquired. Bain, 
 Mill, Maudsley, and others have pointed out its acquired 
 nature. It is, in truth, produced or developed in man by 
 culture ; it decays or disappears with age ; it is perverted or 
 destroyed by disease. It is certainly not innate in primitive 
 man, in the civilised child, or in the idiot. In none of these 
 cases does it at first or under natural and normal conditions 
 exist, while in some it cannot be developed by any degree or 
 kind of culture. Nor are individual moral feelings innate, any 
 more than the aggregate of these feelings. Sexual modesty is 
 not an original virtue, but is, like conscience, the slow pro- 
 duct of civilisation. The idea of marriage, and all its rela- 
 tionships, is in the same position not innate, but a gradual 
 growth under favourable circumstances. 
 
 Captain Burton remarks, ' It is time to face the fact 
 that conscience is a purely geographical and chronological acci- 
 dent. Where, may we ask, can be that innate and universal 
 monitor in the case of a people the Somali, for instance- 
 who rob like Spartans, holding theft a virtue ; who lie like 
 Trojans, without a vestige of appreciation for trutli ; and who 
 hold the treacherous and cowardly murder of a sleeping 
 guest the height of human honour?' In short, there is 
 6 no sin, however infamous, no crime, however abominable, 
 
174 310KAL SENSE IN 3IAN. 
 
 but at some time or in some part of the world has been, or 
 is still, held in the highest esteem.' 
 
 As regards what are called f abstract ideas ' of duty, for 
 instance Houzeau and other authors point out that they are 
 not natural either to savage man or to the civilised child. 
 The notion of duty, whatever be its nature, requires in both 
 to be developed by training. 
 
 The moral sense, then, which has been so complacently 
 regarded as an instinct peculiar to man, is often absent in 
 him. There is a want of it, absolute or comparative, in 
 
 1. Many savages. 4. Many lunatics. 
 
 2. Many children. 5. Many criminals. 
 
 3. Many idiots. 
 
 And this has constantly to be borne in mind in all ex- 
 pectations or enquiries concerning the presence or absence 
 of the moral sense in other animals. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE MORAL SENSE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 ALL the ordinary definitions of what is variously called in 
 man the moral sense, sentiment, feeling, faculty, or instinct, 
 apply, though not necessarily equally, in the same degree, 
 with quite the same sense or force, to an equivalent mental 
 attribute or series of psychical qualities in other animals, and 
 which attribute or qualities in other animals there is no 
 good reason for distinguishing by any other name, simply 
 because they are to be found in animals zoologically lower 
 than man. 
 
 Thus the moral sense in man has been defined by differ- 
 ent classes of authors to be, or to include 
 
 1. A knowledge, appreciation, or sense of - 
 
 a. Right and wrong. 
 
 b. Good and evil. 
 
 c. Justice and injustice. 
 
 2. Conscience, involving feelings of approbation or the 
 reverse in relation to ideas of right and wrong. 
 
 3. The approval of what is conducive to well-being, and 
 the disapproval of the reverse. 
 
 4. Sense of duty and of moral obligation. 
 
 5. Appreciation of the results of honesty and dishonesty. 
 
 6. Virtue or virtuousness, including especially such moral 
 virtues as 
 
 Conscientiousness. Charity. 
 
 Scrupulousness. Mercy. 
 
 Integrity. Magnanimity. 
 
 Compassion. Disinterestedness. 
 
 Benevolence. Chastity. 
 
 Fidelity. Modesty. 
 
176 MOKAL SENSE 
 
 There is not one of these moral qualities that is not 
 possessed, sometimes in a high degree, by certain of the 
 lower animals, and more especially the dog ; and there are 
 many authors, who have been desirous of drawing marked 
 psychical distinctions between man and other animals, who 
 have nevertheless felt themselves compelled by the evidence 
 of facts to concede to these other animals, or certain of them, 
 the possession of morality akin to that of man. Agassiz, for 
 instance, grants them morals ; Froude speaks of their prin- 
 ciples of morality ; Brodie refers to the moral sentiments as 
 occurring in gregarious animals ; Shaftesbury allows to them 
 a sense and practice of moral rectitude ; Watson gives in- 
 stances of their moral feeling, and Wood of their conscience. 
 And certain animals have even been described as possessing 
 a moral law and codes of morals. 
 
 The dog, at least, frequently exhibits a knowledge of 
 right and wrong, making a deliberate choice of the one or the 
 other, perfectly aware of and prepared for the consequences of 
 such a selection. The animal has occasionally the moral 
 courage to choose the right and to suffer for it, to bear wrong 
 rather than do it (Elam). Not only does this frequently 
 noble animal know the right, but it dares to do it, enduring 
 the expected, the inevitable, consequent, suffering. One of 
 the many evidences that the dog is sensible of right-doing is 
 to be found in the familiar fact that when it performs an 
 action which to it seems meritorious, or which it has reason 
 to believe its master will deem so when it saves a life, or 
 successfully defends a trust, or resists some great temptation 
 it looks at once for some sign of the said master's appro- 
 bation, perhaps for some reward. There is both the self- 
 approbation or self-satisfaction of the mens conscia recti and 
 an expectation of man's approval. The animal is gratified 
 if such approval is in any form vouchsafed, disappointed if it 
 be withheld. 
 
 It must also distinguish between the right and the ex- 
 pedient what would be most for its own interest to do. In 
 other words, it is just as apt as man is, and not more so, 
 to take a selfish view of all affairs to consider how they 
 are likely to affect its own personal interests. The choice 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 177 
 
 that is finally made between the right, the expedient, 
 the wrong is determined by a variety of considerations 
 by conflicting emotions, by the balancing of probabilities 
 and inclinations, by the degree or kind of temptation, by 
 the presence or absence of witnesses, especially human, by 
 other specialities of an animal's position, by the nature and 
 extent of its moral training, by the character of the rewards 
 and punishments offered on previous occasions. In the dog 
 there is sometimes obviously the same kind of conflict and 
 collision between virtue and selfishness, between a sense of 
 what is right which is too generally also what is painful, 
 what calls for terrible self-denial and suffering, including 
 the physical pangs of hunger and thirst, as well as the 
 moral pangs, say, of unsatisfied revenge and a sense of 
 what is simply pleasant and profitable. 
 
 Temptation frequently begets in the dog, cat, and other 
 animals the same kind of mental or moral agitation, and the 
 same sort of result, as in man. Sometimes we can see in 
 the dog, for instance the whole play of the animal's mind 
 the battle between its virtuous and vicious propensities, 
 its promptings to the right and its endeavours to stick by 
 the right, its longing' for the wrong for the titbit, which 
 it knows it would be improper to steal and the final 
 triumph either of virtue or temptation. The poor animal, 
 knowing or feeling the weakness of the flesh, sometimes has 
 the moral strength, the force of character, the good sense, to 
 avoid temptation altogether. But dogs, like men, are apt to 
 have the most trying temptations thrust unexpectedly upon 
 them, and then comes the tug of war of the appetites and 
 passions the moral turmoil that may make shipwreck of or 
 that may strengthen virtue. Sometimes, then, by the dog, 
 as by the man, temptation is successfully resisted after per- 
 haps a series of protracted and painful moral struggles that 
 have been very apparent to the onlooker. Unfortunately, 
 however, equally in dog and man, the resistance of tempta- 
 tion is less common by far than non-resistance or non- 
 success in resistance, the resuv t of which is various forms or 
 degrees of wrong-doing. 
 
 But in the dog, cat, and other animals this wrong-doing 
 VOL. i. N 
 
178 MOKAL SENSE 
 
 is accompanied by a perfect consciousness or conception of 
 the nature of their behaviour. They are quite aware of 
 being engaged in actions that will bring inevitable punish- 
 ment, which penalty, moreover, they are sensible they de- 
 serve. Miss Buist gives the history of a pet canary that was 
 given to prancing about on her piano keys, and that knew 
 it was wrong in so doing. 
 
 Abundant evidence of a consciousness of wrong-doing is 
 to be found either generally in the 
 
 1. Pricks, stings, or pangs of conscience. 
 
 2. The various expressions of a sense of guilt for instance, 
 the 
 
 a. Sneaking gait. 
 
 b. Depressed head, ears, and tail. 
 
 c. Temporary disappearance. 
 
 d. Permanent absconding; desertion of home and 
 
 master. 
 
 3. The multiform exhibitions of contrition, regret, repent- 
 ance, self-reproach, remorse 
 
 Or more specifically in the 
 
 4. Efforts at reconciliation and pardon, including the 
 giving of peace offerings. 
 
 5. Various forms of making atonement. 
 
 6. Concealment of crime or its proofs. 
 
 7. Artifices for escaping detection or conviction. 
 
 8. Non-resentment of punishment. 
 
 9. Sensitiveness to reproof, or even under mere reference 
 to former delinquency. 
 
 10. Punishment of offenders by and among each other. 
 
 Conscience is frequently as severe a monitor in other ani- 
 mals as in man, its reproaches as stinging and hard to be 
 borne, its torments sometimes intolerable. We may speak 
 quite correctly, for instance, of the conscience-stricken animal 
 thief, the cat or dog caught in the act of pilfering from the 
 larder. The signs of detected and acknowledged guilt are 
 the same in kind as would be exhibited under parallel cir- 
 cumstances by the human child. The animal, like the child, 
 if rendered sensitive by previous moral training, shows un- 
 mistakably its consciousness of delinquency. Its look and 
 
IN OTHEE ANIMALS. 179 
 
 demeanour alike eloquently bespeak its sense of detection 
 and disgrace. It understands its master's accusation as 
 conveyed by eye, tone, word, gesture, and it either makes 
 instant effort to escape the punishment which it knows it 
 has incurred and deserved, or, if escape be hopeless, it, as 
 calmly as may be, awaits the said punishment, and does not 
 resent it, as it would did it feel it to be unmerited. A bitch 
 having once eaten a quantity of shrimps intended for her 
 master's dinner sauce, had only to be asked ever after, 
 6 Who stole the shrimps ? ' to cause her to take to ignomi- 
 nious flight ears and tail down going to bed, refusing 
 to be comforted .... the picture of shame and remorse,' 
 while we are told e she never stole again ' ( c Animal World J ). 
 
 A young dog having committed some offence against the 
 established rules of his master's household, 'after we had 
 shaken our heads at him and turned away .... although 
 he must have been very hungry, would not touch his food, but 
 sat close to the door, whining and crying, till we made it up 
 with him by telling him he was forgiven and taking his 
 offered paw, when he ate his supper and went quietly to 
 bed.' Another dog, ' if he has done anything wrong, comes 
 up looking very much ashamed of himself and voluntarily 
 offers his paw' (Wood). Here we have decided efforts at 
 propitiation of an offended master or mistress, and after the 
 fashion of man's reconciliations by the shaking of hands, as 
 nearly as the dog can imitate this arrangement. There are 
 cases in which regret or remorse leads to the restoration of 
 stolen goods. A dog that had murdered a duck was caught 
 in the act of burying its dead body that is, of concealing the 
 evidences of his crime. ' So deeply was his conscience pricked 
 that when he found himself arrested by a bush he ran the 
 risk of dying of cold and hunger rather than allow himself to be 
 discovered ' (Wood) . When a large, magnanimous, powerful 
 dog for instance, of the Newfoundland breed has allowed 
 impulse or passion to hurry it into some rash act, such as 
 killing or too severely punishing some puny pug that has 
 been merely forward, impudent, or annoying, it frequently 
 and eloquently expresses its shame, regret, or remorse. 
 
 As in man, conscience or conscientiousness sometimes 
 
 N 2 
 
180 MORAL SENSE 
 
 has its strange or striking vagaries, eccentricities, or incon- 
 sistencies in other animals. Thus a retriever that would 
 himself touch no food belonging to his master, yet offered no 
 objection to theft of the same food by a cat, nor did he decline 
 to accept a share of her plunder (Wood) . 
 
 The sense of guilt and its expression is more fully dis- 
 cussed in the chapters on f Crime ' and on ( Language.' 
 
 Not only do animals feel their own wrong-doing, but they 
 appreciate evil or evil deeds in their young and in their fel- 
 lows, including other genera and species, and man himself. 
 They show this, for instance (l),by the punishment of offen- 
 ders, if not of offences, as well as (2) by the prevention of 
 threatened wrong-doing or the defence of the wronged, or 
 (3) by the resentment or revenge of injury or injustice of 
 any kind. Thus various animals resent and revenge the 
 wrongs committed by man not only 011 themselves or their 
 fellows, but even on brother man ; and this sense of wrong 
 or injury inflicted upon others leads sometimes to their 
 defence of man against his fellow-man. A case happened 
 recently in Ireland of a pet cow that defended its mistress 
 against the ill usage of its master, its mistress's husband ; 
 and many instances have been recorded of the dog, elephant, 
 and horse doing similar kindnesses to their human favourites. 
 It ought to be not a little humiliating to man's pride that 
 the so-called ' lower ' animals have so frequently to act as 
 mediators in human quarrels to defend lordly man against 
 his own species. 
 
 In the same sense in which it can be said that the dog 
 and other animals are endowed sometimes with a perception 
 of wrong, it may also be said that they acquire a sense of the 
 illegality of certain not only of their own actions, but also of 
 man's. Human tribunals have apparently regarded sheep- 
 stealing dogs as conscious of the illegality of their deeds, as 
 sensible of the nature of their nefarious employment, as aware 
 of the character of their offence or crime, as alive to the 
 chances of detection and of the necessity for secrecy or con- 
 cealment, for nocturnal operations, for the avoidance of being 
 found associated with any of the evidences of guilt, as feeling 
 that they deserve punishment and that they will receive it 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 181 
 
 on capture or conviction. These tribunals have, in other 
 words, recognised the power the guilty animals have pos- 
 sessed of selecting between the right and the wrong, and of 
 their having chosen the latter with full knowledge of con- 
 sequences. And in all these respects human judges have 
 so far formed correct conclusions or decisions, though, as 
 is pointed out in the chapter on 'Moral Responsibility,' 
 they have erred in forgetting that the criminality in such 
 cases has been the evil fruit of man's education of his animal 
 accomplices. The dogs of the brigand, smuggler, or poacher, 
 like those of the sheep-stealer, display a knowledge of the 
 illegality of the operations in which they are habitually 
 engaged. They take all means of avoiding custom-house 
 officers or gamekeepers, deliberately making use of all kinds 
 of deception ; but to all this they are trained by man. 
 
 No doubt what is popularly spoken of as a sense of right 
 or wrong, of legality or illegality, in the lower animals may, 
 or will if strictly analysed, be reduced to a distinction be- 
 tween what is forbidden and what is permitted by man, who 
 is recognised as a sufficient lawgiver and administrator 
 what will bring punishment on the one hand and reivard on 
 the other. , But this is just the kind of feeling as to right 
 and wrong, legality and illegality, that exists in the savage 
 adult, that is generated at first in the civilised child, that is 
 exhibited (if at all) in the criminal, the lunatic, or the idiot. 
 It cannot be truthfully affirmed that abstract or refined ideas 
 of moral good and evil are common to all ranks of men, 
 or are innate even in civilised man. In our brother man, 
 and with all the help that spoken and written language can 
 give us, there can be no doubt of the difficulty, frequently 
 the utter impossibility, of knowing whether any and what 
 conceptions exist as to right or wrong, good or evil, justice 
 or injustice, honesty or dishonesty. It need, therefore, be 
 no matter of surprise if we cannot ascertain or demonstrate 
 the presence or absence of any sort of definite conceptions 
 on such subjects in the dogs, fowls, or other domestic ani- 
 mals that are so constantly under man's observation. Prac- 
 tically, however, as has been, and will be further (in the 
 sequel) seen, as practically as in whole races of man, the 
 
182 MOKAL SENSE 
 
 dog and other animals give unquestionable evidence that 
 they know what, according to man's law to them, is right and 
 wrong, and they prefer to do the one or the other according 
 to their individuality and the character of their previous 
 moral training. 
 
 Monkeys and other animals sometimes show, as much as 
 does the human child, a very decided enjoyment of forbidden 
 pleasures, not only knowing that they are, but because of 
 their being, interdicted. 
 
 The dog, horse, mule, elephant, and other animals have 
 frequently a distinct sense, feeling, or knowledge of duty, 
 trust, or task ; and this not only as regards their own per- 
 sonal obligations, but in so far as duty of various kinds is 
 attachable to other individuals of the same species, or to 
 those of other genera and species, including man himself 
 when, for instance, such duty of man's has any immediate 
 reference to, or connection with, themselves. In other words, 
 they have clear conceptions of their own duties, and of the 
 duties of others, including man, in relation to them. 
 
 The discharge of their own duties, which in many 
 instances are self-imposed, involves, or is characterised by 
 
 1. An understanding of the nature of the work to be exe- 
 cuted of the duty required, for instance, by man. 
 
 2. Conscientiousness in the discharge of duty, which again 
 implies 
 
 a. Sterling honesty and fidelity. 
 I. Willingness or zeal. 
 
 c. Regularity, including perseverance, patience, and 
 
 method. 
 
 d. Accuracy, based on high intelligence. 
 
 The working elephant requires that the nature of its work 
 should be explained to it, to as great an extent as possible 
 demonstratively by illustration. It very quickly and readily 
 comprehends what it is that man wishes and expects it to do, 
 and it very soon learns to execute its task without supervision, 
 bringing to the discharge of its duty so much zeal or hearti- 
 ness, so much conscientiousness, that it frequently displays 
 an obvious dread of failure in, or of inability for, the due ful- 
 filment of its trust, even when the causes of such failure or 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 183 
 
 incompetency, where they exist, scarcely come within, or are 
 altogether beyond, the animal's control. There are such 
 things in the dog, elephant, horse, and other animals as ex- 
 cess of zeal, wrong ideas of duty, mistakes in the mode of 
 discharging it, and morbid conscientiousness, the discussion of 
 which, however, belongs rather to such chapters as those on 
 'Error ' and on ' Mental Derangement' or its causation. Man's 
 cruel taunts not unf requently lead the too willing horse or ele- 
 phant to the attempting of tasks for which their strength, or 
 lack thereof, does not qualify them, and death in or from such 
 attempts is the occasional result ; while the dog sometimes 
 carries its honesty or fidelity in the defence of a trust to a 
 ridiculous extent, or displays qualities, noble in themselves, 
 under absurd circumstances. The dog's anxiety to learn his 
 duty has been pointed out by the Ettrick Shepherd, who thus 
 writes of his celebrated Sirrah : c As soon as he discovered 
 that it was his duty [to turn sheep] , and that it obliged me, 
 I can never forget with what anxiety and eagerness he learned 
 his different evolutions.' 
 
 Duties that are voluntarily assumed, that are frequently of 
 an irksome and even unnatural kind, are sometimes discharged 
 in the most admirable way for instance, by self-constituted 
 foster-parents that have adopted orphaned or deserted young, 
 often belonging to other genera and species, and even to 
 natural enemies. 
 
 Quite as frequently, perhaps, parental or maternal duties, 
 of a natural and important character, are delegated or left to 
 any other animal possessed of a sufficiently powerful charity 
 or compassion, a sufficiently strong maternal or parental 
 ' instinct.' The duties of parentage or otherwise may be simply 
 left undischarged, without the slightest regard to the results 
 of such neglect ; every opportunity may be taken of shirking 
 work that is disagreeable, or a task, of whatever nature, is 
 executed in a very perfunctory, perhaps merely nominal, 
 way. There is, in other words, in some cases just as decided 
 an insensibility to the claims of duty, just as marked a cold 
 indifference to its discharge, as in other cases there is con- 
 scientiousness and kindliness. It is only fair, however, to 
 bear in mind that such apathy, frequently of an obviously 
 
184 MOEAL SENSE 
 
 unnatural character, is one of the common results of mental 
 defect or disorder, just as it is too frequently in man himself. 
 
 The dog frequently makes duty and its discharge para- 
 mount to all other considerations. To it are sacrificed even 
 revenge, 011 the one hand, or temptations to the pursuit of 
 game, or to access to food, on the other. Death itself is 
 sometimes preferred to the desertion of a trust or charge 
 (Watson) . Many a dog restrains all its natural propensities 
 under a sense of duty and responsibility. When ' on duty,' 
 entrusted with a message from a master, it very literally 
 places ' business before pleasure ; ' its self-control may even 
 prevent desirable or necessary self-defence. 
 
 Whether it be from a sense of justice, of duty, or of 
 conscientiousness, it is a fact that certain working dogs and 
 other animals not only attend faithfully to their own duties, 
 but see that their companions give equal attention to theirs. 
 They exact duty or work from, or enforce it in, their col- 
 leagues (Watson). 
 
 Certain of the lower animals have a very decided sense of 
 justice and injustice, of equity or fairness and the reverse, as 
 is more fully pointed out in the chapters on 6 Law and Punish- 
 ment ' and ( Crime and Criminality.' Thus the dog, horse, 
 mule, ass, camel, elephant, and other working animals have 
 a feeling that ' the labourer is worthy of his hire ;' that they 
 deserve a certain meed of praise, credit, or reward a certain 
 return in food and drink, in domestic comfort or personal 
 attention for service rendered. There is a clear recognition 
 of the value of service a knowledge of personal deserts. 
 Hence they so frequently exhibit a sore sense of ill-requital 
 of hard labour or of self-sacrifice. Punishment which they 
 know to be undeserved they resent sometimes dangerously 
 to man and in doing so they discriminate and estimate man's 
 injustice. 
 
 The bread-buying dog does very much the same thing 
 detects and protests against man's unfair dealing when, offer- 
 ing its penny for a roll, a baker tries, waggishly or otherwise, 
 to cheat it by giving it something of inferior value or re- 
 fusing it a quid pro quo at all. 
 
 There must further exist, in certain animals, some per- 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 185 
 
 ception of the distinction between spoken as well as acted 
 truth and falsehood, fact and fiction ; for we are told, for 
 instance, that the parrot sometimes not only detects, but 
 denounces with the utmost indignation, man's verbal false- 
 hoods (' Animal World ') . On the other hand, one of the occa- 
 sionally base or bad purposes to which the same bird applies 
 its wonderful gift of speech is mendacity : so that it is 
 capable at once of ' telling lies ' itself and of detecting and 
 reprimanding falsehood in man. 
 
 A certain sentiment of decency, modesty, or propriety 
 occurs in various social animals, illustrated as it is by 
 
 1. Their sexual bashfulness and chastity. 
 
 2. Their care of the dead, including the 
 
 3. Use of dying-places and cemeteries. 
 
 4. Their employment of latrines or their equivalents. 
 
 It has to be remarked that the moral virtues are illustrated 
 mainly by or in those animals that have directly or indirectly 
 received their moral training from man such animals as the 
 dog, elephant, and horse. As a general rule to which there 
 are exceptions both in man and other animals the human 
 child and the yonng animal can equally be educated both 
 to distinguish and do the right. In the formation of their 
 character moral virtue may be made to dominate over moral 
 vice, though it is probably impossible in either case to extin- 
 guish the latter. Moral perfectibility may be aimed at, 
 though it cannot be attained ; but the degree of moral excel- 
 lence attainable is such in other animals, as in the child, that 
 it should stimulate man to put forth all efforts in the moral 
 training of both. This, however, is a subject that pertains 
 more properly to the chapters on .' Education.' 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MORAL MERIT AND DEMERIT. 
 
 THERE are many worthy people who, while they are compelled, 
 by the evidence of facts, to admit that certain animals 
 perform actions that from man's that is, their own point of 
 view must be regarded as beneficent, deny that such actions 
 in other animals are motived by the same moral or mental 
 influences that operate in man. While making no objection 
 to attributing to the lower animals the capacity, for instance, 
 for any kind or degree of self-sacrifice, they refuse to associate 
 therewith any sort of 'moral merit ; and, as a corollary, they 
 do not recognise demerit in actions of an opposite kind. They 
 resolutely oppose, in a great variety of ways, all supposition of 
 moral merit in the actions of the lower animals just because 
 they are lower animals, and on no other ground apparently. 
 Thus 
 
 1. They deny that, in actions involving self-sacrifice, the 
 animals that sacrifice themselves have any true consciousness 
 or perception of the nature of their acts ; that such actions 
 are voluntary and deliberate ; or that they are the result of 
 anything like human motive. 
 
 2. By regarding the lower animals as mere automata, 
 they get rid of all such difficulties, referring self-sacrifice and 
 other beneficent actions to ( instinct. 5 
 
 3. They attempt all manner of restricted definitions of such 
 terms as morality, religion, motive, and so forth, so as, if 
 possible, to exclude all other animals from participation in 
 attributes which they fondly regard as peculiar to man. 
 
 But such objectors to granting to other animals credit or 
 merit for actions that in man would meet with the highest 
 
MORAL MERIT. 187 
 
 praise are apparently ignorant of the dilemma in which they 
 place themselves by all such futile efforts to distinguish the 
 lower animals morally or mentally from man. In so far 
 as they make good their case against other animals and it 
 is quite easy to make out a good case, seeing that there is so 
 much, on the one hand, that can never be proved, and, on the 
 other, that can never be disproved they make out an equally 
 good case against countless numbers of their fellow-men. For 
 the general scope of the present work is to show how superior 
 certain animals are to whole races or classes of mankind, 
 both morally and mentally, and how essentially alike moral 
 and mental influences and operations are in man and other 
 animals. 
 
 Even in man, and in regard to the display of some of his 
 supposed highest moral virtues, it is difficult, if not impossible, 
 always to determine the presence or degree of moral merit. 
 Thus self-devotion may be the result of free choice, of mere 
 custom, of imitation, of impulse, of compliance with the 
 inevitable that is, of compulsion (Houzeau) . In other words, 
 self-sacrifice is not, even in man, necessarily associated with 
 moral merit of any kind or degree. The man or woman who 
 commits impulsively what is called a heroic act of self-sacrifice 
 may have done so without prior consideration as to the nature 
 of the act, without reflection as to its results, without delibera- 
 tion. In all probability reflection, deliberation, or considera- 
 tion would have deterred, not incited, to action ; would have 
 begotten a selfish over-cautiousness rather than a generous, 
 uncalculating rashness. 
 
 It is an act of self-sacrifice on the part of a female ant 
 when she destroys the means of coition in order to devote 
 herself to the rearing of the young of other individuals of the 
 species. It is impossible, however, in such a case to prove 
 the presence or operation of consciousness, or knowledge on 
 her part, of the nature and object of her act of intention or 
 purpose, of choice of celibacy, of reasoning or reflection, of 
 moral merit. The phenomenon requires thorough investigation 
 to determine whether, in the first place, for instance, it is 
 common to all the females of a certain rank or caste (Houzeau). 
 The sacrifice of individuals for the general or public good in 
 
188 MORAL MERIT 
 
 ant expeditions is, however, distinctly voluntary (Houzeau), 
 as is their persistent fighting or working when wounded. 
 For these phenomena are not uniform or invariably exhibited; 
 wholesale self-sacrifice is exhibited only upon important, 
 exceptional occasions e.g. when the nest is threatened 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 Rescue from peril of man, or of each other whatever the 
 risk to, and frequently at the sacrifice of, their own lives 
 must present a difficulty to those who would explain away all 
 the magnanimous actions of the lower animals by referring 
 them to c instinct.' No doubt the waste of life which is 
 frequently involved in self-sacrifice may be regarded as a kind 
 of stupidity or its result, in so far, for instance, as it is needless 
 or unsuccessful. But the very same argument applies to many 
 of the sacrifices of man himself. In rescue from drowning 
 by the dog we have not only courage, with prompt, impulsive 
 action, bnt also appreciation of danger, sympathy with the 
 peril of others, overcoming natural timidity of water or love 
 of life, and frequently the most genuine self-sacrifice, in the 
 same sense in which such a term can be applied to the noblest 
 actions of man. It makes its sacrifice knowing the risk, 
 fearing the pain, and clinging to life (Cobbe). 
 
 When the collie or terrier, which are not water dogs, jumps 
 into the sea or a river to save life, recover property, or simply 
 to obey the behest of its master, its natural dislikes are 
 overcome by stronger feelings, such as affection or sym- 
 pathy; in some cases it may be simply by obedience, discipline, 
 the dread of punishment, or hope of reward. 
 
 Man's interpretation of animal motive here again crops up. 
 If he admit or assign a motive at all, it is almost sure to be 
 an ungenerous or erroneous one. Man, and especially hyper- 
 critical man, does not give the dog, in life-saving by it, credit 
 for the best but the worst motives ; or he is foolish enough to 
 attribute its action to mere instinctive impulse. He ascribes 
 in it the practical virtue of generosity to the mere giving away 
 of what is not valued or required, or of what does not belong 
 to it for instance, in the case of superfluities of food or booty 
 or to a desire for mere physical comfort pure selfishness 
 (Houzeau). And all these forms of generosity may occur 
 
AND DEMERIT. 189 
 
 among other animals, just as they do so very certainly and 
 commonly in man. There can be no doubt, however, that 
 frequently, if not generally, the generosity of the lower 
 animals, where it exists, is of a higher, purer kind. 
 
 Tocque monkeys nurse each other or human children 
 (Cassell). This may be the result simply of imitation of the 
 behaviour of human female nurses or ayahs ; but we know 
 full well that in countless other cases, whatever be the case 
 in the Tocque monkey, the nursing of animals by each other 
 involves the very highest moral and mental qualities affec- 
 tion, devotion, self-sacrifice, disinterestedness, vigilance, fore- 
 sight, and so forth. 
 
 Intercession in combat may sometimes, as is alleged, arise 
 from a selfish motive for instance, in the case of a hen, from 
 the risk of injury to hei*} r oung (Houzeau). But, on the other 
 hand, we know that many animals have compassion for 
 suffering ; and there are many cases of mediation in which 
 there is no room or ground for the ascription of selfish 
 motives. 
 
 Conciliation of man by animals, we are told, may spring 
 from a knowledge of the advantage of man's friendship in 
 the bestowal of food and the affording of protection and 
 shelter in other words, from a selfish motive. And there is 
 no denying and no disposition to conceal the fact that selfish- 
 ness rules among other animals just as it does among men 
 certainly not more so. They are not all virtue ; there is a 
 due blending of vice. But conciliation may arise from other 
 causes or motives for instance, and much more probably, 
 from the necessity for loving and of being loved in return. 
 
 Again, it is alleged that their love of knowledge, where it 
 exists or is implied for instance, in their inquisitiveness 
 is for selfish ends. That this may frequently be the case is 
 quite probable. In what proportion of mankind, however, 
 can it be said that the desire for knowledge has any higher 
 motive ? Is it not in man the conviction that ' knowledge is 
 power' that leads most usually to its acquisition by him? 
 Love of knowledge for its own sake is obviously peculiar to 
 the higher races in man, and to the most highly endowed 
 individuals of these races. 
 
190 MORAL MEEIT 
 
 Hospitality may have a very definite purpose in view, as 
 in the case of a dog -which, having been seriously assaulted 
 by a larger one, and being desirous of revenging itself on 
 its adversary, gave a dinner from its own saved-up rations 
 to a number of guests, in return for which they gave their 
 services, which consisted in the worrying of the obnoxious 
 bully (Macaulay). The sagacious sufferer here offered a 
 bribe or reward beforehand for certain required services; 
 there was prepayment of service, appreciation of reward, 
 knowledge of the efficacy of a bribe, selection of the 
 proper kind of bribe, self-denial in saving half its rations 
 for 'a length of time, providence in storing this half for a 
 future definite use, formation of a plan of action, and com- 
 munication to others of its wishes and ideas. It cannot be 
 affirmed that man's hospitality is always or generally deter- 
 mined by such satisfactory reasons, or that it developes or is 
 the outcome of as high traits of moral or mental character. 
 
 The interest which social animals take in each others' 
 affairs or operations, ordinary or extraordinary, or which 
 the dog, monkey, or other animals take in the doings of 
 man, may be mere curiosity ; and we know that curiosity 
 exercises a frequent and powerful influence among the lower 
 animals, as in man. But it is obviously not mere curiosity 
 that induces the mother fox to sit quietly, complacently, and 
 gravely contemplating the sports of her young (Houzeau) ; 
 nor can curiosity have any influence in leading the dog, 
 horse, elephant, or other working animals to take a profes- 
 sional interest in their work. 
 
 When a dog voluntarily shares its master's prison it may 
 be actuated not by sympathy, but by mere love of his society, 
 attachment to his person, and dislike to be separated ; and 
 a mere love of companionship may also be suggested as the 
 motive that leads free birds voluntarily to imprison them- 
 selves with those which are caged. 
 
 It has been contended that what other animals do is the 
 expedient, not the right ; and that this is sometimes the case 
 there is no reason to doubt. They deliberate, as man does, 
 whether a contemplated act will be profitable or safe, they 
 balance probable ultimate pains against certain immediate 
 pleasures, and they act according to the degree of their self- 
 
AND DEMERIT. 191 
 
 control, on the one hand, and of their temptation on the 
 other, too frequently seeking present gratification and disre- 
 garding ulterior punishment. But that they do not always 
 select the expedient, and that they can do the right in the 
 face of apparent inexpediency, is shown by countless in- 
 stances of devotion to the death. Or we are told that right 
 and wrong action may be, and perhaps generally is, deter- 
 mined by fear of punishment or expectation of reward. 
 Unquestionably it frequently is so, but not more frequently 
 so than in man in all probability not so frequently. 
 
 By those who deny human virtues to the lower animals we 
 are told that duty in the dog, or what is called duty, is only a 
 shadow thereof and the offspring of fear. No doubt in some, 
 or it may be in many, cases this holds good. But the more 
 closely the subject is studied in man, the more will the un- 
 biassed student be compelled to admit that in him too duty 
 is frequently the result to some degree or in some form of 
 fear fear of suffering from the consequences of neglecting 
 it. There is no good reason to doubt, however, that, equally 
 in the dog and in man, the dominant or sole motive in duty 
 or sacrifice is, sometimes at least, disinterested affection. 
 
 If it be urged that a dog may know that an action is for- 
 bidden by its master without necessarily knowing that it is in 
 itself in any true sense wrong or immoral, the answer is that 
 to discuss such a point would involve a quibble of words, and 
 that there can be no doubt that the only idea possessed by 
 many savages, by children, by many idiots and lunatics, by 
 criminals and others of the uneducated classes of every civi- 
 lised community, of wrongfulness of action or wrong-doing is 
 that it is prohibited, forbidden, in some way by fellow-man. 
 Both other animals and men know that certain actions are 
 wrong, in the sense at least that they deserve and will bring 
 punishment. 
 
 Han's errors of interpretation of animal motive are such 
 that moral merit may really be greatest where it appears, in 
 his estimation, to be least. For instance, the dislike in a 
 really brave and magnanimous dog to fight with another 
 that is not in any sense its ' match ' may lead to apparent 
 cowardice, when there is really a display of wonderful for- 
 bearance. 
 
192 MORAL MERIT. 
 
 I can scarcely conceive the possibility of so defining 
 morality, morals or the moral sense, moral responsibility, 
 and religious feeling as to exclude the lower animals from 
 participation in the possession of these qualities. The 
 probability at least is that any ingenious definition that 
 could be so framed as to exclude these animals would also 
 exclude whole races and ranks of mankind. Philosophers 
 are constantly guilty of the folly of basing their psycho- 
 logical definitions on faculties, feelings, or phenomena that 
 occur in the most highly cultured individuals of the most 
 highly- civilised human races. Their moral sense is that of 
 the moral philosopher, their religious feeling that of the 
 Christian theologian. 
 
 However man may view the subject, certain of the lower 
 animals themselves have an obvious sense of personal merit 
 or demerit, and they show this feeling in a great variety of 
 very practical ways. The dog shows its consciousness of 
 having performed some praiseworthy act by looking for 
 approbation and reward, or of evil-doing by confessing its 
 guilt and preparing either for punishment or its evasion. It 
 is proud of a noble action and ashamed of a mean one. Tt 
 exhibits equally its satisfaction at successful defence or the 
 salvation of life or property, and its shame at theft, especially 
 if caught in fiagrante delicto. It submits to punishment that 
 it feels it has deserved, but protests against suffering for a 
 crime it has not committed. The feeling that it deserves 
 praise, credit, or reward leads also to self-applause or self- 
 approbation in the dog (Watson). As is elsewhere shown, 
 the dog, horse, mule, elephant, and other animals attach a 
 value to their work. They form an estimate, and a generally 
 correct one, of their deserts or rights, upon which they some- 
 times insist if they are not duly recognised by man. 
 
 All evidence goes to show that moral merit and demerit 
 must, along with virtue and vice in general, be conceded to 
 the lower animals in common with man. It is not easy, no 
 doubt, to determine what precise amount or degree of the 
 said merit or the reverse they deserve in connection with 
 given actions; but the very same kind of difficulty occurs 
 incessantly in regard to man himself. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 IT has been shown in other chapters that certain animals 
 
 1. Possess a sense of right and wrong 
 
 2. With a power of choice between them. 
 
 3. Commit crimes, and are aware of the criminality of 
 their acts. 
 
 4. Have a wonderful power of self-control. 
 
 5. Possess not only a moral but a religious sense, in- 
 cluding a conscience. 
 
 6. Have a knowledge and dread of consequences. 
 
 7. Can deliberate and decide on proposed courses of con- 
 duct. 
 
 8. Have freedom of will, the faculty of voluntary action. 
 
 9. Balance or weigh present or immediate pleasures 
 against prospective pains. 
 
 10. Appreciate rewards and punishments. 
 
 11. Perceive and correct their own mistakes, as well fre- 
 quently as those of man. 
 
 12. Have a knowledge of duty or trust. 
 
 Such moral and mental qualities seem to me necessarily 
 to imply or involve moral responsibility. Various writers 
 experience no difficulty in conceding such a psychical quality 
 to certain of the lower animals. 
 
 Practically man in a variety of ways recognises animal re- 
 sponsibility. He does so, for instance, in all forms of training 
 or education which are based on the application of the prin- 
 ciple of rewards and punishments, and on certain of the moral 
 or mental qualities immediately above enumerated. It is re- 
 cognised more conspicuously and directly in the judgment of 
 
 VOL. i. o 
 
194 MOKAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 animal crime by human tribunals. The accountability of other 
 animals for their acts, when these acts injuriously affected 
 man, was the basis of numerous trials by the earliest human 
 lawgivers, who judged and punished animals for crimes or 
 misdemeanours just as they did man himself. Human laws, 
 ancient and modern, practically acknowledge animal respon- 
 sibility in animal crime. Thus the old Jewish law, as given 
 in Exodus (xxi. 28-32), punishes an ox by stoning to death 
 that fatally gores a man or a woman, and not the master to 
 whom, it belongs, unless the animal was by habit and re- 
 pute vicious and he took no means to prevent accident to 
 man from its viciousness. ' A horse whose master had 
 taught him many tricks was tried at Lisbon in 1601, found 
 guilty of being possessed by the Devil, and was burnt' 
 (Draper). In more modern times the shepherd's dog has 
 repeatedly been condemned to death and executed in Scot- 
 land for sheep-stealing (Low). 
 
 Animal responsibility was apparently recognised also in 
 the baptism of animals in the thirteenth century (Pierquin), 
 as it has been in admitting them as witnesses at law in 
 human courts of justice. Dogs have appeared as witnesses 
 in murder cases not only in the Middle Ages (Pierquin), but 
 so recently as 1872 in Dundee; and their evidence has not 
 unfrequently been accepted as conclusive for instance, in 
 the detection and recognition of murderers. 
 
 Moral responsibility seems, moreover, to be involved in 
 at least many of the practical jokes practised, either on each 
 other or on man, by the lower animals. In the cases re- 
 ferred to, as is more fully pointed out in the chapter on 
 6 Practical Jokes,' there is deliberate malice or intentional 
 mischief, self-amusement at the expense of another or the 
 gratification of revenge or other passions, a perfect know- 
 ledge of results, a cruel glorying in the sufferings of fellows. 
 When a parrot deliberately, for its own delectation, sets a 
 cat and a dog by the ears, or causes a whole party of tra- 
 vellers to stop a railway train and get out to look for a 
 child that was supposed to have fallen under the wheels, or 
 makes a servant maid or waiter attend to a fancied sum- 
 mons from a master or lodger, the animal must be held as, 
 
MOKAL RESPONSIBILITY. 195 
 
 in a sense, morally responsible for its misdeeds and properly 
 punishable therefor ; and the best proof of the propriety of 
 this view is the fact that punishment prevents the repetition 
 of the offence, where it is deemed an offence and where the 
 punishment is judicious and proportionate. In other words, 
 the animal can control its propensity to self-enjoyment at 
 the expense of others, can refrain from doing that which is 
 forbidden, that which brings punishment; and it does so 
 refrain, does so control itself under adequate motive the 
 dread of further punishment. 
 
 But the responsibility which in many cases is attached 
 to the dog or other animals, in at least the majority, really 
 pertains to man, to the owner of the animal, who has 
 usually been also its trainer. Many animals commit crimes, 
 and what they know to be crimes voluntarily, at their 
 own instance without instruction from man ; for instance, 
 murder either of their fellows or of man himself. But, un- 
 happily, these instances are rare compared with those other 
 cases in which the animals have received a systematic 
 criminal education from man, whereby they have been trained 
 to become either his accomplices or his substitutes or 
 instruments in crime, or all three, as occasion might require. 
 Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, Professor Low, and 
 other authors give us the history of various sheep-stealing 
 dogs, some of which suffered for or with their masters 
 the extreme penalty of human law. In such cases the 
 human judges made no allowance apparently for the fact 
 that the poor animals, so convicted and condemned, were 
 morally vicious just because and in proportion as their 
 masters had made them so ; for which reason it would 
 have been only just had all the responsibility been attached 
 to, and all the punishment fallen on, their human instructors 
 to or on those, moreover, who alone had reaped the 
 benefit of the nefarious traffic in which man and dog had 
 been alike engaged. The c character ' and misdeeds of dogs 
 still form a frequent subject of enquiry in all our law courts, 
 but nowadays very properly in reference to their masters' 
 not their own responsibility. 
 
 By the non-prevention of the development of vicious or 
 
 o 2 
 
196 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 dangerous habits, or the non-correction of such habits when 
 developed ; by neglect of proper education or by vicious 
 training ; by the direct encouragement or non-repression of 
 such propensities as biting or worrying the master renders 
 himself and very properly liable by most laws for the 
 damage done by his dog or horse. By modern British as 
 well as by ancient Eoman and Greek law man is held 
 responsible for the doings of the domestic or other animals 
 which he possesses (Pierquin). Thus he is answerable for 
 the acts of eccentric, dangerous, vicious, ill-tempered, insane, 
 or rabid animals of which he is the owner ; so that the 
 mere ownership of such animals as the dog, horse, elephant, 
 cat, or monkey is in itself attended by a considerable measure 
 of it may be troublesome and expensive responsibility. 
 
 It may be regarded as some sort of justification for in- 
 cluding or associating the punishment of the animals in or 
 with that of their masters that, had the thievish collies, for 
 instance, been spared, there might have arisen a difficulty 
 or impossibility in eradicating their vicious habits, the pre- 
 sumption being that the unfortunate dogs would never have 
 forsaken their evil courses while health and strength were 
 left. And such a presumption is strengthened by what we 
 know of the force of habit or discipline in the lower animals, 
 as in man, whether for evil or good. An amusing story has 
 been told by William Howitt and other writers of a high- 
 wayman's horse which knew and played its part well while it 
 remained a highwayman's horse, but which, when sold to an 
 honest man, showed the influence of its former bad habits, 
 the result entirely of man's training, by leading him nolens 
 volens into the most awkward predicaments. But, on the 
 other hand, it is impossible to s;iy what might have been 
 achieved by systematic kindly efforts at reformation in the 
 case of dogs and horses trained for their special purposes by 
 sheep-stealers and other classes of thieves, robbers, brigands, 
 or smugglers. The chances of reformation and the advan- 
 tages of reformatories are quite as great or as small in the 
 case of animal as of human criminals. 
 
 We know that in man criminals have certain mental 
 characteristics, certain moral defects (Bruce Thomson). They 
 
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 197 
 
 may fitly be spoken of as a race or breed by themselves a 
 race or breed morally and mentally defective. The same 
 would be the result, according to the law of heredity, were 
 man artificially to breed animals with a special aptitude to 
 some particular vice say, theft. The hereditary transmis- 
 sion of a criminal disposition or tendency in the sheep- 
 stealing dog is as certain or as probable as is the inheritance 
 whether in man or other animals of any other parental 
 peculiarity mental, moral, or bodily. So that man incurs 
 necessarily a very grave responsibility when he either trains, 
 encourages, or permits subject animals to indulge their 
 natural or acquired vicious propensities for theft, murder, 
 assault, or destructiveness. 
 
 Whether or not man assigns to, or admits in or for, the 
 lower animals any kind or degree of moral responsibility, 
 these animals themselves have in connection, for instance, 
 with the discharge of duty notions of responsibility or 
 accountability. Not only so, but they apparently recognise 
 both responsibility and irresponsibility in their offspring and 
 their fellows, as well as in other species and genera, including 
 man. Thus they distinguish mental defect in their offspring, 
 and make the proper allowance for all its disabilities. The 
 dog that is the playfellow of the human child or infant 
 appears to recognise the irresponsibility of the latter for its 
 thoughtlessness, its incapacity for proper behaviour ; and 
 the result of such a measure of discrimination is wonderful 
 forbearance under the teasing or provocation to which the 
 lower animal is sometimes habitually subjected by its cruel 
 little human tryant. The dog submits quietly to treatment 
 from a child that it would at once resent from an adult. 
 
 There is a voluntary assumption of responsibility in foster 
 parentage. 
 
 In health and in ordinary circumstances certain animals 
 can prevent, control, or direct given courses of conduct or 
 action ; but there are forms or states of mental disease for 
 instance, insanity, and exceptional mental conditions, such 
 as fright or panic in which self-control is lost, and their 
 responsibility for the resultant action becomes, or should be- 
 come, either absolutely or partially removed. There are, in 
 
198 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY, 
 
 short, just as in man,, degrees both of responsibility and ir- 
 responsibility. Sportsmen, for example, have to recognise the 
 non-accountability, by reason of mental defect, of particular 
 dogs of a breed, which show unusual characteristics, such as 
 conspicuous want of pluck and sagacity. Their occasional 
 total or partial irresponsibility, the abolition or suspension of 
 responsibility, must be recognised or determined on precisely 
 the same sort of grounds as in man. The absence of the 
 moral sense in many human criminals leads medical jurists, 
 for instance, to regard them as ' morally irresponsible, no 
 matter how great the crime against society.' 1 Equally in 
 man and other animals, then, the presence or absence of 
 this moral sense must determine the measure of responsi- 
 bility or irresponsibility. 
 
 One of the attributes of the Andaman Islanders, accord- 
 ing to travellers, is their moral irresponsibility ; and similar 
 irresponsibility, in the absence of any proper moral feeling, 
 may be said to be attachable to other savage races in a more 
 real sense than that in which certain of the higher animals 
 such as the sheep-stealer's, poacher's, brigand's, smuggler's, 
 or highwayman's dog can be said to be non-responsible. 
 
 In judging, for instance, of the degree of responsibility 
 or irresponsibility that is attachable to animals in a state of 
 rage or fury, created by man, due consideration must be 
 given to the kind and amount of provocation to which they 
 have been subjected, as well as to the natural character of 
 the animals themselves and the kind or amount of their 
 education. In the great majority of instances as has been 
 already stated man is, and ought to be held, responsible for 
 the accidents that arise from the behaviour of the animals 
 subject to his management, or more frequently his mis- 
 management. The master not his instrument should 
 generally be punished for the illegal or punishable offences 
 of the animals in his possession or under his control, 
 though in so far as an animal itself takes part in a proce- 
 dure which it knows to be wrong, or illegal, or forbidden, 
 and gets some share in the benefit is not a mere tool or 
 instrument it may be held pro tanto responsible. 
 
 1 Reviewer in ' London Medical Record ' of May 1875. 
 
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 199 
 
 Man's responsibility for the results of animal insanity is 
 clear in such, cases as the artificial panic produced among 
 horses by human thieves at the fairs of Normandy, as 
 mentioned by Pierquin. These panics intentionally pro- 
 duced by irritants diffused in the air or otherwise were the 
 source of direct, immediate, and obvious danger, not only to 
 the animals affected themselves and to other animals exposed 
 at the fair, but to all mankind who constituted the crowds so 
 usual on such holiday occasions. Again, moral turpitude, 
 whether it is rightly or wrongly attached to the dog that 
 co-operates with the poacher, sheep-stealer, smuggler, brigand, 
 or thief, certainly pertains to the man who systematically 
 teaches the animal to become his accomplice in acts which 
 the man at least knows to be unlawful and punishable. The 
 poor dog is urged, enticed, bribed, instructed, compelled by 
 its master to commit or to take part in the commission of 
 illegal acts. The merciless biting and worrying of persons 
 or other animals especially sheep by collies or other dogs 
 a propensity that may be natural or morbid is only too 
 frequently the result of man's evil training or evil usage. 
 The relentlessness of the bloodhound is another effect of 
 education by man (Lewes). Incompetent masters have to 
 answer for the misinstruction of sporting dogs, as injudicious 
 trainers have for the vicious faults of character or temper 
 attributable to undue severity in breaking (Walsh) . 
 
 Man's responsibility for the misdeeds of domestic animals 
 belonging to him is recognised in the earliest laws of the 
 ancient Hebrews. Thus we have in the twenty-first chapter 
 of Exodus ! regulations made by Moses for the punishment 
 of masters who wilfully or knowingly keep an ox that is 
 addicted to fighting or goring, while in certain events the 
 ox itself was so far held responsible that it was punished by 
 being stoned to death or otherwise. In other words, a master 
 was chargeable with murder who was possessed of an ox that 
 fatally gored a man or woman, if he was previously acquainted 
 with the animal's propensity, while the offending ox itself 
 was also punished for what was held to be murder. The 
 penal codes of various countries and ages, jurisprudence both 
 
 1 Verses 28-36. 
 
200 MORAL BESP3NSJBHJTY, 
 
 ancient and modern, but ancient perhaps even more than 
 modern, have held man responsible for a great variety of 
 results of the acts of animals of which he is the possessor or 
 custodier. Man's responsibility, for the results to other men 
 at least, of the vices or viciousness of animals belonging to 
 him as property may indeed be said to have been recognised 
 by or in the laws of all civilised countries throughout the 
 world and in all times. They have inflicted penalties on man 
 for a great variety of acts of mere neglect or indifference as 
 well as of cruelty, for faults of omission as well as of commission, 
 for the non-exhibition of sympathy or mercy, the withholding 
 of aid, as well as the wanton cruelty of children or adults. 
 The Athenian Areopagus showed a good example, and taught 
 salutary lessons to all subsequent ages and to all other coun- 
 tries, in its exposure and punishment of man's shortcomings 
 in duty towards the lower animals. Thus the ancient Athe- 
 nians punished those who either excited their dogs to bite 
 or did not restrain them from biting:. 
 
 O 
 
 Considering the evils to the animals themselves, no less 
 than the danger to human life it is liable to produce, all 
 needless and intentional excitement, irritation, provocation, 
 torment, or torture of animals by man should be held as a 
 legal offence on his part. Illustrations of the results of such 
 excitement or provocation, or of man's being held responsible 
 by fellow-man for the actions of animals belonging to him, 
 are to be met with constantly in our petty law (police, justice 
 of peace, sheriff", or other) courts, where injury from dog- 
 bites, accidents from restive horses, damage to property 
 from stray cattle, are the common subjects of judicial exa- 
 mination and punishment. 
 
 It is but just, for instance, that man should be held fully 
 responsible for the results of insanity or other disease, or of 
 vice, developed at any time prior to the sale of the animal, in 
 a horse or a dog belonging to him, of which insanity the 
 master was quite cognisant, and which disability indeed it 
 was that led to his parting with the affected animal, knowing 
 that one attack was likely to be followed by others of in- 
 creasing severity or duration. It is proper he should suffer 
 for concealment of the fact that an animal labours under 
 
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 201 
 
 serious defects of character, brought about very likely by his 
 own improper usage. It is even righteous that farmers should 
 suffer loss by the decimating animal diseases that result 
 from their own neglect, ignorance, prejudice, or superstition. 
 Unfortunately the innocent must suffer with the guilty in 
 such cases. The farmer makes up his losses by the over- 
 charge of the public, to whom, moreover, he is only too apt 
 to supply bad flesh, milk, butter, and other animal produce 
 infected produce, in other words, that is the source of bound- 
 less misery and disease in man. It is a popular saying that 
 'all is fair in love and war,' to which may be added horse- 
 dealing. It has occurred to myself when, purchasing a pony, 
 I had trusted the assertion of the seller that it was free 
 from all faults of character to find, when too late, that it 
 had been quite notorious for its temper and its tricks, and 
 to be told by a certain army general, who was himself the very 
 soul of honour, that a man might be a gentleman in every- 
 thing save horse-selling. In the eyes of every honest man, 
 however, as well as, it is to be hoped, in the eye of the law, 
 the man who palms off a vicious, dangerous horse or dog as an 
 inoffensive one is a rogue, and deserves the severest punish- 
 ment of roguery, for he is indirectly the cause of much loss of 
 human life, of much injury, many accidents, to his fellow- 
 men. Where such losses of life occur he is virtually charge- 
 able with homicide, and should be dealt with as a homicide. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 RELIGIOUS FEELING IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 AN essential preliminary to a consideration of the question 
 whether the lower animals possess what is entitled to be 
 called or recognised as religious feeling, is a study of what 
 is called the 'religious instinct' in man; but not in man 
 of high or the highest religious culture. We must study 
 the religious instinct in its lowest, not its highest mani- 
 festations, in its crude, not cultivated state ; in 
 
 1. The lower or savage races of man 
 
 a. The absence of all religion. 
 1}. Rudimentary forms of religion 
 as well as in 
 
 2. The higher or civilised races ; in 
 
 a. Infants and children. 
 
 b. Idiots and the insane. 
 
 c. The criminal classes. 
 
 d. Buddhists and other classes or races of atheists 
 
 or pantheists. 
 
 Nor are certain considerations, based upon the condition of 
 religion in adults of the educated and moral classes of the 
 most highly civilised nations of the West, altogether irrele- 
 vant. 
 
 In the first place, missionaries and travellers in different 
 parts of the world, and various writers on the natural history 
 of man, tell us that there are, or were, certain savage races 
 utterly devoid of any religious sentiment, sense, idea, wor- 
 ship, or observance. Thus the Rev. William Colenso, of 
 Napier, New Zealand, says of the Maoris, when they were 
 first visited by Europeans a race with which I have myself 
 
RELIGIOUS FEELING. 203 
 
 come in contact in the course of many wanderings' Keli- 
 gion, according to both the true and popular meaning of the 
 word, they had none. Whatever religion may be defined to 
 be virtue as founded upon the reverence of God and expec- 
 tation of future rewards and punishments, or any system of 
 Divine faith and worship they knew nothing of the kind. 
 They had neither doctrine nor dogma, neither cultus nor 
 system of worship. They knew not of any Being who could 
 properly be called God. They had no idols. They reverenced 
 not the sun, nor moon, nor glittering heavenly host, nor any 
 natural phenomena.' l Mr. Colenso happens to be not only 
 a missionary but also a naturalist. As a missionary his bias 
 would probably lead him to discover some germ of religion 
 in this and every other savage race, did such a germ really 
 exist ; but as a naturalist he feels bound to represent facts 
 simply as he finds them. His opinion as regards the ISTew 
 Zealanders is confirmed by a writer of a different kind 
 Edward Shortland who thus writes of them : ' The great 
 fact observable from a consideration of their traditions .... 
 is that the people had no idea of a Supreme Being, the 
 Creator of all things in heaven and in earth.' 2 Similar 
 views are, or have been, held by some of the most eminent 
 missionaries concerning the negative condition of religion in 
 other savage races, and their testimony is of the highest 
 importance in connection with the confident assertion so 
 constantly being made in Exeter Hall that in all men the 
 rudiments of religion, of a religious instinct, exist, and only 
 require suitable cultivation and direction. The Eev. Dr. 
 Moffatt, the veteran South African missionary, says of the 
 Bushman (or Bosjesman), 'He knows no god; knows no- 
 thing of eternity.' 3 In his address on South African missions 
 in Westminster Abbey, in November 1875, he said of the 
 Bechuanas when he first visited them, ' They had no idea of 
 a God, and no notion of a hereafter. There was not an idol 
 to be found in all their province,' and one being shown to a 
 chief, 'an intelligent leader of the people, it excited his 
 
 1 ' Transactions of the Xew Zealand Institute,' vol. i. 1868, p. 385. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 329. 
 
 3 ' Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa,' 13th edition, p. 15. 
 
204 RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 liveliest astonishment. ... He ridiculed the notion of any- 
 one worshipping a thing he had made with his own hands.' 
 But, on the other hand, a printed book was regarded as the 
 white man's charm.' l Dr. Moffatt's distinguished son-in-law, 
 Dr. Livingstone, thus refers to the Makonde natives of the 
 Eovuma district: c They know nothing of a deity ; they pray 
 to their mothers when in distress ; they know nothing of a 
 future state, nor have they any religion except a belief in 
 medicine. . . . They blame witches for disease and death. 
 . . . They fear the English.' The Rev. Dr. Nixon, Bishop 
 of Tasmania, was ' obliged to desist from all attempts at 
 conversion, because the poverty of their language and 
 conceptions rendered every higher religious idea impos- 
 sible to them' the aborigines of Tasmania. Dr. George 
 Smith, formerly editor of the c Friend of India,' endeavouring 
 to claim for the Andaman Islanders ' a capacity for being 
 influenced by Christian teaching,' is forced, with obvious 
 unwillingness, to admit that such a capacity c has been so 
 lamentably wanting in the Nicobarese to the south, whom 
 .... the Jesuits and Moravians successively attempted to 
 influence in vain.' Regarding certain savage tribes of the 
 Albert Kyanza region of Central Africa, Baker reports that 
 the 6 head of the Austrian mission acknowledged .... that 
 the mission was absolute]y useless among such savages . . . . 
 that the natives were utterly impracticable ' as to religious 
 impressions of' any kind. Baker himself found that ' the 
 obtuseness of the savages was such that I never could make 
 them understand the existence of good principle. Their one 
 idea was power force that could obtain all, the strong hand 
 that could wrest from the weak.' 
 
 These experiences and opinions of missionaries are abun- 
 dantly confirmed by the concurrent evidence of travellers, 
 naturalists, sportsmen, and merchants, all intimately ac- 
 quainted with the habits both of thought and action of the 
 savage races among whom they dwelt, or with whom they 
 became for the time associated. Of the natives of Dahomey 
 Lieutenant Ellis thus expresses himself in one of the leading 
 religious publications of this country : They 'have no idea 
 1 ' Daily News,' December 1, 1875. 
 
IN LOWER MAN. 205 
 
 of God. . . . They believe also in no future state of rewards 
 or punishments proportionate to their behaviour on earth, 
 which belief has always been found to be the germ of civi- 
 lisation. . . . Christianity has made scarcely any progress.' l 
 Of one of the jungle Yeddas of Ceylon Hartshorne tells us, 
 ( He had no idea of a soul, of a Supreme Being, nor of a 
 future state. He thought there was no existence after death. 
 He was conscious of no difference between himself and the 
 wild beasts which roamed through the forest.' As a whole 
 they ( appear to be almost devoid of any sentiment of reli- 
 gion, except in so far as may be inferred from their offering 
 a sacrifice to the spirit of one of their fellows immediately 
 after his decease.' The author of one of the most recent and 
 comprehensive works on Ceylon, * an officer late of the 
 Ceylon Eifles,' says of these Veddas, ' They know nothing 
 of heaven or hell, or any kind of future existence.' Never- 
 theless, ' so far from jbeing savage, they are mild and inoffen- 
 sive. . . . Missionaries would be much better and more 
 usefully employed at home in reclaiming the ivorse than wild 
 leasts in human shape among ourselves. Veddas do not 
 exhibit any of the brutal, drunken ruffianism of the civilised 
 savages who infest our towns, bite people's noses off, or kick 
 their wives to death, and (these Veddas) are by far the 
 most civilised of the two.' This contrast between the native 
 character of the so-called savage, who has not yet been sub- 
 jected to the influences too frequently contaminating and 
 deteriorating of civilisation, and the behaviour of whole 
 classes of men and women in cities that superabound in 
 churches and in clergymen, has frequently been made by the 
 most competent authorities, and cannot be made too fre- 
 quently or too strongly. 
 
 Of the negro of Angola Monteiro remarks, ( He has no 
 idea of a Creator, nor of a future existence. Neither does 
 he adore the sun, nor any other object, idol or image. His 
 whole belief is in evil spirits and in charms or fetiches.' 
 Kamrasi's people, near the Nyanza Lake, ' although far 
 superior to the tribes on the north of the Nile in general 
 intelligence, had no idea of a Supreme Being, nor any object 
 1 ' Religious Rites in Dahomey,' Sunday Mtiga:\ne t vol. for 187G, p. 550. 
 
206 KELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 of worship, their faith resting upon a simple belief in magic, 
 like that of the natives of Madi and Obbo. Although 
 without an idea of a Supreme Being, the whole country 
 bowed down to sorcery .... utterly devoid of a belief in a 
 deity and without a vestige of superstition,' says Baker. 
 After recounting a long conversation with a certain chief, 
 the object of which was to bring out any glimmer of a 
 religious sense, Sir Samuel is obliged to confess, 'In this 
 wild, naked savage there was not even a superstition upon 
 which to found a religious feeling. There was a belief in 
 matter, and to his understanding everything was material. 
 It was extraordinary to find so much clearness of perception 
 combined with such complete obtuseness to anything ideal.' 
 Baker had, in fact, to give up ' the religious argument as a 
 failure.' 
 
 Of the Andaman Islanders, Dr. Mouat says, ' They have 
 no conception of a Supreme Being. They have never risen 
 from the effects they see around them even to the most im- 
 perfect notion of a Cause. They have never ascended in 
 thought from the works to a Creator, or even to many 
 creators that is to say, polytheism.' * Lieutenant Low, of 
 H.M. Indian Navy, similarly remarks of them, ( They do not 
 believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, and perform no 
 religious ceremony of any sort.' 2 Again, according to the 
 evidence of the French castaway Narcisse Pellier, who lived 
 seventeen years among them, the blacks of Night Island, on 
 the N.E. coast of Queensland (Australia), 'have no knowledge 
 of any Superior Being and no form of religion of any kind 
 whatever.' Indeed, 'the Australian has no words to ex- 
 press the ideas of God, religion, righteousness, sin ; ' and 
 ' there are numerous examples of savage nations .... who 
 have no words in their language to express such ideas' 
 (Biichner). 
 
 In short, Lubbock points out how ample and varied is 
 the evidence that goes to show ' that there are races of men 
 altogether devoid of religion* and that ' the question as to 
 
 1 'Adventures and Eesearclies among the Andaman Islanders,' 18G3, 
 p. 303. 
 
 2 The Land of the Sun : Sketches of Travel,' 1870, p, 168. 
 
IN LOWER MAN. 207 
 
 the general existence of religion among men is .... to a 
 great extent a matter of definition. 9 
 
 While, however, there are certain savage peoples that 
 appear to have, absolutely or comparatively 
 
 1. No ideas of a God or of gods, of a Deity, Divinity, or 
 Supreme Being, of any Creator of or Kuler over the universe ; 
 
 2. No notion of any future state of existence, of any 
 spiritual survival of death ; 
 
 3. No worship, and 
 
 4. No idols, images, or other objects of worship ; 
 
 5. No faith or belief except in the material, in what is 
 visible, tangible, demonstrable, cognisant to and by the 
 senses ; 
 
 6. No priests or spiritual order ; 
 
 7. No superstition ; 
 
 8. No tradition 
 
 there are many more that possess either some equivalent for 
 or some rudiments of religion in the form, for instance, of 
 
 1. Worship of 
 
 a. Fellow-man. 
 
 fc. The lower animals. 
 
 c. Inanimate objects, including 
 
 1. Trees, plants, or leaves. 
 
 2. Kocks or stones in their natural state. 
 
 3. Water, as that of the ocean or rivers. 
 
 4. Articles fashioned by man. 
 
 d. Natural phenomena, including 
 
 Fire. 
 
 Thunder. 
 
 Sun, moon, and stars. 
 
 e. Imaginary spirits, good and evil. 
 
 2. Faith or belief in 
 
 a. Power, real or imaginary, embodied or not, for 
 good or evil, including the 
 
 Superstitions of sorcery. 
 
 witchcraft, 
 magic, 
 charms. 
 
 I. A future state of being, whether of happiness or 
 the reverse. 
 
208 RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 The worship of man by his fellow-man is and has been pre- 
 valent in all ages and in all countries, in all degrees or stages 
 of savagery, barbarism, and civilisation. In the first place, as 
 regards the savage, he worships, from different motives to a 
 certain extent, on the one hand his own chiefs, and on the other 
 the white man. A certain African tribe of the Nyanza region 
 6 believed most devotedly that the general affairs of life and 
 the control of the elements were in the hands of their old 
 chief; and therefore they served him, not with a feeling of 
 love, neither with a trace of religion, but .... for the sake 
 of what they could obtain' (Baker). 'The negroes of 
 Dahomey, as elsewhere in West Africa, considered white 
 men as beings but little inferior to deities' (Ellis), and the 
 explanation of this is probably to be found in the statement 
 by another traveller that c nothing impresses savages so 
 forcibly as the power to punish and reward' (Baker). Ac- 
 cording to Spencer, indeed, the savage first shows the re- 
 ligious sentiment i in the feeling excited by the display of 
 power in another, exceeding his own power some skill, some 
 sagacity, in his chief, leading to a result he does not under- 
 stand something which has the element of mystery and 
 arouses his wonder. 9 Livingstone has described the worship 
 of the white traveller by various African races. c The white 
 traveller commands a kind of worship. The sick lie down 
 in his shadow to be cured ; the young women ask permission 
 to touch his strange skin and his wonderful hair.' 1 Houzeau 
 points out that the deities of other primitive peoples, such 
 as the Society Islanders, are also only men. 
 
 But the recognition of brother man as a superior being 
 is by no means confined to savage races. Buddha, the 
 founder of the Buddhist religion, was himself worshipped as 
 a god, and the same was no doubt the case with Mahomet. 
 'At the close of a cholera epidemic in Ceylon, in 1875, 
 certain Buddhist priests from Burmah paraded through 
 Galle in a wheeled pagoda, ' the people adoring them as 
 gods ; ' 2 and the ( Deification of the Prince of Wales in 
 
 1 ' Athenaeum,' December 19, 1874, p. 822. 
 
 2 ( Sunday Magazine,' November 1875, p. 1 13. 
 
IN LOWER MAN. 209 
 
 India ' in the course of the same year was the subject of an 
 article in the ' Athenseum.' l 
 
 In the various forms which hero worship takes, the deifi- 
 cation of man by man is daily illustrated by the most refined 
 individuals of the cultured classes of the most highly 
 civilised nations, and has been so illustrated in all times. 
 Such is the admiration of excellence of any kind that many 
 ardent men and women worship its human embodiment or 
 incarnation. Hence they make divinities of poets or no- 
 velists, theologians or philosophers, sculptors or painters, 
 soldiers or sailors. The Eev. Dr. Chalmers, for instance, 
 speaking of Rousseau, says, ( Nor were there wanting many 
 admirers who worshipped him while he lived and who, when 
 he died, went like devotees on a pilgrimage to his tomb.' 2 
 Arnold spoke of the 6 all but idolatry ' with which he re- 
 garded Buusen ; and there are hosts of young men who 
 make a god of Carlyle or Ruskin, Darwin or Huxley, 
 Shakespeare or Tennyson, Landseer or Millais. In all such 
 cases there is still a respect for power, but it is no longer for 
 mere physical strength; it is a reverence for, or an adoration 
 of, intellectual ability, artistic skill, or moral force. 
 
 The obvious u-orship of man by woman which cha- 
 racterises our own civilisation is interesting as illustrating 
 the sense of dependence, on which, according to Schleier- 
 macher and other authors, religion is mainly based. c The 
 mere feeling of dependence on a superior being ' is the 
 ' lowest and simplest form of religion,' says Professor Blackie. 
 In endless ways our most highly educated women show that 
 they have such a feeling for their husbands, fathers, sons, 
 brothers, or for, in general, men as men. They lean upon 
 and cling to them in such a way as to manifest their evi- 
 dent consciousness of man's superiority, and superiority not 
 simply as to physical strength. They have faith in his superior 
 wisdom, and they look up to him for guidance in all the 
 more serious affairs of life. Nay, they frequently go so far 
 as to make a veritable idol of him, and worship him with a 
 devotion and intentness worthy of higher objects of reve- 
 
 1 Of February 19, 187G, p. 264. 
 
 - ' Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans,' 1854, vol. i. p. 237. 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 EELIGIOUS FEELING- 
 
 rence; and they do all this nothwitlistanding sometimes their 
 assertions to the contrary. For it has occurred to me over 
 and over again to observe, both at home and abroad, that 
 members of what has been not undeservedly called by the 
 press ' the shrieking sisterhood ' of masculine females 
 clamorous for women's rights strong-minded women who, 
 without respect to facts, assert woman's mental, if not 
 physical, equality with man constantly betake themselves 
 in all matters of difficulty to masculine support, advice, or 
 assistance. Nay, I have seen women who were philan- 
 thropists literally, figuratively, and professionally carry 
 their doubtfully Platonic admiration of man the length of 
 despising their own sex. It is shown in another chapter 
 that throughout the animal kingdom where mind exists at 
 all there is, as a rule, a sexual psychical distinction, the 
 female mind being inferior in strength to the male. And it 
 may here be added that a sense of dependence on that 
 superior mind, as well as superior body, of the male is, or 
 may be said to be, throughout the zoological series a natural 
 attribute or instinct of the female. 
 
 Woman's idolatry of man was long ago pointed out by 
 Milton where, speaking of Adani and Eve, he says 
 
 He for god only ; she for god in him. 
 
 In our own day George Eliot portrays the same thing in 
 ' Daniel Deronda,' the Jewish youth who is ' in the stead of 
 a god' to a woman; and another of the best of our modern 
 English novelists Mrs. Craik, better known as Miss Mulock 
 referring to self-sacrifice, remarks, 'Many a strong-minded, 
 noble-minded man becomes a sort of conscience to many a 
 weak woman, who regulates all her doings, not by abstract 
 conceptions of the right, but by what he husband, or brother, 
 or father thinJcs right. This is a practical worship of a 
 kind that is extremely common among ourselves, and a 
 worship infinitely better in many cases than none at all. 
 In such cases weakness must find something strong to lean 
 upon and be supported by as much so as the long, trailing, 
 weak tendril of the climbing plant searches for until it finds 
 the needful support.' 1 
 
 1 v Sermons out of Church,' 1875, p. 10. 
 
IN LOWER MAX. 211 
 
 On the other hand, the deification of woman by man, or 
 what is tantamount thereto, is not uncommonly seen among 
 our most highly cultured classes. The writings of the poets 
 in all times, indeed, have abounded in evidences of this sort 
 of adoration. And even philosophers of the driest type are not 
 exempt from so tender an idolatry. Of this there is perhaps no 
 better modern instance than that of the late John Stuart 
 Mill, who thus speaks of his own wife : * Her memory is to me 
 a religion, and her approbation the standard by which 
 summing up as it does all worthiness I endeavour to regu- 
 late my life.' l Thus he may be said to have made a goddess 
 of his wife. And, though not to the same extent, or in quite 
 the same sense, there are hosts of other men of culture or 
 refinement who make divinities of wives, mothers, daughters, 
 sisters, or beloved. This worship of woman by man, however, 
 differs in various respects from that of man by woman, or that 
 of man by fellow- man. In this case also there may be a 
 respect for power or strength, but never for mere bodily 
 power or strength. Frequently, however, the source or cause of 
 reverence, admiration, or adoration is physical beauty, some- 
 times pure and simple, more usually as associated with the 
 moral (/races or virtues of love, gentleness, purity and even 
 with that feminine attribute that may or may not be con- 
 sidered a virtue the sense of dependence, the attribute of 
 weakness, already alluded to. 
 
 Nor must we, either in man or woman in civilised peoples 
 of all ages, forget the many forms of worship of the ideal, 
 of imaginary embodiments of the physical, intellectual, and 
 moral virtues. 
 
 It is not either necessary or desirable to describe here the 
 various forms of the worship of natural objects or phenomena by 
 savage races for instance, the fetichism of the West African 
 tribes, or the shamanism of the Tungusians and Yakuts. But 
 it is of interest to note that such a kind of worship is 
 neither confined to Africa nor to savage races ; for, on the 
 one hand, it is to be met with in the Samoyedes and Laplanders 
 of Northern Europe, and, on the other, among the in some re- 
 spects highly civilised Chinese. Eae tells us that the Russian 
 
 1 Autobiography, 1873. 
 p 2 
 
212 EELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 Samoyedes of tlie present day, inhabiting the Kanim Penin- 
 sula or living in the neighbourhood of Archangel or other 
 towns within the pale, therefore, of European civilisation 
 worship, as ' nournea,' or deities, gods or idols, bleached rein- 
 deer skulls, stuck upon sticks and fenced round with reindeer 
 horns, as do also the Lapps. A Samoyede worshipper 'went 
 down on hands and knees .... approaching the idol by 
 crawling, prostrating his face and kissing the ground in 
 supplication, exactly as the Laplanders approached their god 
 Jumala.' 1 
 
 'Any natural object different from the common run of 
 those which come before him is to the Siberian an object of 
 worship, which not only the families in the neighbourhood, 
 but tribes from a distance, will visit and make offerings to. 
 A stone, a tree of irregular shape, a curious rock, may all be 
 looked to by the shaman istic worshipper as material for his 
 adoration ' (Brown). 
 
 As regards the Chinese, ' they possess a kind of philo- 
 sophical pantheism, an adoration of certain natural objects ; 
 but it is a mere ceremonial and associated with no theological 
 doctrines.' 2 'Eespect for their ancestors seems, as Davis 
 long ago remarked, about the only thing that approaches to 
 the character of a religious sense among them, for through- 
 out their idolatrous superstition there is a remarkable absence 
 of reverence towards the idols and priests of the Buddhist 
 and Taonist sects' (Brown). 
 
 The worship of living animals is so extensive a subject 
 that we cannot here enter upon it further than to illustrate 
 the feelings which give rise to it and the ceremonies by which 
 it is attended in a single case. The poor natives of India look 
 upon the man-eating tiger c as a superior being, to be propi- 
 tiated by prayer ; and offerings of rice and fruit are left at the 
 entrances of their cottages when its approach is dreaded. 
 . . . Several natives came unexpectedly into the presence 
 of a tiger. Being unarmed, they addressed a prayer to it for 
 mercy.' Here, as in so many other cases of human worship, 
 
 1 < The Land of the North Wind ; or, Travels among- the Laplanders and 
 the Samoj^edes,' 1875, pp. 25G-7. 
 
 2 Chambers^ Encyclopedia.' 
 
IN LOWER MAN. 213 
 
 we have obviously the fear of a superior power the power to 
 do evil, to produce death and havoc leading to efforts at the 
 conciliation of that power. 
 
 In the human infant or child, even of the most highly 
 cultured man, there is no innate religious sense. It has, like 
 the moral sense, to he created and cultivated. 
 
 Again, in certain forms of mental defect and disorder in 
 certain stages or kinds of idiocy, for example in the midst 
 of the highest civilisation, there is either no religious sense, 
 or only the faintest glimmerings can be developed as the 
 result of great pains in education. As was long ago pointed 
 out by Shakespeare, the idiot worships his toy, makes an idol 
 of manufactured wood or stone : 
 
 The idiot takes his bauble for a god. 
 
 The phenomena of human insanity in the lunatic asylums 
 of our large cities illustrate what may well be designated 
 the religion of fear or its fruits, the influence of fear as an 
 element in religion. Fear is an influence that may be said 
 to pervade, or to form the basis of, many kinds or forms of 
 religion or worship, superstition and its rites, not in savage 
 races only, but also among civilised and semi-civilised peoples 
 fear, that is, of a power to do evil. But the acme of this 
 fear is to be found in certain forms of what is called religious 
 insanity. As a physician whose specialty is the treatment of 
 insanity and allied disorders I have to encounter every day 
 cases of poor nervous, timid, hysterical weaklings of both sexes, 
 but especially young ladies, young women, or girls, whose 
 life is rendered intolerable by religious delusions. A more 
 pitiable class of patients I am. not acquainted with ; more 
 abject wretchedness I cannot conceive. Their extreme mental 
 misery very commonly impels them to suicide. 
 
 Anywhere anywhere out of the world 
 
 is their constant cry and aspiration. And for what reason ? 
 Because they have constantly in their mind's eye what they 
 believe to be the terrible realities of a physical hell. Ever- 
 lasting fire and brimstone, a lake of fire worse than the crater 
 of Kilauea or any of this world's active volcanoes, the worm 
 that dieth not, have inspired a dread compared with which 
 
214 KELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 any other kind of terror or horror is a bagatelle. And they 
 feed this insane fear it is fed for them by all the Bible 
 texts that relate to damnation, perdition, eternal punishment, 
 wrath, and vengeance. To and by themselves personally all 
 such texts are applied as to persons who have sinned beyond 
 hope of mercy or forgiveness. Such are the common major 
 morbid forms of religious fear the major morbid results of 
 fear as an element in religion. 
 
 But the minor forms and results are much more common 
 for instance, in Presbyterian Scotland so much so as to 
 taint or tone society in general. 
 
 In this and other highly civilised countries there are 
 whole classes of people who are characterised either by a 
 want of the religious sentiment or by its very low develop- 
 ment even under education. This may be saidj for instance, 
 of 
 
 1. The whole criminal class, as we meet with its members 
 in our great prisons. 
 
 2. The vagrant class, including certain tribes or kinds at 
 least of gipsies or tinkers, who are not necessarily or always 
 criminal or vicious. 
 
 3. A large proportion of the lower or uneducated classes 
 in all our large centres of population. 
 
 Thus of the cave-dwellers of Caithness Dr. Mitchell 
 declared in 1866, 'They went to no church, and had no 
 religious beliefs or worship.' The French peasantry of the 
 present day, as their characteristics are sketched by Hamer- 
 toii, exhibit the following among many other evidences of 
 superstition: 'The women go on the Day of the Purification 
 to read the Gospel to the bees. ... I have seen this done, 
 and done in serious earnest, with a perfect faith that the bees 
 could derive spiritual advantage from the reading, and were 
 at least so far Christians.' T And among the same peasants 
 also there is still a belief in sorcery. 2 While of a class repre- 
 senting the average civilisation of the metropolis of the 
 world Lord Lyttelton, in replying to Mr. W. E. Greg's ' Kocks 
 Ahead,' remarks apropos of popular Christianity in the capital 
 of England, ( What warrant have we for supposing that the 
 
 1 < Round my House,' 1876, p. 25 i. 2 Ibid. p. 256. 
 
IN LOWEE MAN. 215 
 
 majority of men have the requisites for true Christian belief? 
 Of the first hundred men we may count passing over West- 
 minster Bridge how many are the least distressed by any 
 sense of sin or of moral evil ? ' 
 
 In truth, the most highly educated class in Britain is 
 charged with atheism, materialism, a faith only in what is 
 demonstrable to and by the senses, a belief that is common 
 to the savage and the child. Much has been said of late years 
 of the atheism of science, or of its cultivators. Wordsworth 
 thus describes the modern scientist, or man of science : 
 
 A moralist 
 
 Himself his world and his own god : 
 One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling 
 
 Xor form, nor feeling, great or small : 
 A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, 
 
 An intellectual all-in-all. 
 
 ' Here, 5 says Professor Blackie, the most genial genius of 
 all the academic celebrities of the 'modern Athens,' 'the great 
 philosophic poet clearly indicates that, without reverence and 
 love, the mere man of science remains incapable of compre- 
 hending either humanity or divinity : becomes practically his 
 own god.' But both philosophic poets for the Professor is 
 quite as well entitled to such a designation as Wordsworth, 
 though his philosophy is of a warmer, more human and human- 
 ising kind have before them an ideal, not actual, personage. 
 A c mere man of science ' is much less likely to exist in reality 
 than a mere poet. At all events I do not myself know any. 
 All the men of science I have encountered abroad and at home 
 are something more than mere men of science ; they are men 
 with all the ordinary human aspirations, virtues, and vices, 
 including most assuredly the highest reverence and love for 
 the good, the true, and the beautiful, wherever they are to be 
 found. Poets as well as divines would appear to require 
 constantly to be reminded that atheism and science have no 
 necessary relation or connection ; that theology is not religion, 
 but only a part or form of it ; and that devoutness and all the 
 elements of religiousness and morality may exist with or 
 without a belief in the God of the Bible, as that belief is set 
 forth in this or that creed, dogma, or Church standard. 
 
216 KELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 There is unquestionably in all ranks of civilised men, and 
 in both, sexes, a self -worship, the result of morbid or over- 
 weening self-esteem or self-conceit, and such persons, puffed 
 up by a sense of their own importance, may be described as 
 their own gods ; but these divinities are to be sought in the 
 ranks of Bumbledom, in public boards of all kinds, in Govern- 
 ment offices, and not specially at least among men of science, 
 who do not, however, pretend to be exempt from the frailties 
 of their common humanity. 
 
 The idea of deity is not necessary to religion. No such 
 conception as to the government of the universe or regulation 
 of human affairs is contained in Buddhism, ' the most wide- 
 spread religious system in the world.' 'The very idea of a 
 God as creating, or in any way ruling, the world is utterly 
 absent in the Buddhist system. God is not so much denied: 
 He is simply not known. Contrary to the opinion once confi- 
 dently and generally held that a nation of atheists never existed, 
 it is no longer to be disputed that the numerous Buddhist 
 nations are essentially atheist ; for they know no beings with 
 greater supernatural power than any man is supposed capable 
 of attaining to by virtue, austerity, and science. And a 
 remarkable indication of this startling fact is to be seen in the 
 circumstance that some at least of the Buddhist nations 
 the Chinese, Mongols, and Tibetians have no word in their 
 languages to express the notion of God.' J 
 
 The modern German philosophy of Schopenhauer in many 
 respects resembles Buddhism. It may, in fact, be regarded 
 as a modified Western Buddhism, in which there is 6 no re- 
 ligion .... except that of simple philanthropy and self- 
 denial.' 
 
 It appears, then, that in 
 
 1. Certain of the lower races of man ; 
 
 2. Certain stages of development among higher races ; 
 
 3. Certain states of menial or moral defect, perversion, or 
 
 disorder 
 
 the religious sense either cannot be said to exist, or it 
 occurs only in a primitive, germinal condition. It is innate 
 
 1 Article 'Buddhism ' in ' Chambers's Encyclopaedia.' 
 
IN LOWEE MAN. 
 
 217 
 
 neither in civilised nor savage peoples. Moreover, it Las to be 
 noted that, where it does exist, a low development of religious 
 feeling is associated with a low development of general intel- 
 ligence. The converse holds good that the religious, like 
 the moral, sense is a concomitant of, and is proportionate 
 to, considerable native general intelligence and high mental 
 or moral culture. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS FEELING IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 IN order to a determination of the question whether it 
 can be said in any proper sense that the lower animals 
 possess religious feeling, it is desirable that we should start 
 with some intelligible definition of what religion is in man. 
 Remembering that the Christian religion is a very limited 
 one compared, for instance, with Buddhism ; that the reli- 
 gions of different peoples are obviously very different in 
 their nature ; and that in certain races, where it exists at all, 
 religion is developed in very rudimentary forms the standard 
 definition which we should adopt, if one be attainable, is 
 one that will apply to what has been so variously described 
 as religiousness or the religious instinct, sentiment, faculty, 
 emotion or impulse, sense or feeling, notions or ideas, in all 
 ranks of man, in all ages, in all stages of development or 
 civilisation, and in all conditions of health and disease. We 
 must, therefore, at once obviously eliminate all that relates 
 distinctively to the Bible and the God of the Bible in other 
 words, all the peculiar beliefs of the Christian, the defini- 
 tions that would exclude all religions but his own, and all 
 the substitutes for religion where no true religion exists. 
 Several classes of definitions may with propriety be made use 
 of viz. (1) dictionary definitions, which represent or reflect 
 current popular conceptions ; (2) the definitions laid down 
 by those anthropologists, or other authorities, who have taken 
 a wide survey, and made a philosophical study, of the reli- 
 gions of the world, and especially of the germs or dawn of 
 religion among the lower races of man ; or (3) those of 
 modern theologians, many of whom are beginning to see that 
 
RELIGIOUS FEELING. 219 
 
 there are other religions in the world than the Christian 
 one, and that the definitions which apply to the latter do not 
 necessarily apply to the others. Many of the most advanced 
 of our clergy are showing signs of a recognition of the exist- 
 ence of material at least for the construction of a science of 
 comparative theology ; but I have met with none that have 
 any conception of the broader, more important field of com- 
 parative religion. The following include specimens of the 
 various classes of definitions. The popular, the scientific, and 
 the theological ideas of religion are said or supposed to be 
 
 1. That which binds one back from doing something 
 presumably wrong. This is the literal and original meaning 
 of the word. Such a definition may very properly refer to, 
 or include, or be synonymous with, such faculties or quali- 
 ties as conscience, self-control, or self-restraint. 
 
 2. The feeling of reverence and love towards a superior 
 being, and consequent obedience to him. 
 
 3. Piety, which again is defined partly as 
 
 a. The sense of duty. 
 l>. Dutiful conduct. 
 
 c. Eeverence for superior beings, . parents, friends, 
 or country. 
 
 4. Systems of faith and worship, including the perform- 
 ance of worship, rites, or ceremonies. 
 
 5. Recognition and worship of superior embodied power. 
 
 6. An appreciation of the existence of superior beings 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 7. The fear of more powerful beings or of superior power 
 (Lubbock). 
 
 8. C A blind sense of dependence 9 (Schleiermacher). 
 
 9. ' In the mingled fear and affection displayed towards 
 the dead we witness the real germ of religious sentiment and 
 the origin of theology,' is said to be the opinion of Herbert 
 Spencer. 
 
 10. ' Always and everywhere a consciousness of relation- 
 ship to a worshipped being ' (Flint). 
 
 11. Self -renunciation ' constitutes the essence of all true 
 religion' (Donaldson). 
 
 Such, according to various authorities, are the elements of 
 
220 KELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 religion in lower or savage man, those elements that are 
 common to, or form the basis of, the religions of all men. 
 
 In his Baird Lecture on the ' Philosophy of Eeligion,' 
 given in St. George's Church, Edinburgh, in February 1877, 
 Professor Mint thus defines human religion : The contro- 
 versy as to whether religion is essentially knowing, feeling, 
 or willing is merely verbal. . . . Eeligion belongs exclu- 
 sively to no one disposition or faculty of the soul, but em- 
 braces the whole mind, the whole man. At its lowest it has 
 something alike of intellect, affection, and practical obe- 
 dience in it; and at its best it should include all the highest 
 exercises of reason, all the purest and deepest emotions and 
 affections, and the noblest kind of conduct. . . . Only a reli- 
 gion which presents an object of worship capable of eliciting 
 the entire devotion of the worshipper's nature, and at the 
 same time of ennobling, enlarging, and satisfying that nature, 
 fully realises the idea of religion, or, in other words, can 
 claim to be a perfect religion.' l This recent and public 
 utterance of the Professor of Divinity in the University of 
 Edinburgh is important not only as showing the breadth 
 and liberality of view that characterise such Scottish theolo- 
 gians as Principal Tulloch and Professor Knight, of St. 
 Andrews, Principal Caird, of Glasgow, and Professor Smith, 
 of Aberdeen, but as bringing out the fact that religion is 
 not a special or separate faculty or instinct even in man. 
 It is, in short, merely a mode in which the action or opera- 
 tion of various moral or intellectual faculties, or both, may 
 be combined, harmonised, and manifested. 
 
 Applying such a standard as Professor's Flint's to the 
 dog, on the one hand, and to savage man on the other, to 
 the worship by the one of man a living, visible, intelligible 
 power and the idolatry by the other of his wooden or stone 
 fetich or symbol, or his imaginary spirit, it cannot fail to 
 strike those who have made themselves conversant with the 
 habits equally of dog and savage how much more appro- 
 priate the description or definition of human religion is to 
 the dog than to the man. Professor Flint tells us that the 
 ' human heart cries out for a living, personal God to wor- 
 
 1 Courant,' February 20, 1877. 
 
IX OTHEK ANIMALS. 221 
 
 ship.' This is precisely what the dog does and the savage 
 does not do. 
 
 Whatever be the definition adopted of religious feeling, 
 as it is exhibited (if at all) in lower man, we must admit that 
 the same kind of feeling, the same moral or intellectual qua- 
 lities, or blending of the two, are possessed at least by cer- 
 tain dogs, and by them frequently in a much higher degree 
 and in a much more real sense than by countless thousands 
 of men, including whole races thereof. 
 
 To satisfy ourselves of this we have merely to study care- 
 fully the attitude or relation of certain dogs to their masters 
 to man. That ' man is the god of the dog,' his deity, idol, 
 or hero, is a saying usually attributed to Kobert Burns ; but, 
 whether or not such a saying really emanated from him and 
 represented his opinion or belief, the phrase is the appropriate 
 expression of an easily demonstrable fact and feature in the 
 dog's character. And there can be little doubt that the same 
 
 O 
 
 view perhaps not in quite the same words has been ex- 
 pressed by various authors, ancient as well as modern. Among 
 others Lord Bacon long ago wrote, 'Take an example of a dogy, 
 and mark what generosity and courage he will put on when 
 he is maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a god, 
 or melior natural Both figuratively and in very truth man is 
 frequently certainly not always the god or providence of 
 the dog. That man is sometimes at least the god of the dog 
 is true, and in a far more real sense than that the God of the 
 Bible is the subject of genuine adoration by many so-called 
 Christians. It may be said with the utmost propriety that 
 to certain dogs man's will is law, man's love is heaven, 
 man's self is god (Cobbe). 
 
 The dog's worship of man in many respects compares 
 favourably with much at least of man's worship of superior 
 beings, real or supposed, animate, inanimate, or spiritual. 
 It does so, for instance, in the quality and duration of the 
 loce, which it lavishes not alone upon the person, but upon 
 the memory and the belongings of the being it adores. 
 
 Its affection is not only pure, sincere, earnest, hearty, 
 thorough ; it is also disinterested : for it survives neglect 
 and cruelty of all kinds. It is simple, for the animal seems 
 
222 KELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 to be possessed but of one dominant idea, and that is his 
 master (Cobbe). Its love is so intense sometimes that any 
 rupture of the relationship, especially if sudden, any loss by 
 death, or even temporary absence from home, of a beloved 
 master or mistress begets, as is shown in another chapter, a 
 fatal grief. Its love is life-lasting and unchanging, and not 
 unfrequently attaches itself to a grave for days, months, or 
 even years after its mortal deity has disappeared from this 
 mortal sphere. The story of c Grey friars Bobby,' the well- 
 known terrier, whose monument may be seen opposite the 
 gate of the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, is but the 
 type of numerous incidents of a similar kind. 
 
 In such cases there is an obvious attachment to and 
 respect for a hallowed or cherished memory fidelity to the 
 memory of the dead, to the memory of a great affection. 
 The dog also occasionally treasures up, defends, or otherwise 
 prizes or shows a regard for relics of the loved and lost 
 (Cobbe). In doing so it is apparently actuated by devotional 
 love. But there may also be a certain amount of supersti- 
 tion or a certain kind of fetich worship. 
 
 For the worship of man is not the only kind of idolatry 
 practised by the dog. As has been pointed out by Miss 
 Cobbe, it engages occasionally in rites similar to those of 
 negro fetichism and of the dancing and howling dervish. 
 The object of worship is selected apparently on the principle 
 on which so many human idolaters select their idols because 
 of its oddness, its unfamiliarity. But, unlike the West Afri- 
 can negro, the Samoyede, or Yakut, unlike the human prac- 
 titioner of fetichism or shamanism, in the dog familiarity 
 with its inanimate idol the stone or post, tree or bush, 
 which at first it feared breeds contempt; and a better 
 knowledge of the properties or nature of its fetich, and 
 especially a knowledge of its powerlessiiess to do harm, a 
 knowledge begotten of due examination and growing cou- 
 rage and experience, leads the thoughtful dog gradually to 
 substitute for the dread, awe, wonder it may be supersti- 
 tion with which it originally regarded it, the deference 
 which it addressed to it, a treatment that is apt to be signally 
 ignominious. 
 
IN OTHEE ANIMALS. 223 
 
 The term superstition has more than once been used in 
 connection with the dog. The question may here fitly be 
 raised and discussed whether superstition, such as occurs in 
 man, exists also in the dog or other animals. According to 
 some definitions, at least, we must concede that it does. 
 Thus human superstition has been variously defined as 
 
 1. Excessive reverence or fear. 
 
 2. False worship. 
 
 3. Belief in what is absurd, without evidence. 
 
 4. Idolatry of the unknown and mysterious (Cobbe). 
 
 Such animals as the dog unquestionably possess super- 
 stition of this kind. It exhibits practically a belief in the 
 supernatural or preternatural. It expresses alarm at appari- 
 tions, spectres, ghosts. Thus it has been described as regard- 
 ing an owl as a ghost. And the same kind of ghosts that are 
 occasionally made use of in practical joking, or for more 
 serious ends for the intimidation of man, and that frighten 
 him produce the same effect, sometimes at least, on the dog. 
 A fertile or morbid imagination frequently leads the horse as 
 well as the dog to be terrified at the first sight of perfectly 
 harmless objects, animate or inanimate, especially when seen 
 in a state of motion and in comparative darkness objects, 
 that is, which are simply for the moment new, not familiar, 
 not understood, and which therefore, being associated with 
 supposed danger, inspire timidity or terror, as well as pos- 
 sibly a sense of the mysterious or supernatural. Omne ignotum 
 is taken not pro magnifico but pro malefico ; it is invested 
 with imaginary, mysterious, undefined, and indefinable 
 powers of evil. Bartlett speaks of a sense of mystery or of 
 mysterious dread in certain animal inmates of the London 
 Zoological Gardens. In many animals, in short, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, awe or dread of the unseen, unknown, 
 untried, unheard, readily gives birth not only to a feeling of 
 mystery, but, as is pointed out in another chapter, to genuine 
 delusion. 
 
 We have had occasion to see, in the last chapter, how 
 much of human idolatry may be described as, or ascribed to, 
 the religion of fear. By way of contrast it is desirable here 
 to show how much of the dog's worship of man may be 
 
224 RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 equally appropriately designated or assigned to the religion 
 of love. Shakespeare tells us that 
 
 Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends with the remover to remove ; 
 
 but it is human love, which looks for return, which changes 
 with changes in its object, which is too commonly re- 
 sentful and unforgiving, which is in reality too frequently 
 a mere self-love. The love of the dog for man is, occa- 
 sionally at least, something higher, more sublime and 
 divine a love that does not change as and because its idol 
 changes, a love that can and does forgive all things, that 
 submits unmurmuringly to all offences, a love that ' loves 
 on, forgetting and denying self that it may still serve ' the 
 beloved a kind of love, in short, not usually ascribed to or 
 possessed by man. No doubt such a love may be described 
 as irrational, unreasoning, non-discriminating, in so far as 
 it is bestowed quite as much, on the undeserving as on the 
 deserving, on objects sometimes utterly unworthy of it ; and 
 from man's point of view it is so regarded. The dog would 
 appear occasionally to cling all the more closely to the being 
 who spurns it, to lavish the wealth of its affection on the 
 master who bestows upon it nothing but cruelty. 
 
 The love of the dog to its master has frequently been 
 described as transcending the love of man either for his fellow- 
 man or towards God. It is quite the case that the love of 
 certain dogs towards certain masters, in its depth and purity, 
 its sincerity and disinterestedness, is infinitely superior to 
 the love of countless thousands of men either towards their 
 fellow-men or their Maker. Shortly before he died Sir 
 Edwin Landseer, embracing his favourite terrier Tiney, 
 exclaimed, ^ Nobody can love me half as much as thou 
 dost ; ' and many an author such as Byron and Scott, many 
 a man and woman who has experienced the difference be- 
 tween human and canine affection, has cordially echoed Sir 
 Edwin's sentiment or opinion. Cowper makes the poet 
 say 
 
 The noblest minds their virtue prove 
 Hy pity, sympathy, and love: 
 These, these are feelings truly fine, 
 And prove their owner half divine. 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 225 
 
 If this be the case the dog, by the possession and exhi- 
 bition of such 6 noblest feelings,' must be considered as a 
 very embodiment of the religion of love and charity. Cowper 
 also compares favourably for the dog the watchful love of 
 his dog Beau with his own feelings towards God : 
 
 But chief myself I will enjoin, 
 
 Awake at duty's call, 
 To show a love as prompt as thine 
 
 To Him who gives me all. 
 
 A striking feature in the dog's love for and worship of 
 man is, as we have seen, its utter forgetfulness of self, 
 its self-renunciation amounting frequently to self-sacrifice. 
 The dog is often ready at any moment to give up its very 
 life not only to save the life of its master or its master's 
 child, but simply in order to obey some of his trivial behests, 
 such as the guarding of property. The animal not only 
 works and fights but dies for man, and not always, or even 
 generally, for a master or friend who has been kind to it, 
 who has earned its devotion, but frequently, if not generally, 
 for some master or man most unworthy of such heroic self- 
 sacrifice. Now this sort of self-sacrifice has been described 
 as the highest achievement of human virtue, as the very 
 essence not of morals only, but of religion the giving up, 
 that is, not only of one's own interests and pleasures, but of 
 one's own life for the good, real or supposed, of others. 
 
 Another of the moral virtues involved in the dog's love 
 and worship of man is its practice of returning good for evil, 
 of repaying evil with good, of giving faithful service for 
 cruel neglect. Such a practice includes much more than the 
 mere forgiveness of enemies or injuries, for to the passive 
 virtue of forgiveness is added the active one of benevolence. 
 The dog or lamb licking the hand of the slayer in the very 
 act of slaying is the most affecting of all incidents, admits 
 even sarcastic Pope; and it is certainly one of the most 
 familiar, one that has repeatedly been celebrated in verse 
 and stoiy. Hood exclaims, and may well do so 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 
 Under the sun ! 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 But charity, and of the highest kind, is by no means 
 uncommon in the dog ; nor is the object of its charity 
 always or necessarily man. 
 
 That in certain cases at least the dog recognises man's 
 higher nature, his supremacy or superiority, not only of a 
 mere physical but also of a psychical kind, there can be no 
 doubt; for we know that it appreciates in man moral 
 goodness and intellectual ability, of certain kinds at least, 
 and in their embodied form. Though, therefore, it sometimes 
 places an unbounded, unquestioning, impregnable, implicit, 
 unhesitating confidence or trust in a master or man who does 
 not deserve it, or while it may look upon man frequently 
 as its mere providence its provider with food, shelter, or 
 protection or as its ruler, regulator, governor, or lawgiver 
 there are certainly cases in which it attaches itself to man 
 in consequence of his amiable qualities, just as it detaches 
 itself from his influence or power where intellectual stupidity 
 on his part exists. In other chapters it is shown how ex- 
 cellent a judge of human character the dog is. Even as a 
 providence as the higher being who gives him his ' daily 
 bread,' who cures him in disease and relieves him if disabled, 
 who is the source 'from whom all blessings flow' all the 
 blessings, that is, of domesticity the dog must recognise 
 in man moral virtues and intellectual ability technical 
 knowledge and the power of applying it as well as mere 
 bodily strength. 
 
 The moral goodness of man, moreover, may be commu- 
 nicated to his dog. The tendency of intimate association or 
 companionship, even without special education, is to assimi- 
 late the character of the dependent to that of its master, to 
 make the dog a reflex of the man, as is shown in the chapters 
 011 ' Education.' So that it may be said, in one sense at 
 least, that the dog is, or may be, made in the image of the 
 being it worships. The character of the man determines 
 very much that of his dog, whether for good or evil a 
 significant fact in relation to man's responsibility for his 
 treatment of lower animals. 
 
 In connection with the dog's worship of man it has also 
 to be noted that it possesses the power of prayer, petition, 
 
IN OTHEE ANIMALS. 227 
 
 entreaty, appeal, in many different forms, all of them more 
 or less eloquent. The true spirit of prayer of the suppli- 
 cant for mercy or pardon, of the petitioner for reconciliation 
 and restitution to favour is frequently contained in or 
 conveyed by the mere look or attitude of the dog. The 
 earnestness or sincerity of its prayer is equalled only by its 
 eloquence, while the same thing certainly cannot be said of 
 the bulk of man's ceremonial petitions, religious or other. 
 The power of appeal or request, however, belongs more 
 naturally and properly to the chapters on c Language ' or the 
 expression of the desires. If qui laborat orat or laborare est 
 orare is true of man, it must be no less so in the case of 
 other animals, whose labour so frequently transcends that 
 of man in its disinterestedness and other good qualities. 
 Our own Montgomery, sometimes called distinctively the 
 Christian poet, in his well-known verses entitled 'What is 
 Prayer ? ' tells us, as beautifully as truly, that it is 
 
 .... The soul's sincere desire, 
 Uttered or unexpressed : 
 
 .... The burden of a sigh, 
 The falling of a tear, 
 The upward glancing of an eye. . . . 
 
 All this is as strictly applicable to the dog as to man, 
 though its prayer, while not ' uttered,' may nevertheless be 
 even more eloquently c expressed ' than by mere vocal or 
 verbal utterance. The dog's appeal to man is determined 
 obviously by a sense of the vainness of its own efforts of its 
 own powerlessness, and of the need of the help of a higher 
 being a subject that is discussed more fully, however, in the 
 chapter on c Self-submission to Medical and Surgical Treat- 
 ment by Man.' 
 
 A parallel or equivalent to man's kneeling and bending 
 in prayer, to the various forms or degrees of his prostration 
 or grovelling before his idol or fetich, is to be found in the 
 dog's crawling to its master's feet an eloquent expression 
 of its abjectness, of its submission to the stronger will, the 
 superior being, the offended governor. Dr. John Brown de- 
 scribes the solicitation of pardon in and by his terrier Nipper 
 by crouching, grovelling, utter self-abasement. Again, a 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 KELIGKEOUS FEELING 
 
 certain bitch, that had a special respect for the drivers or 
 stokers of locomotive engines on the Metropolitan Bailway 
 (London), and on no other, when she found one of these 
 her human idols, ' grovelled before him, danced around and 
 fawned on him, doing fetich generally to him.' 
 
 Nor are there wanting minds and men devoutly theo- 
 logical on the one hand and highly poetical on the other 
 students of nature and in sympathy with all nature's 
 works, that look upon bird song as a form of praise to our 
 common Creator. Thus the late Canon Kingsley tells us 
 that St. Francis c saw no degradation to the dignity of 
 human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures 
 so beautiful [as birds], so wonderful, who [as he fancied in 
 his old-fashioned way] praised God in the forest even as the 
 angels did in heaven.' 1 Such a conception will be regarded 
 by others than Kingsley as only a fancy. But it is not only 
 a beautiful fancy : there is a possibility at least that it may 
 represent more than fancy fact. It may be a mere expres- 
 sion of the joyous sense of existence, unconscious, non- 
 voluntary in strictness ; but even so considered it may be 
 regarded as a form or species of praise. 
 
 In the dog there exists not only a necessity for loving or 
 bestowing its superabundant love on some object, worthy or 
 unworthy, but there is the same craving for affection or 
 attention, the same necessity for love or of being loved, that is 
 so characteristic of the human child. This longing for the 
 affection of its master prompts the dog to seek, by all the 
 means in its power, reconciliation when it has given him 
 cause of offence, and feels that it is in his disfavour. Such 
 a craving leads to efforts frequently repeated and of all 
 kinds at propitiation ; the animal tries to deprecate its 
 master's wrath, to ingratiate itself once more in or into his 
 good graces, to obtain restitution to favour in other words, 
 to ensure forgiveness. Its sense of sin or guilt is here at 
 least associated with a perception or feeling of the necessity 
 for or desirability of pardon. 
 
 In some cases the sinning animal seeks to make atonement 
 for its sin, as is pointed out in other chapters for instance, 
 
 1 Prose Idylls,' 2nd edit., 1874, pp. 21-5. 
 
IN OTHEK ANIMALS. 229 
 
 those on 'Crime' and ' Punishment.' And among the means 
 whereby it endeavours to atone or propitiate is the making 
 of offerings to the person offended or supposed to be offended. 
 To us these peace offerings may appear at first sight to be of 
 a very trivial or absurd kind, as when a cat offers a captured 
 mouse or rat, dead or living, to its master. But, in judging 
 of the action and its motive, we must bear in mind that in 
 such a case the article offered is that which is of the highest 
 mine in the eyes of the offerer; and as much as this cannot 
 certainly be said of the propitiatory offerings, religious or 
 otherwise, of man. 
 
 When the dog has succeeded in reinstating itself in 
 favour, when its offering has been received in the spirit in 
 which it was made when, in short, it is successful in its 
 efforts at re-establishing amicable relations with the being 
 whose slightest love it so highly values the animal's delight 
 is unequivocally expressed; while, under opposite circum- 
 stances, there is corresponding depression, despondency, or 
 despair, all the shades of grief or sorrow, leading even to 
 fatal pining for the affection that is refused or withheld. 
 
 Dogs not only worship man, but they attend worship with 
 him take part so far in his religious observances. In doing 
 so the following points are to be specially noted : 
 
 1. The appropriateness of their behaviour to the place 
 and time, varying in the case of the dogs of Protestant 
 and Catholic masters attending Protestant or Catholic 
 churches or chapels ; and 
 
 2. The correct perception of time and locality a sub- 
 ject, however, that falls more appropriately to be treated of 
 in another chapter. 
 
 Church attendance by dogs is, and has long been, a 
 common phenomenon in the pastoral districts of Scotland. 
 Scotch shepherds, both in Highlands and Lowlands, are a 
 devout, church-attending race ; and, so far at least as con- 
 cerns regularity of attendance upon the ordinances of 
 worship, and demure, decorous behaviour thereat, their 
 dogs, or c collies,' are equally devout. These Scotch collies 
 frequently have particular seats or pews or at least their 
 equivalents, lairs or couching-places in church ; and there. 
 
230 RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 
 when no attempt is made by them as it sometimes is at 
 psalm-singing, the animals rest quietly and sedately until the 
 completion of the service. It may be, and probably is, the case 
 that they frequently coil themselves comfortably and com- 
 pose themselves to sleep as soon as the service has begun ; 
 but that a similar process is quite as common and much 
 more conspicuous and inexcusable in man, I have no room 
 for doubting, inasmuch as I have over and over again 
 myself seen in country aye, and in city churches in Scot- 
 land people mostly males, be it in fairness explained 
 deliberately composing themselves for a good, sound sleep 
 before the service begins a sleep so natural in one sense 
 as to be not unfrequently accompanied by snoring and to 
 require vigorous nudging or shaking to rouse from it. 
 
 We may be and no doubt will be told that the shep- 
 herd's dog acquires the habit of attending church, and of 
 behaving becomingly therein, by mere imitation of its master. 
 And there can be no denying the important influence of 
 imitation in the acquisition of artificial habits by the dog 
 and other animals. But many incidents, or classes of in- 
 cidents, show that, in this case of church attendance at least, 
 the influence of man and of mere imitation is apt to be 
 overrated is, in fact, really much less than at first sight it 
 appeals to be for church-going dogs do not by any means 
 always or necessarily attend church with their masters. 
 They go sometimes in spite of, and without, their master, 
 feeling that they are incurring his displeasure and a certain 
 punishment in doing so. Knowing, by means which we 
 must not stop here to consider, Sunday from other days of the 
 week, and the proper hours of public worship on Sunday ; 
 quite familiar with the road to church and with the topo- 
 graphy of the church itself; quite aware, further, that it is 
 their master's wish or intention to prevent their going to 
 church on Sundays many astute dogs, determined, for their 
 own reasons, to have their own way, have disappeared on 
 Saturdays, have secreted themselves in order to escape im- 
 prisonment in a kennel or elsewhere, and have made or 
 found their way to and from church quite alone. Southey 
 tells the story of a Methodist's dog ' who regularly went to 
 
IN OTHER ANIMAI3. 231 
 
 chapel, though pelted by the church boys for so doing. His 
 master .... never went ; and the interpretation put upon 
 the dog's conduct was that he wished to attract his master ' 
 to church attendance. It is at least a coincidence that when 
 his master met with an accidental death by drowning, the 
 animal ceased to attend chapel. Dr. Macaulay too speaks 
 of many church-going collies as e more regular attendants 
 than their masters.' 
 
 It is obvious that, in many cases at least, such dogs 
 value church attendance as a privilege, for which they are 
 prepared to make, and do make, great sacrifices. Not only 
 do they travel long distances afoot in all weathers, but they 
 deprive themselves of shelter and food, and expose them- 
 selves to their masters' wrath, and to the certainty rather 
 than the risk of ignominious punishments. Whatever, 
 then, be the dog's motive in attending church under such 
 circumstances, it would appear to be at least a strong one. 
 It may be a love of society, either of its own kind or of 
 man; for in wild pastoral regions, where population is 
 sparse, the Sunday congregations of farmers, shepherds, 
 peasants, and their dogs constitute one of the very rare and 
 favourable opportunities of meeting with their kind. It 
 may be an allied dread of monotony, a longing for relaxation 
 of a certain kind, a love of novelty and variety. If such 
 motives operate as is quite likely it cannot truthfully be 
 averred that they do not also operate largely sometimes, it 
 may be, exclusively in the church-going of man himself. 
 
 We know, as Hood says, that 
 
 A daw's not reckoned a religious bird 
 Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple. 
 
 Nor is a shepherd's collie to be considered religious simply 
 because it regularly attends church, even at great personal 
 sacrifice, risk, or inconvenience sometimes. So long ago as 
 1791 Salmagundi thus remarked of *a favourite dog, who 
 regularly accompanied his mistress to church ' : 
 
 'Tis held by folks of deep research 
 He's a good dog who goes to church : 
 
 As good I hold him every whit 
 Who stays at home and turns the spit ; 
 or though good dogs to church may go, 
 going there don't make them so. 
 
232 EELIGIOUS FEELING- 
 
 And the same may be quite as truly said of their masters ; 
 they may be good, pious men, but it is not the going to 
 church that constitutes either goodness or piety. In so far, 
 however, as mere church attendance, the observance of rites 
 or ceremonies, seriousness of look or demeanour, are to be 
 accepted as outward marks of religion or religiousness in 
 man, there is no good reason, but the reverse, why they 
 should not equally be accepted as evidences of religion in 
 the dog; for, as has already been seen, the lower animal 
 makes sacrifices of a kind that is at least uncommon in man 
 in order to obtain the much-coveted privilege. 
 
 Scotch shepherds' collies are not, however, the only dogs 
 that have been popularly, and with a certain degree of 
 propriety, denominated ' religious.' In France, a Catholic 
 country, dogs attend prayers or mass with their masters, 
 exhibiting in the grand cathedrals of that beautiful land a 
 becoming behaviour, including gravity of look and de- 
 meanour, silence and motionlessness, an attitude of apparent 
 attention or intentness, and a probable feeling of awe, pro- 
 duced, it may be, by the ' dim religious light ' of such 
 edifices, or by the varied, impressive sights and sounds that 
 environ them a kind of conduct, in short, only too in- 
 structive or suggestive to irreverent man (Pierquin and 
 Watson). It would appear further that in Catholic 
 countries imitation of man leads church-going dogs to the 
 stage of fasting (Southey). So that Catholic and Protestant 
 dogs may be spoken of with somewhat of propriety the 
 one group fasting and attending mass and all church 
 festivals, like Catholics ; the other going to the kirk and 
 sometimes at least attempting psalm-singing, like Protest- 
 ants or Presbyterians. 
 
 Nor are dogs the only animals that may claim occasion- 
 ally to be considered ' pious.' While collies regularly attend 
 church they cannot be said, as a rule, to take any active 
 or intelligent part in the service; but in the case of the 
 parrot, which is not usually allowed to attend church, the 
 bird not unfrequently takes a prominent and certainly in- 
 telligent part in the private worship of its master's house- 
 hold. Such parrots, for instance, make responses at the 
 
IN OTHER ANIMALS. 233 
 
 proper time an exercise that implies a good deal more than 
 mere memory, mere attention to the service. They have 
 been taught, moreover, or they have learned, to repeat man's 
 creeds, to recite prayers, and even, or otherwise in a certain 
 sense, to act as domestic chaplains as substitutes, in other 
 words, for man himself. As in so many other cases, the 
 behaviour nay, the very speech the remarks or conversation 
 of the bird, are suitable to place, time, and other circum- 
 stances. Thus a certain English bishop's parrot is (or was) 
 in the habit of saying sometimes quite devoutly and with 
 becoming solemnity, at other times sarcastically or ironi- 
 cally, but in either case at proper seasons and appropriately 
 to the circumstances 'Let us pray.' Of another we are 
 told that it ' could sing in correct time and measure 
 
 ' There is a happy land.' 
 
EDUCATION AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 CAPACITY FOB, EDUCATION. 
 
 IT must be utterly fatal to the supposition, hitherto so 
 popular, that instinct is immutable, being already perfect, if 
 it can be shown, as it very readily can be, that the moral 
 and intellectual faculties of the lower animals are capable of 
 improvement to a high degree, that there are ample evidences 
 among them of very marked progress in skill, ingenuity, 
 adaptiveness, caution, and other mental qualities or apti- 
 tudes. This mental improvement or progress includes even 
 the acquisition of new faculties, the development of those 
 which are latent, with the perfecting of others. 
 
 What has been spoken of as mental potentiality, the 
 capability of progressive improvement, has long been regarded 
 as one of the many features that distinguish man from other 
 animals. It is just as absurdly assumed, however, that in 
 man there is a possible perfectibility of his moral or intellec- 
 tual nature as that in other animals there is no moral or 
 intellectual nature to be cultivated or developed. The truth 
 is that in both cases there are moral and intellectual powers, 
 capable of cultivation ; that in both perfection is practically 
 unattainable certainly has never been attained ; that in 
 both, and especially as regards the lower animals, the limit 
 already attained is not that which is attainable. It cannot 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 235 
 
 be said that man has improved his mental faculties beyond 
 a certain point ; his greatest admirer can scarcely claim for 
 him perfection either moral or intellectual; and evidences 
 are constantly being brought before us of the decided limi- 
 tation of intellectual or moral improvement in various savage 
 races. With them the experiment has been tried over and 
 over again of c civilising ' them, and has failed. On the other 
 hand, it may be most truthfully asserted that the lower ani- 
 mals have not yet had the benefit of the persistent, patient, 
 kindly efforts of man to develope their moral or intellectual 
 nature. The degree of mental cultivation which is possible 
 in their case has not yet been properly tested or realised ; 
 their mental potentialities are therefore as yet almost un- 
 known. We have yet to determine in them, what are the 
 new powers they are capable of acquiring ; what latent facul- 
 ties may be developed ; what is the nature of certain apti- 
 tudes that they appear to possess, but of whose character 
 and modus operandi we are at present ignorant ; and what is 
 the probable limitation of their progressibility or improv- 
 ability. These form most interesting problems in the com- 
 parative psychology of the future. 
 
 Concerning the non-improvability, the non-progressiveness, 
 of savage man, his incapacity for education or civilisation, 
 recent testimony concerning the African negro has been laid 
 before the world by Livingstone, Monteiro, Burton, Baker, 
 and other travellers. Livingstone tells us that ' a gentleman 
 of superior abilities has devoted life and fortune to elevate 
 the Johanna men, but fears that they are an unimprovable 
 race.' Monteiro ' has but a poor opinion of the capacity of 
 the African, and but little hope for his future. He believes 
 that all the efforts hitherto made to elevate and civilise him 
 have failed, and his conclusions on the subject coincide 
 essentially with those of Burton and with those of most 
 other authorities who have examined it dispassionately 
 (' Nature '). Monteiro himself says, ' I can see no hope of 
 the negro ever attaining to any considerable degree of civili- 
 sation, owing to his incapacity for spontaneously developing 
 to a higher or more perfect condition. . . . The negro must 
 ever remain as he has always been, and as he is at the present 
 day.' 
 
236 CAPACITY FOE EDUCATION. 
 
 But incapacity for education or improvement is not con- 
 fined to the African negro, nor to savage races of man ; it 
 occurs also amidst our highest civilisation for instance, in 
 the idiot, or at least in certain kinds or classes of idiots, at 
 certain stages or in certain states of idiocy (Browne, Ire- 
 land, De Vitre). It occurs also in many other forms of men- 
 tal defect or derangement, in many criminals, perhaps in 
 whole classes of our criminals, and in certain wild children. 
 
 Incapacity for civilisation would also appear to be a cha- 
 racteristic of certain classes among ourselves who belong to 
 none of the categories just above enumerated. There are in 
 various parts of our own country, even in the hearts of our 
 great cities, whole ranks or classes of the community who 
 may fitly be denominated white savages, the savages of our 
 boasted civilisation. Of a specimen or type of these savages, 
 dwelling in our midst, within hearing or easy reach of count- 
 less churches and other agencies of Christianisation and 
 civilisation certain cave inhabitants of Caithness, Scotland 
 Dr. Mitchell, of Edinburgh, reports as follows : c The low 
 and sedimentary [intelligence and morals] were not due to 
 the want of cultivation so much as to the inability to receive 
 culture. Indeed, speaking of this class as a whole, it might 
 be said they were not so much uncivilised as uncivilisable 9 l 
 And as to this Dr. Mitchell is a competent judge, for as one 
 of H.M. Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland he is familiar 
 with all the phases of human idiocy, and with the extent to 
 which certain idiots even may be educated or civilised. 
 
 Incapability of improvement by education is seen also in 
 certain animals with defective or disordered mental faculties. 
 The subject is treated of in the chapters on ' Stupidity, 9 
 6 Error J and ' Mental Derangement. 9 
 
 In other cases the capacity for learning, for profiting by 
 tuition of whatever kind, is curiously limited, many animals, 
 like many men, being able to learn only certain things or 
 kinds of things. There are apparently special kinds or direc- 
 tions of intelligence, that require a correspondingly special 
 education for their due development. In certain dogs and in 
 
 1 * Daily Keview ' report of a lecture delivered in Edinburgh in February 
 1877. 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 237 
 
 certain other animals there are special natural talents which 
 must be discovered in order to be cultivated by man, and 
 which are frequently discovered and successfully cultivated, 
 to their gain, by the enterprising trainers of c performing ' 
 or c learned ' animals. Hence an animal's education is some- 
 times specially theatrical or arithmetical, musical or gym- 
 nastic, while every such specialisation of instruction implies 
 a certain basis of general education. Thus the sporting dog 
 has what may be termed its technical ^professional education ; 
 its discipline is directed and adapted to the nature of the 
 special sport, occupation, or employment in which it is to be 
 engaged (Walsh). 
 
 But, as a general rule, there is wonderful capacity for 
 mental progress under training among the lower animals 
 singular moral and intellectual plasticity, ready response to 
 all efforts or circumstances that lead to evolution of their 
 varied faculties, whether of mind or body. There is a speedy 
 or gradual acquisition of knowledge, usually of a practical 
 kind, and a due application of that knowledge to circum- 
 stances. Further, the modes of acquiring their knowledge, 
 of whatever kind, are the same as in man. In the first 
 place, a high degree of general intelligence is necessarily 
 involved, while the following special faculties are called into 
 play : 
 
 Observation. Comparison. 
 
 Investigation. Judgment. 
 
 Experiment. Imagination. 
 
 Attention. Volition. 
 
 Imitation. Emotion. 
 
 Memory. Patience. 
 
 Perception of error. Perseverance. 
 
 Self- correction. Zeal. 
 
 The practising of lessons. Diligence. 
 
 Eeflection. 
 
 The education of the lower animals is divisible, as in the 
 case of the child, into that which is 
 
 1. Physical or bodily, tending to the development of 
 muscular activity as well as to general healthiness of body, 
 and necessarily also of mind. 
 
238 CAPACITY FOE EDUCATION. 
 
 2. Intellectual, tending to the development of mental 
 cleverness, of sagacity, ingenuity, adaptiveness. 
 
 3. Moral, tending to goodness of disposition, to the evo- 
 lution of such virtues as self-control, self-sacrifice, integrity. 
 
 It is in regard to the last of these three forms of educa- 
 tion that the chances of future progress and success are 
 greatest. It is in this direction that least has been done by 
 man, if anything can be said to have been done at all. Much 
 has been done, much is being constantly done, by foolish 
 man, ignorant of his own best interests, to deteriorate the 
 moral character of subject animals by his own evil example 
 or by his injudicious treatment. But he does nothing sys- 
 tematically to improve it. While he spends infinite pains on 
 the production and improvement of breeds of dogs or pigeons, 
 specially keen of sight or scent, or specially dowered with 
 speed, he gives himself no concern about his companions or 
 pets being morally good. And yet it is quite as easy to pro- 
 duce moral goodness as physical agility or intellectual ability. 
 Not only so, but man has it in his power, by applying the 
 proper correctives to the moral vices he has himself created 
 in other animals, to substitute moral goodness for moral 
 badness, moral virtue for moral vice. He may reform and 
 restor to the paths of rectitude animals that are morally in 
 the p osition of the ' gutter children ' that become the in- 
 mates of our reformatories of all kinds. Thus dogs that 
 have been taught by him to steal may be cured of the bad 
 habit by care, and honesty substituted (Watson) . 
 
 The most promising of all animals on whom to try the 
 effects of moral education are the anthropoid apes, such as 
 the orang and chimpanzee. We know how humanlike has 
 been their behaviour when they have been civilised by man, 
 made his servants or companions on board ship or in his 
 household. We know how in them politeness or refinement 
 of manners may be developed, and all the usages of good 
 society ; how they can behave at table and take their meals ; 
 how they can act as substitutes for the negro in various 
 kinds of domestic or other service. But we do not yet know 
 how good they can be made, to what extent or in what 
 directions their moral nature may be developed. I believe 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 239 
 
 that, could only they be induced to bestow them, the patient 
 efforts of our missionaries in this direction on our anthro- 
 poid ' poor relations ' instead of on their fellow-creatures and 
 countrymen the negro might produce results of a startling 
 character results that might put an end, once and for all, 
 to current sneers as to the psychical connection between 
 men and monkeys. 
 
 At present aptitude to receive instruction, readiness to 
 repay tuition, capacity for education whether moral, intel- 
 lectual, or physical is supposed to be greatest in the dog. 
 But this is probably simply because man's efforts have been 
 chiefly expended upon him ; that he comes most constantly 
 and intimately in contact with man, and that he is therefore 
 best known to man. Eemarkable facility in learning man's 
 lessons is known to exist also in the parrot and bullfinch, and 
 in certain other song birds. But we cannot at present be 
 said to possess a satisfactory knowledge of the relative 
 capacity of different animal genera and species for education. 
 Of the differing capacity of individuals of the same species 
 we know much more know, in fact, a good deal know that 
 it occurs to the same extent as in man a circumstance that 
 is familiar to all trainers of horses, dogs, or other animals. 
 This branch of the subject is again and more fully referred 
 to in the chapter on ' Individuality. 3 
 
 The proper education of the lower animals requires 
 
 1. Certain qualifications in the teacher. 
 
 2. Certain aptitudes in the pupil. 
 
 3. Certain other favourable circumstances in external or 
 surrounding conditions. 
 
 The trainer, in the first place, must make all due allow- 
 ance for individuality , for the natural mental aptitudes of 
 his pupils, for their natural courage, sagacity, and other 
 qualities of character; and, in proportion as he makes a 
 preliminary and special study of this individuality, is he 
 likely to be successful in his results. 
 
 The necessity of attending to individuality, of studying 
 individual character or disposition, becomes apparent in 
 
 1. Zoological gardens and menageries. 
 
 2. Lion-taming and similar public exhibitions. 
 
240 CAPACITY FOE EDUCATION. 
 
 3. The instruction of all classes of performing animals. 
 
 4. Horse and dog training. 
 
 In the training of animals destined for any of the 
 * learned professions ' the professions that subserve the 
 purposes of human exhibitors the first procedure (and a 
 most important preliminary it is) is to test the mental capa- 
 city, the disposition or character, of various individuals of a 
 species, selecting those which promise to learn quickly and 
 become submissive readily. 
 
 Both in the human child and in other animals man's first 
 efforts at education are necessarily experimental or tentative, 
 his object, and the result, being to distinguish those indi- 
 viduals who can from those who cannot be educated, those 
 who will repay his continued efforts from those on whom they 
 would be wasted. Thus, in selecting horses for circus pur- 
 poses, Franconi, Astley, Ducrow, Cooke, and other circus pro- 
 prietors have found, to their cost, that out of many trials only 
 a few animals are sufficiently intelligent for their purposes. 
 And the same has also been the case with the trainers of 
 other ' performing ' animals. 
 
 The teacher must even be guided by the mood or humour 
 of his animal pupils for the moment. Song birds are fre- 
 quently * not in song' not in a humour for it, just as the 
 talking parrot is often least disposed to exhibit his gift when 
 it is most desirable or desired that he should exhibit it. 
 
 In the next place man's training cannot begin too early : 
 his pupils cannot be too young. ' Learn young, learn fair ' 
 is as applicable to other animals as to man. Another even 
 more apposite proverb reminds us that we cannot ( teach an 
 old dog new tricks.' Education, to be thoroughly successful 
 to give pupil and teacher equally fair play, to enable the 
 latter to develope the best features of character in the former 
 must begin in youth, during the impressionable stage of 
 existence, before counteracting habits have been acquired or 
 antagonistic experience gained. Thus the simple secret of 
 taming and training wild animals as companions to children 
 is to catch them very young in their infantile stage and to 
 bring them tip along with the children by the same process 
 of education a combination of kindness with firmness. 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 241 
 
 Next, training must be by stages gradual, progressive, 
 pari passu \vitli the aptitude of the pupil, his acquisition of 
 knowledge and the power of applying it. 
 
 The trouble that is necessary at one stage may not be so 
 at another. Laborious instruction in every detail may be 
 required at first, then careful and constant supervision, 
 while at last the desire to learn and the aptitude for learning 
 may become such that the intelligent animal works by itself. 
 
 Then education cannot be too systematic and thorough. 
 So systematic is it in some cases for instance, in the training 
 of piping bullfinches in some parts of Germany and the Tyrol 
 that there are regular schools, seminaries, or academies, 
 with regular classes of scholars, according to their stages of 
 progress, presided over by head masters, assisted by tutors, the 
 pupils being scolded or rewarded according to their deserts 
 the nature of their performances. In Belgium, again, there 
 are schools for the training of home-flying pigeons ; while 
 regular training stations have been established by Germany 
 for homing pigeons at Metz, Strasburg, Coblentz, Mayence, 
 Berlin, and elsewhere. In our own country certain stables 
 and kennels may be considered academies for the regular 
 training of race-horses and sporting dogs. 
 
 There is, then, a regular course, series, or system of lessons 
 in the ' breaking in ' of horses and dogs, and in the training 
 of carrier pigeons, and of the race-horse or of the working 
 elephant. 
 
 The teacher himself should possess personal qualities of 
 a kind that render him specially suited for the work he has 
 undertaken. These qualities include 
 
 1. Good temper, involving forbearance, patience, gentle- 
 ness, kindliness. 
 
 2. Sympathy for and with his pupils. 
 
 3. A knowledge of the capacities of his pupils, on the one 
 hand, and of the principles of education on the other. 
 
 4. Tact in the ready power of adaptation to the moods 
 and character of his pupils, to time and place, and other cir- 
 cumstances in the power of gaining confidence, esteem, 
 affection. 
 
 5. The necessary kind and degree of firmness. 
 VOL. i. u 
 
242 CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 
 
 6. Perseverance, like patience, may have to be infinite. 
 
 7. Persuasiveness the use of encouragement or coaxing. 
 
 These must form the basis of the best systems of educa- 
 tion, whether of other animals or of the human child. Berke- 
 ley advocates in the training of sporting dogs a combination 
 of kindness, firmness, and persuasion. 
 
 On the part of the pupils there must be a basis of recepti- 
 vity, aptitude, or capacity, the power of application, involving 
 sufficient force of will ; and there should also be willingness to 
 learn, and effort in learning. It is the combination of these 
 good qualities that leads so many intelligent animals the 
 elephant, dog, parrot to practise their lessons, to make effort, 
 and persistent effort, at self -improvement. 
 
 Among the conditions favourable to systematic education 
 by man are time, the absence of distraction, and the incessant 
 repetition of his lessons. There is an obvious necessity for 
 time in the acquisition of knowledge or skill. Results can- 
 not be achieved at once ; they may be rapid in their growth 
 in some cases, but more commonly they are gradual, even 
 slow, so that it is not till an animal has arrived at maturity, 
 or even old age, that it has duly learned, and learned to profit 
 by, the lessons either of man or of experience. Many ani- 
 mals have to serve an apprenticeship in the detection of 
 danger, and the means of avoiding or escaping it in construc- 
 tive and defensive operations. 
 
 Time is obviously requisite for the learning of lessons, in 
 successive series, as requisite as in the case of the human child. 
 Much depends, as regards the duration of training, on the 
 character of the teacher, on the one hand, and of the pupil on 
 the other, as well as on the nature of the accomplishment to 
 be acquired the lessons to be learned. Thus while it may 
 reasonably be expected that all animals of average capacity 
 will more or less speedily learn to fly or run, to catch prey, to 
 kill and eat it, to select and collect food, it must take a much 
 longer period to teach man's words or songs, to enable them to 
 find their way home from great distances, to act in concert, to 
 play parts, to subdue or control their natural strong passions 
 or propensities. 
 
 The work of tuition and of learning implies time and 
 trouble on the parts both of pupil and teacher. There must 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 243 
 
 be no mental distraction on the pupil's part ; lie must give his 
 attention wholly to his lessons for the moment. In particular 
 there must be no disturbing- sensorial impressions, espe- 
 cially of vision or hearing ; all sights and sounds, save those 
 with which it is desired to impress the pupil, must for the time 
 be rigidly excluded. And this is so well known to trainers, 
 for instance, of song birds, that they resort sometimes to 
 cruel methods of securing the end desired. Hence the prac- 
 tice of artificially blinding song birds. Hence the fact that 
 in confinement song birds learn singing better than they do 
 at liberty. There are, therefore, favourable and unfavourable 
 times and places, circumstances or conditions, for successful 
 instruction. 
 
 The use and disuse of faculties, as of organs, produce the 
 same results as in man, of increased or diminished power. 
 Hence the advantage and importance of continual exercise 
 of certain acquired aptitudes or faculties, an importance or 
 necessity recognised sometimes by the animals themselves in 
 their aiming at perfection or excellence for instance, in song. 
 Sporting dogs forget their special accomplishments from 
 want of practice (Walsh). 
 
 Discrimination must be shown in adapting the form of 
 training or teaching to the nature of the animal to be taught. 
 It is obvious that a perfectly wild animal requires more care 
 and trouble than the offspring of a domesticated one, which 
 has the advantage of certain inherited aptitudes. And the 
 same comparative difficulty exists in the case of mature or 
 elderly animals and those that are naturally stupid or unin- 
 telligent. 
 
 The influence of example and of imitation is illustrated 
 in all forms of upbringing of the lower animals, as of man 
 himself. Of him it was long ago truly said 
 
 Exemplo plusquam ratione vivimus. 
 
 Hence the importance of placing before the young animal a 
 proper model, and hence also the importance of man's own 
 behaviour before it being guarded and becoming. 
 
 It is always important that there should be a mutual un- 
 derstanding between teacher and pupil, who frequently become 
 
 E 2 
 
244 CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 
 
 master and servant. This is so obviously an advantage in 
 the case of the sportsman and his dogs that it is desirable 
 their lessons should be learned together (Walsh) ; there 
 should be a conjoint education, so that the servant may as 
 thoroughly understand the capabilities of his master as the 
 latter those of his servant. Hence the advantage of the 
 training by their owners themselves of sporting dogs. There 
 are some excellent well-bred sporting dogs, as there are 
 horses, that only work properly under or with a master, 
 whom they can respect, in whom they have confidence con- 
 fidence not in his kindness, but in his skill as a sportsman or 
 rider. Nor must it be lost sight of that there is frequent 
 congeniality of pursuit ; the horse or dog may become as fond 
 of the race or chase as the huntsman ; and wherever this 
 common love or interest in the work exists, the work itself, 
 whatever it be, is likely to be thoroughly well done, equally 
 by man, horse, and dog. Mutual confidence and affection 
 beget improvement of the moral character, as well as of cer- 
 tain mental aptitudes, of both master and animal com- 
 panion or servant, a circumstance frequently observed in 
 the relation of man to his horse or dog. 
 
 The lessons of life learned by the lower animals may be 
 either 
 
 1. Those taught by experience, including need or neces- 
 sity, frequently dearly bought. 
 
 2. Those taught by their parents, elders, seniors, or com- 
 panions, and insisted upon by penalties. 
 
 3. Those taught by man, inculcated sometimes systema- 
 tically in regular schools. 
 
 4. Those self-imposed, in the form of lesson practising or 
 learning. 
 
 Obviously, then, such lessons may be either deliberately 
 taught and consciously acquired, or they may be learned 
 unconsciously, as in the case frequently of the influence 
 of example and imitation. There is an education of this 
 kind one not contemplated by either teacher or pupil, 
 both of whom are unconscious agents in the result in the 
 acquisition by foster young of the habits of foster parents. 
 Thus the dog acquires sometimes catlike habits from asso- 
 
CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 245 
 
 ciation, from its earliest years, with a cat ; it learns, for 
 instance, to respect the cleanliness of the house, and is itself 
 cleanly. 
 
 Equally in other animals as in man, education developes 
 or determines new tastes, feelings, passions, ideas, aptitudes, 
 habits. 
 
 It is important to bear in mind that the children of cer- 
 tain savage races of man receive no direct instruction from. 
 their parents or elders. Imitation, necessity, experience, 
 practice, lead to a more or less rapid acquisition in them, as 
 in so many other animals, at once of physical and mental 
 dexterity. 
 
 It is well to bear in mind also that animals possess both 
 natural and artificial arts or aptitudes. Thus in our pet 
 song-birds singing is an artificial art, developed by man by 
 culture, while dancing in certain birds is a natural and 
 spontaneous effort (Houzeau). Equitation in the ape is also 
 an artificial art, but it is usually or frequently self-acquired, 
 not taught by man (Houzeau). So that ' artificial ' is not 
 necessarily synonymous with ' taught by man.' 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ' SELF-EDUCATION : THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE BY 
 INVESTIGATION. 
 
 INVESTIGATION on the part of the lower animals, usually in 
 order to the acquisition, extension, or improvement of know- 
 ledge, includes the following features of interest in their 
 mental character the following aptitudes or conditions : 
 
 1. The faculty of observation: its nicety, minuteness, 
 accuracy, acuteness, delicacy, closeness or keenness, in- 
 cluding the comparison of resemblances and differences. 
 
 2. The power of attention, and of concentration and con- 
 tinuance thereof. 
 
 3. The practice of examination or inspection of unfamiliar 
 objects, including 
 
 a. Reconnoitring and surveying. 
 &. Search and exploration, 
 c. Deliberate study. 
 
 4. Curiosity or inquisitiveness ; associated with a 
 
 5. Love of knowledge, especially of such a kind as will 
 bear on the physical requirements, comforts, or safety of the 
 animal itself. 
 
 6. The application of experimental tests, with 
 
 7. Repetition and variation of effort therein. 
 
 8. The power of memory. 
 
 9. The influence of novelty of scene, sight, sound, or other 
 external conditions. 
 
 10. The drawing of inferences or conclusions from the 
 results of observation and experiment. 
 
 11. Due reflection and reasoning on the bearings of such 
 results; and 
 
 I 
 
SELF-EDUCATION. 247 
 
 12. Appropriate action following such reflection. 
 
 That many animals are very observant scarcely requires 
 to be insisted upon. Close and continuous observation is 
 indeed a necessity of their existence in the wild state. Its 
 forms, results, and applications are illustrated in an infinite 
 variety of ways, including the following : 
 
 1. The reading of a master's mood, intentions, or cha- 
 racter by the dog. 
 
 2. Notice of natural or artificial landmarks by the 
 homing carrier or courier pigeon. 
 
 3. Knowledge by birds of the range of man's projectiles. 
 
 4. Eecognition of 
 
 a. Each other. 
 
 b. Persons. 
 
 c. Places. 
 
 d. Things- 
 including the discrimination of 
 
 e. Friends from foes, of strangers from acquaintances 
 
 or kinsmen. 
 
 /. The trappings of rank, such as livery, or the 
 dress of masters and servants, rich and poor. 
 
 5. Appreciation of beauty of colour and form in design, 
 including the details of pattern. 
 
 6. Selection of cards by a knowledge of the marks they 
 bear by performing dogs. 
 
 7. Notice of secret signs or signals on the part of other 
 performing animals signals unobserved by an audience. 
 
 8. Detection of defect or debility, injury or accident, 
 mental or bodily, in their offspring or in each other, also in 
 cases unobserved by man. 
 
 9. Certain kinds of prevision or presentiment. 
 
 10. Calculation or measurement of heights or distances. 
 It is impossible here to illustrate at any length all of these 
 
 forms in which animals manifest their power of observation, 
 but it is desirable to notice shortly one or two of them. 
 Perhaps one of the best and most instructive is to be found 
 in the phenomena of homing, or home-finding, in the carrier 
 or courier pigeon phenomena that but lately were uni- 
 versally relegated to the fallacious category of 'unerring 
 
248 SELF-EDUCATION: THE ACQUISITION OF 
 
 instinct.' It has now been proved to demonstration that 
 the flight of the Belgian or other homing pigeon is directed 
 solely by the observation of landmarks. It has been found 
 inter alia that 
 
 1. Only a proportion of the animals submitted to training 
 are successful in their flights. These successful ones are 
 presumably the most intelligent and observant. In every 
 pigeon match many birds fail altogether in home-finding. 
 
 2. Even the best animals can fly only by daylight, when 
 landmarks are visible. They fail at night or in fog ; they 
 wait and watch for daylight and a clear atmosphere. 
 
 3. They lose themselves, moreover, prior to the acqui- 
 sition of sufficient knowledge of the road. 
 
 4. The acquisition of this knowledge is gradual, by a 
 series of progressive lessons, which are learned thoroughly 
 and easily in proportion to a bird's 
 
 a. Natural intelligence. 
 1}. Keenness of vision. 
 
 c. Retentiveness of memory ; and the 
 
 d. Intensity of its home affections or the nature 
 
 of the attractions to its native place. 
 
 Much more familiar than the homing of pigeons is the 
 recognition of persons by a great variety of animals, including 
 the dog, cat, horse, mule, elephant, cows, monkeys, orang, 
 hare, hedgehog, rats and mice, parrots and other cage birds, 
 crow, various fish, hornets and bees. 
 
 All these and other animals come sooner or later to 
 know their masters or mistresses, those who are kind or 
 cruel to them, from all other persons ; and their behaviour 
 to strangers or enemies is very different from what it is to 
 those with whom they are familiar and friendly. 
 
 Thus Mrs. Mackellar tells us, c I have often seen cows 
 refuse to give a drop of milk to a stranger refusing the milk 
 being the revenge a cow takes if in the sulks.' And of a 
 shipboard pet hedgehog, ' I always fed her, and she knew me 
 very well, for she would never put up her bristles whatever I 
 did to her.' Watson gives the case of a crow recognising and 
 visiting a former master. Even bees know their master or 
 keeper from strangers. 
 
KNOWLEDGE BY INVESTIGATION. 249 
 
 Smuggling dogs distinguish custom-house officers ( c Percy 
 Anecdotes'). Certain London railway dogs recognise their 
 own special friends among the porters or other officers at the 
 different stations, making, it is asserted, no mistakes. Other 
 dogs frequently distinguish from among other men the mur- 
 derer, burglar, or thief; the butcher or dog-stealer ; the poor 
 beggar or tramp, their master's inferior, and the well-con- 
 ditioned visitor, their master's equal ; policemen or firemen, 
 with their calling and its object. Pet dogs occasionally dis- 
 cover their masters' bodies on a battle-field. 
 
 The horse and the mule distinguish the semi-nude red 
 native Indian from the clothed, civilised white man on the 
 North American prairies, showing fear or suspicion in the 
 one case, confidence or unconcern in the other. The horse dis- 
 tinguishes its own master and rider from its master's domestics 
 and from crowds of other persons who are strangers to it. 
 Elephants recognise friendly soldiers on the field of battle 
 (Pierquin). The orang discriminates between native boys 
 and monkeys, and shows its pride by refusing to associate 
 with the latter (Cassell). 
 
 It is somewhat singular that many animals, which readily 
 recognise persons, do not notice and remember with equal 
 readiness places, or vice versa. Thus the parrot shows a 
 decided power of recognising persons, and pigeons locality, 
 but not vice versa (Darwin) . 
 
 Many animals, again, recognise each other as fully and 
 easily as certain dogs know their masters or mistresses. 
 And this kind of recognition of comrades or kinsmen 
 extends downwards in the zoological scale at least as low as 
 insects. Ants and bees, while caressing their acquaintances, 
 deal summarily with strangers, intruders, interlopers of 
 all kinds. Ants recognise their friends or fellows after 
 absence (Darwin and Lubbock), and they distinguish friends 
 from foes (Westwood). Sentinel bees know strangers, 
 enemies, or intruders, and deal with them according to 
 their character ; they also know the person of their queen 
 (Figuier). 
 
 The recognition of things and the appreciation of their 
 significance are quite as common as the recognition of 
 
250 SELF-EDUCATION : THE ACQUISITION OF 
 
 persons and the appreciation of their relation to the animal 
 observer. A terrier that had a very marked attachment to 
 its master's house roused the whole household one night 
 because one of several bars or bolts had not been shot in the 
 front door had been forgotten, in fact, when the door was 
 locked and barred for the night (' Animal World '). 
 
 A deer hound of Berkeley's knew whether its master was 
 in or out of the house by looking for his hat in the lobby. 
 If the hat was gone and its master was out, it went to the 
 highest window in the house and looked for him in every 
 direction. Books distinguish a man that carries from one 
 who does not carry a gun, regarding the one as dangerous, 
 the other as harmless (Watson). A similar practical dis- 
 tinction between armed and unarmed men is made by 
 baboons and apes, the hippopotamus, eagle, buzzard, and 
 many other animals, flight being a common result in the one 
 case, composure in the other. The fishing cormorant of 
 China knows its own boat that to which it is attached in a 
 whole fleet of fishing boats (Fennel). The military horse 
 knows the uniform of its regiment. Many dogs recognise 
 their masters' property when stolen or lost. 
 
 As regards recognition of place or locality, very little 
 need be said. So-called ( railway dogs ' know the several 
 railway stations, and, 011 stoppage of the train, get out of 
 or remain in the train, as the case may be. Cats recognise 
 home after an absence (Watson). Many migratory birds 
 that return year after year to the same nests or nesting 
 places must know them by some sort of headmark. Bees 
 distinguish their own hives (Kirby and Spence). 
 
 It is its keenness of observation that leads the dog at once 
 to perceive anything unusual in its master's looks, manner, or 
 habits, and gives rise to suspicion or discovery of his in- 
 tentions (Houzeau). And it is the superior closeness of 
 observation, the more incessant carefulness or watchfulness, 
 on the part of dogs and cats as compared with man, that 
 lead him to give the animals in question credit for certain 
 kinds of presentiment or prevision for instance, as to threat- 
 ened danger. 
 
 Without any sort of outward indication, by reading 
 
KNOWLEDGE BY INVESTIGATION. 251 
 
 merely the scowl or the reverie, by interpreting some sudden 
 change of appearance, manner, or habit, in connection per- 
 haps with some criminal action on its own part, by the asso- 
 ciation of ideas and the rapid drawing of inferences, the dog 
 or cat frequently discovers that a master has made up his 
 mind to shoot, poison, or drown it, and the natural and 
 immediate action following upon such inference from the 
 facts of observation is getting out of his way before he can 
 put his intention into shape or execution. 
 
 It is obvious that many animals appreciate, and must 
 therefore notice, not only general effect, but the most minute 
 details that, in combination, produce this effect. We know 
 that certain female birds at least appreciate patterns or 
 designs for instance,, in carpets (White) but it has yet to 
 be determined whether female birds pay attention to each 
 detail of beauty, of colour or form, in the males they admire 
 and select (Darwin). 
 
 Not only, moreover, do they distinguish colours, as many 
 animals much lower in the zoological scale also do for in- 
 stance, bees and other insects but various birds notice even 
 the different shades of the same colour. And it is shown 
 in another chapter what is the effect of pictorial representa- 
 tions of persons and things on dogs and other animals. 
 
 It is important here to note that the behaviour of many 
 animals differs according as they are, or believe themselves 
 to be, observed or unobserved by man or by their fellows. 
 Certain pet dogs have their ' company ' as well as their 
 natural manners, the former being reserved for the human 
 society of the drawing-room, the latter being freely exhibited 
 among their own fellows beyond their mistresses' ken for 
 these are usually ladies' dogs in every sense. The thievish 
 dog or cat steals only when it is, or fancies itself, unnoticed. 
 Before or after the act of theft it may be found sitting or 
 reclining demurely and with an air of utter innocence in its 
 accustomed place before the parlour fire, or it. may be seen 
 casting keen glances in all directions in fact, reconnoitring 
 as to the coast being clear, precisely as a human smuggler 
 would. 
 
 Curiosity, when it dominates over caution, leads many an 
 
252 SELF-EDUCATION : THE ACQUISITION OF 
 
 unfortunate animal into danger or death, for man, especially 
 in the form of the sportsman, is never slow to take advan- 
 tage, for his own ends, of the mental or moral failings of the 
 lower animals. Their inquisitiveness is obviously based on 
 
 1. Wonder or surprise at what is novel or unusual, and 
 on a 
 
 2. Desire to know the nature or properties of the object, 
 animate or inanimate, that begets this wonder. 
 
 A curiosity or inquisitiveness, sometimes insatiable and 
 demanding gratification at whatever cost to the animal, has 
 been described in the dog (Cobbe), parrot (Darwin), New 
 Zealand water- hen (Baden Powell), walrus, monkeys as a 
 tribe, cormorant (Cunningham), goat (Wood, Baird), com- 
 mon fox (Anson), Magellan and Siberian fox (Houzeau), wild 
 turkey and brent goose of North America (Gilhnore), guanaco 
 (Darwin, Cunningham), ptarmigan (Gillmore), orang (Hou- 
 zeau), Polar bear (Hayes, Cassell), prong-horned antelope 
 of North America (Gillmore), zebra-ichneumon of Central 
 Africa (Schweinfurth), sheath-bill of Kerguelen's Land, and 
 in oceanic birds and wilderness animals generally those, 
 namely, in whom the overruling fear of man has not yet 
 been begotten by sad experience. 
 
 Of the zebra-ichneumon Dr. Schweinfurth says, c I found 
 it exceedingly troublesome on account of the pertinacious 
 curiosity with which it peeped into all my cases and boxes, 
 upset my pots, broke my bottles, with no apparent object but 
 to investigate the contents.' 
 
 Dr. Hayes mentions a Polar bear that c seemed to be 
 fascinated with the steamer, and her curiosity got the better 
 of her discretion,' costing her the loss of her own life and 
 that of two of her cubs ; and the same Arctic traveller gives 
 other instances of the same kind of fatal curiosity in the 
 same animal. The prong-horned antelope is frequently 
 brought within range of the sportsman's rifle c by waving a 
 coloured handkerchief or other unknown object ' (Gillmore). 
 Similar advantage is taken of the curiosity or wonder of the 
 wild turkey and brent goose to get them within the sports- 
 man's range. Of the brent goose of Chesapeake Bay, Mary- 
 land, Gillmore tells us that ' even while out of sight .... 
 
KNOWLEDGE BY INVESTIGATION. 253 
 
 it may frequently be called within gunshot by waving a 
 pocket handkerchief.' 
 
 The guanaco of South America also owes its capture by 
 the hunter to its inquisitiveness. These hunters ' lie on the 
 ground, kicking their legs in the air and performing sundry 
 strange antics. The guanaco cannot resist the temptation 
 of approaching the strange object, and is shot by the hunter 
 as soon as it comes within range. Even if it be missed it 
 will not run away, evidently considering the flash and the 
 report to be part of the performance ' (Darwin). 
 
 It is curiosity that leads frequently to a prying inspection 
 or examination not only of man's works but of himself, of 
 the one as strange articles, of the other as an unfamiliar or 
 new animal. This habit in the Arctic bear is often useful to 
 sailors in enabling them to save their lives. In their flight, 
 if they throw down successively handkerchiefs or other 
 articles, especially if brightly coloured, the pursuing animal 
 carefully examines them one by one, an inspection that occu- 
 pies time, which, while lost to the bear, is gained by the 
 sailors (Cassell). But examination is prompted by other 
 considerations than mere curiosity and a desire for satisfying 
 it. A much more common reason for the careful inspection 
 of a person, other animal, or thing is to determine 
 
 1. Whether it is dangerous or harmless. 
 
 2. Whether it may subserve any useful purpose to tlie 
 examiner. 
 
 Many birds scrutinise keenly all man's operations and 
 their results. Other animals examine new objects with dis- 
 trust and precaution. The prairie wolf makes a very deli- 
 berate inspection of all forms of snare, trap, or bait. 
 
 Examination frequently includes or involves more or less 
 systematic and protracted search, research, or exploration for 
 or of 
 
 1. Forage fields. 
 
 2. Water supply. 
 
 3. Lost young. 
 
 4. Lost or stolen articles of man's. 
 
 5. Their masters' persons. 
 
 6. Booty or spoil of all kinds. 
 
254 SELF-EDUCATION: THE ACQUISITION OF 
 
 7. Materials of construction. 
 
 In their regular search for water supply the dog, horse, 
 mule, ox, goat, and other animals explore new or unvisited 
 localities (Houzeau). The theftuous monkey ransacks man's 
 pockets in pocket-picking. The bereaved bitch or cat makes 
 the most anxious and unwearied search for her lost young, 
 and female birds for their abstracted eggs. Hounds or 
 other sporting dogs seek carefully for the track of game 
 for instance, the foxhound for that of the elk in Ceylon 
 (Baker) such a search including the fording or swimming 
 of lakes and rivers. 
 
 Eat-catching terriers explore houses in search of their 
 prey. Both cats and dogs sometimes seek for their masters 
 at the houses of their friends, or even in large assemblies, 
 such as balls or public meetings (Watson, 'Percy Anec- 
 dotes ') . Both cats and dogs, too, search enquiringly and 
 anxiously in a master's or an enemy's eye or features for 
 his or its intention towards them. Monkeys make the closest 
 examination of bark and leaves in their search for insects, 
 of the hair and skin of the dog in looking for vermin (Belt) . 
 
 Examination sometimes includes also researches or en- 
 quiries reconnoitring and surveys with corresponding 
 reports by commissioners, pioneers, delegates, spies, scouts, 
 sentinels in war, foraging, marauding, slave-capturing, or 
 colonisation. Horses and cows frequently make surveys of 
 fences, in order to the detection of their weak points, as offer- 
 ing a means of escape or of access to some coveted pasture. 
 Macaulay,for instance, mentions an old mare making a regular 
 tour of inspection of such a kind round an enclosure. The 
 avant-couriers of swallows in migrating appear to make 
 both surveys and reports. Certain Californian ants recon- 
 noitre as to the presence or absence of danger (Hague), which 
 is also done by a great variety of higher animals, including 
 the wild horse and elephant (Watson) and the spider-monkey 
 (Cassell). 
 
 Much of the knowledge acquired by the lower animals is 
 the result of direct experimentation by themselves. They test 
 or try in various ways 
 
 1. The mechanical properties of bodies. 
 
KNOWLEDGE BY INVESTIGATION. 255 
 
 2. Their dangerousness or power of inflicting pain. 
 
 3. The best means of effecting a given purpose. 
 
 One of the commonest objects in their experimental in- 
 vestigations is to ascertain the strength of material, in refe- 
 rence especially to its capability to support given body weights 
 or mechanical strains. Thus orangs, before climbing trees, 
 ' test the branches, as to whether they will bear, by shaking 
 them' (Buchner). Cingalese elephants try the strength of 
 bridges before trusting their body weight 011 them, 'using 
 their foot and trunk, and refusing to venture upon the bridge 
 if vibration is at all perceptible' (Baker, Watson). 
 
 Berkeley tells us of a retriever trying the strength of ice, 
 and looking for a convenient and safe place to cross a frozen 
 brook. 
 
 Certain animals, again, test the temperature of various 
 fluids or solids. Thus Berkeley reports a male parent bird 
 trying the varying heat of a nest of short-mown grass, which 
 became warm by fermentation. He visits it when full of 
 eggs c very frequently, and tries the temperature with his 
 foot. If too hot, he decreases the grass around the eggs ; if 
 too cold, he heaps on more grass.' Monkeys sometimes try 
 the heat of warm water by the cautious and gradual intro- 
 duction of their feet or fists just as man estimates the 
 temperature of his bath by inserting his fingers or hand. 
 
 Other animals test the quantity of fluid in a given vessel 
 by the use of their paws or feet. The cat, for instance, 
 sometimes gauges or measures the quantity of water, milk, 
 or cream in a jug ascertains the lowness or highness of 
 its level, its accessibility, or the reverse by means of its paw 
 (' Animal World ') ; and the rat probably does the same by 
 the use of its tail. 
 
 Experimental investigation usually or frequently implies 
 both repetition and variation of effort, frequency of attempts to 
 attain a given end, involving diligence, perseverance, deter- 
 mination, with change in the mode or means employed, neces- 
 sitating ingenuity, adaptiveness, reflection, comparison. In 
 order to success in attaining an object, or accomplishing a 
 purpose, repeated trials may be made of the same kind, as well 
 as of different kinds. Thus birds that break shells on stones 
 
256 'SELF-EDUCATION. 
 
 by dropping them from a height upon, or by using their beaks 
 to hold them and dashing them against, some hard sub- 
 stance, such as a stone or a rock, may simply vary the height, 
 the hardness of the stone, or the force of the blow, in their 
 different attempts. 
 
 As in man, investigation of all kinds in other animals 
 requires the use of the senses and judgment ; the applica- 
 tion of such faculties as memory, reflection, comparison, 
 inference. But it by no means follows that the lower ani- 
 mals arrive at their conclusions, acquire their information, 
 their experimental or other knowledge, by the same use of 
 the same senses as in man . 
 
 On the contrary, we know that certain senses are used by 
 the lower animals in a different way from that in which they 
 are employed by man. For instance, there can be no doubt 
 that the dog acquires by sniffing or smell information that 
 man usually obtains by the use of vision. We are too fre- 
 quently at a loss to determine what senses have been opera- 
 tive in the acquisition of given knowledge by so familiar an 
 animal even as the dog what has been the part played re- 
 spectively by each of several senses, perhaps. Some of man's 
 artistic representations of fire for instance, in lobby grates 
 are sometimes so good as at first sight to deceive a dog. 
 
 But the animal submits what it soon comes to suspect is 
 an imposture to investigation, by observation, by touching, 
 by sniffing or smell. It applies tests, and makes experi- 
 ments with one sense after another, or with all combined, 
 and then applies reflection, comparison, judgment, to the 
 determination of the nature of the deceptive appearance. 
 Its suspicion that a mere imitation stood for a reality was 
 probably produced by such physical facts as the absence of 
 heat and of motion in the apparent flame. 
 
 The horse, too, sniffs or smells, as well as looks at, un- 
 familiar objects brings all its senses and intelligence to 
 bear on the investigation of those that are, therefore, pre- 
 sumably dangerous. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EDUCATION OP ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 THE education of other animals by man is either 
 
 1. Direct and intentional, for some specific purpose of his 
 own, in which case it is usually thorough and systematic ; or 
 
 2. Indirect and unintentional, the result simply of asso- 
 ciation with him, of the influence of his habitual example 
 and behaviour. 
 
 Direct and deliberate training by man maybe for good or 
 for bad purposes, or for those which can scarcely be designated 
 either the one or the other. Its object is, usually at least, 
 his own selfish ends, either of profit or pleasure, or both. 
 This may be best seen in a consideration of some of the chief 
 results of man's training, which include the following : 
 
 1. The feats or tricks of performing or learned animals, 
 among which are dogs, horses, cats, elephants, canaries, 
 parrots, and even fleas : e.g. 
 
 a. The articulation of words and phrases the use 
 of speech by the parrot and certain other birds, 
 including the acquisition of human language 
 and the knowledge of more than one of man's 
 languages. 
 
 6. A certain kind of orthography or spelling, con- 
 sisting of the arrangement in words of the 
 letters of man's alphabet, including the correc- 
 tion of errors. 
 
 c. A sort of writing, involving the skilled use of the 
 
 paws. 
 
 d. Feats of jugglery. 
 
 e. Gambling, or playing tricks with cards. 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 /. Playing games of various kinds with man. 
 
 g. Feats in arithmetic, or the calculation of numbers. 
 
 h. Reading the clock, involving a knowledge of 
 figures, if not also of numbers or time. 
 
 i. Eeading or understanding figures on cards, 
 patterns on carpets, pictorial illustrations of 
 persons, other animals, and things. 
 
 j. Feats of song and whistling, including the per- 
 formance of operas and concerts, involving the 
 taking of parts. 
 
 Jc. The performance of certain kinds of instrumental 
 music, by such animals even as swine and cats, 
 elephants and bears, the two latter playing the 
 organ (Pierquin, Bisset) including the keeping 
 of time as well as a knowledge of tune. 
 
 I. Histrionic or dramatic representations, in which, 
 as in concerts or operas, different animals 
 6 play ' appropriately their different parts, in- 
 cluding the simulation of human character, of 
 military exercises, of declamation. 
 
 m. Feats of agility by the monkey, and even by the 
 horse and bear such as walking or tumbling, 
 as well as dancing to music, on the tight rope 
 or otherwise, trundling wheelbarrows on the 
 tight rope, firing cannon by pulling the string 
 of a trigger, bell-ringing. 
 
 n. The development of politeness or manners, in- 
 cluding salutation, behaviour at table and in 
 man's society. 
 2. Services to man. 
 
 a. Acting as valets or servants, including the 
 calling of servants or awaking of masters, 
 opening door to visitors, handing them their 
 hats, and showing them out. 
 
 1). Acting as messengers or porters, including es- 
 pecially the conveyance of printed or written 
 intelligence of the first importance by homing 
 pigeons during war, the delivery of newspa- 
 pers, fetching and carrying groceries, butcher's 
 meat, and bread. 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 259 
 
 c. The guidance of the blind or helpless. 
 
 d. The discovery of lost travellers and property. 
 
 e. The defence of persons or property. 
 
 /. The saving of life in shipwreck or otherwise. 
 
 y. The capture and home-bringing of runaway or 
 stray animals. 
 
 h. The guidance and guardianship, including the 
 nursing, of children ; the management of teams 
 of horses and flocks of sheep. 
 
 i. Hunting down certain animals so as not to injure 
 their fur. 
 
 j. The bearing, draught, and carriage of burdens. 
 
 k. Begging for behoof of their masters, and so sup- 
 porting them. 
 
 I. Capturing or collecting food for man, as in birds or 
 dogs fishing for their human masters, including, 
 for instance, the gathering of cocoa-nuts by 
 monkeys as hired labourers, described as 
 6 monkey coolies,' in Ceylon. 
 
 ra. The performance of various duties, mostly of 
 a mechanical nature, some of them, however, 
 requiring a considerable amount of mental 
 exertion, such as 
 
 1. Drawing carriages or guns. 
 
 2. Piling timber. 
 
 3. Fitting drain or other pipes. 
 
 4. Turning kitchen spits. 
 
 5. Working the bellows. 
 
 6. Tending engine or other fires. 
 
 7. Playing the barrel organ. 
 
 n. The judicial punishment of man or other animals, 
 the execution of man's sentences on fellow-man, 
 as by the elephant in India or the blood hound 
 in Cuba. 
 
 o. Use in war, in aiding or defending man for in- 
 stance, in the intimidation of his enemies 
 including the display of coolness in battle. 
 
 p. Various arts of deception, such as those involved 
 in smuggling and brigandage. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 q. Various crimes, such as 
 
 1. Theft in all its degrees, up to highway 
 
 robbery. 
 
 2. The murder or mutilation of man or 
 
 other animals, for the purposes of 
 revenge or for other nefarious pur- 
 poses. 
 
 3. Services to themselves. 
 
 a. The use of money, including buying or purchasing 
 
 by the dog. 
 
 b. Begging for their own behoof. 
 
 4. Services equally to themselves and to man include, for 
 instance, the restraint imposed upon their natural appetites, 
 the wonderful self-control of which they become capable. 
 
 This self-restraint, or self-denial, while it is one of man's 
 greatest educational triumphs, is alone sufficient to repay 
 him for all his trouble, foreshadowing, as it does, the yet 
 hidden possibilities of what he may achieve from the do- 
 mestication and moral education of the anthropoid apes. Thus 
 the truffle-hunting dog, a small dog bred from the French 
 poodle, though very fond of truffles, never eats them, ' being 
 trained not to do so.' The shepherd's collie is similarly 
 taught not to touch milk, while in other dogs the restriction 
 refers to the even greater temptation of uncooked flesh of 
 various kinds. 
 
 The useful accomplishments of the lower animals, the 
 result of man's training, may be studied as illustrative, on 
 the one hand, of what may be achieved by a single human 
 teacher, and, on the other hand, of what may be exhibited 
 by a single animal species. 
 
 An idea of what one man can do in developing the mental 
 and bodily powers of animals may be gained from a study of 
 the animal feats which resulted from the labours of Bisset, 
 the animal trainer or teacher of Perth. He had animals of 
 the most diverse genera and species thoroughly under com- 
 mand; in his hands they became pliant, obedient, good-na- 
 tured. He developed in them good manners ; taught them to 
 offer obeisance or greeting to their audience or spectators 
 (for he exhibited his performing animals before great assem- 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 261 
 
 blages of people in London and other large cities) ; substi- 
 tuted tractability for obstinacy in such an unpromising 
 animal as the pig; caused different individuals, genera, or 
 species to act in concert (for instance, in part-singing or 
 operas) ; made them useful in going messages or fetching and 
 carrying according to orders. 
 
 Among the feats he taught the very varied accomplish- 
 ments his pupils acquired were writing, arithmetic, spelling 
 names, telling hours on the clock, playing tunes on the dul- 
 cimer, turning the barrel organ or beating the drum, 
 dancing, riding and tumbling on horses' backs, tumbling and 
 dancing on the tight rope, the use of the paw in drinking 
 healths or holding candles. 
 
 On the other hand, among the tricks exhibited by learned 
 or performing elephants alone : are 
 
 1. Emptying soda-water bottles. 
 
 2. Folding their own saddle-cloths (Watson). 
 
 3. Public, military, or other salutes (Pierquin). 
 
 4. Speaking or talking of some kind. 
 
 5. Piping or whistling, or other forms of music, vocal or 
 instrumental. 
 
 6. Gymnastics. 
 
 7. Theatrical or dramatic representations. 
 
 8. Mechanical or engineering skill. 
 
 9. Bell-ringing. 
 
 10. Organ-playing. 
 
 11. Obeying man's word of command or order. 
 
 12. "Rope-dancing. 
 
 13. Dining at man's table and behaving with decorum, 
 though necessarily after a clumsy fashion in contrast with 
 that exhibited by certain anthropoid apes. 
 
 The orang can be trained to sit at table and conduct itself 
 with all due decorum or propriety; to become a servant, 
 waiting at table and performing other domestic services 
 (Watson, Cassell) all in a notably human fashion. The 
 chimpanzee shows in various ways a similar humanlike or civi- 
 lised behaviour. For instance, he sometimes takes his food 
 like a man, making use both of man's foods and beverages, as 
 man uses them. He helps himself to wine ; drinks hot tea, 
 
262 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 sugaring it, pouring it into a saucer, and waiting till it cools. 
 He has been trained also to the domestic service of man, as 
 he has been to man's companionship. He has been taught 
 to feed and attend a baker's oven-fire on board ship, to 
 act as galley fireman, regulating the temperature (Cassell, 
 Houzeau) . 
 
 A well-known female chimpanzee now dead of the 
 Zoological Gardens of London, ' eats her egg with a spoon, 
 takes her grog dai]y, and it is said that, when on board ship, 
 she mixed the latter herself. She will lock and unlock a 
 door or drawer; will thread any needle. She cannot be 
 taken in [deceived] with the same thing twice.' She is 
 described as ' shaking hands in a very cordial manner with 
 some children. ... In taking her meals on the passage 
 home she used knife, fork, spoon, and drinking-cup with the 
 same ease as a human being ; and, with whatever food she 
 was supplied, she preferred using a fork or a spoon to convey 
 it to her mouth to holding it in her hands.' 
 
 The chacma baboon has been taught to blow bellows and 
 to drive teams of waggon-horses (Baird). Other baboons 
 have acted as torch-bearers (Cassell), and were employed in 
 domestic service and as workmen or artisans by the ancient 
 Egyptians. Large apes are now regularly employed in the 
 Straits Settlements to pull cocoa-nuts, being ( imported from 
 Acheen in batches like coolies, and are marched round the 
 plantations by their owners, who let them out on hire.' 
 They are c said to select suitable fruit with great discrimina- 
 tion, and to twist the nut round and round until it falls.' * 
 
 The commoner results of man's education of other animals 
 include the development of good behaviour, which involves 
 such qualities as 
 
 a. Quietude. </. Sympathy. 
 
 b. Obedience. h. Kespect. 
 
 c. Self-control. i. Coolness or calmness. 
 
 d. Docility. j. Industry. 
 
 e. Honesty. k. Regularity. 
 /. Self-denial. 
 
 Among the many practical advantages, or results, of 
 1 ' Scotsman,' February 11, 1875. 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 263 
 
 man's education of the domestic animals is this, that such 
 animals as the elephant, horse, ass, mule, dog, orang, and 
 chimpanzee, for instance, can often work without a master's 
 supervision, direction, or even presence that is, when they 
 have been thoroughly instructed in the duties required of 
 them. In other words, a certain spontaneity of action is 
 acquired, the result partly of habit, partly of willingness, 
 partly of pleasure taken in the work itself. They come to 
 do things of their own accord, habitually, almost automatic- 
 ally, readily, which at first were done only by command, in 
 a master's presence, and as the result of gradual, systematic, 
 long-continued, laborious training. 
 
 This, in fact, is one of the many triumphs of the education 
 of the lower animals by man, one of the many strong and 
 utilitarian arguments in favour of its being thorough. His 
 labour is repaid in the assistance he derives in the co-ope- 
 ration or service of the animals on whom he so well bestows 
 his efforts. The elephant, if only it be shown its work, and 
 understands its nature and its master's object, may be 
 trusted to do it without supervision and with wonderful 
 skill, energy, and perseverance (Houzeau). The dog goes 
 messages wholly without surveillance. tf Performing ' dogs 
 may be daily seen in the streets of London going through 
 their performances by themselves, and not even for the 
 benefit of themselves. For Grenville Murray mentions one 
 whose decrepit, blind beggar-master was confined to bed, 
 while his dog's performances were the sole means of his 
 obtaining an income and thereby life-support. 
 
 It is creditable to human sympathy to be able to say that, 
 so far as the collection of coin was concerned, the sagacious 
 animal's tricks were more successful when performed in the 
 absence of all human supervision or accompaniment than 
 had the poor beggar himself been present. Houzeau speaks 
 of a French butcher's dog that conducted both cattle and 
 sheep alone, unaided, unseen by its master. 
 
 Animals that are in the habit of doing certain things 
 under certain circumstances have been trained to do so by 
 man, but under his auspices sometimes act without orders, 
 on their own responsibility, in his absence, taking for granted 
 
264 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 or assuming what his wishes or intentions would or might 
 have been ; or perhaps simply through force of habit, and as 
 the effect of discipline when the same circumstances arise 
 acting in the same way. 
 
 HaMt in relation to education is a subject of much in- 
 terest as it is illustrated, for instance, by the life-lasting 
 results of systematic and judicious training in the form of 
 military or other discipline. Such is its effect in fighting 
 elephants in India purposely rendered ferocious that they 
 obey their mahouts ' even in the utmost height of their fury.' ] 
 A runaway tame elephant that was captured among a herd of 
 wild ones eighteen months after its escape, being ordered to 
 lay down, ' immediately obeyed the familiar word of com- 
 mand and became perfectly tractable.' 
 
 Another that had been at large for fourteen years, ' on 
 being recaptured, remembered her former driver, and in- 
 stantly lay down at his order ' (Macaulay) . But the result 
 is even more familiar and equally well-marked in the old 
 cavalry charger when it hears again, after a long absence 
 from the army, the trumpet call. The effect of its early 
 training is seen even in panics or stampedes. 
 
 The results of man's training, whether for good or evil, 
 are most frequently and readily illustrated in the dog, cat, 
 horse, elephant, monkey, pig, bear; and in various birds, 
 such as the parrot, parroquet, and cockatoo, and the song 
 birds ; and even in fleas. They may be seen or studied almost 
 at any time in the menageries, hippodromes, or circuses of 
 all kinds that perambulate the country, or that are stationary 
 in large cities, such as London, Edinburgh, or Dublin. The 
 wonderful feats of trained animals of bands of dogs, for 
 instance may occasionally be seen on a smaller scale, but 
 not less instructive form, in the street stages of itinerant 
 musicians, especially on the Continent. The last exhibition 
 I have myself seen of this kind was on a public promenade 
 in Leipsic. 
 
 Man's education of other animals is frequently by pay- 
 ment for results a principle that nowadays regulates so 
 much of our own national education. 
 
 1 ' Scotsman,' November 22, 1875. 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 265 
 
 Man's methods or means of tuition vary greatly in dif- 
 ferent men and in different animals. They include 
 
 1. Various systems or forms of reward and punishment, 
 especially the giving or withholding of necessary or coveted 
 articles of food. 
 
 2. Various combinations of kindness and firmness, or kind- 
 ness alone, including the development of love and confidence. 
 
 3. Various forms of harshness or cruelty, including the 
 development of fear. 
 
 4. Acting on their 
 
 a. Love of approbation. 
 
 b. Expectancy. 
 
 c. Desires or appetites. 
 
 5. The force of discipline, routine, habit all long-con- 
 tinued. 
 
 6. A due recognition of each animal's individuality. 
 
 7. Due allowance has to be made also for age, sex, health, 
 and other circumstances that may give peculiarity to each 
 case. 
 
 8. The requirements of the teacher should include 
 
 a. Great patience and perseverance. 
 
 b. Perfect command of temper. 
 
 c. Much kindliness to and sympathy with his pupils. 
 There are thus certain mental qualities, some of them 
 
 approaching the character of foibles, in the pupil that man 
 has to take a legitimate or proper advantage of. Thus the 
 love of approbation and of spectators may be regarded as 
 amounting to vanity or self-conceit. There is a necessity 
 for sedulously cultivating some one or more of these qualities, 
 according to the special object in view accomplishment to 
 be acquired. 
 
 The effects of mere association with man include some- 
 times remarkable changes in an animal's character. Such 
 association, for instance 
 
 1. May either improve or deteriorate the character of 
 such an animal as the dog, which is at once highly intelli- 
 gent, observant, and impressionable ; or 
 
 2. It may render the character of the lower animal, 
 notably of the dog, a mere reflex of that of his master. 
 
266 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 In both cases it may be said that the character of the 
 master determines that of his animal retainer a circumstance 
 that attaches to the former, as has been shown in other 
 chapters, a high measure of responsibility for the behaviour 
 of subject animals. 
 
 The effect of man's companionship in the production of 
 humanlike behaviour is best illustrated perhaps in the an- 
 thropoid apes, in whom imitation is powerful, and who in 
 structure and habit of body so closely resemble man. ' They 
 become accustomed to wear clothes, drink out of glasses, 
 use a spoon and a fork, uncork bottles, clean boots, and 
 brush clothes, and are even .said to be employed at the 
 Cape in a number of useful labours of the house and field. 
 . . . On shipboard they help to reef and furl the sails. 
 They make themselves a bed with a raised pillow, show an 
 inclination for ladies, light a fire and cook food, dust furni- 
 ture, clean the floor, try to open locks. . . . Buffon's cele- 
 brated chimpanzee extended his hand to visitors, went arm- 
 in-arm with them, ate at table, sitting and with a napkin, 
 used fork and spoon, wiped his mouth, poured out a glass, 
 fetched coffee, put sugar in it. ... Bastian saw in an Eng- 
 lish man-of-war an ape sitting among the sailors, sewing 
 as zealously as they ' (Buchner). 
 
 Man's mere companionship is indeed an education in itself, 
 whether for good or for evil. 'Like master, like dog' is 
 quite as true as the adage c Like master, like man.' His dog 
 as well as his human retainer insensibly acquires something 
 of his own character ; such is the force of example and imi- 
 tation of what has been called moral contagion or sympathy. 
 The resemblance may be simply ludicrous; the dog, and 
 still more the monkey, may become a mere unintentional 
 caricature of its master, as when it acquires his attitudes, 
 gestures, or looks of hauteur. But the resemblance is quite 
 as likely to be serious in every respect. 
 
 Thus the bull-dog, trained for mere fighting purposes in 
 such a moral atmosphere as that of ITanley, is ' a morose 
 and suspicious animal; but he has been made so by bad 
 masters and his parents before him. He is a diseased, morbid 
 specimen of the race' (Wood). ' He is .... an unsafe 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 267 
 
 companion even for his master, and is just as likely to 
 attack his master as a stranger if his blood be up ' ( ( Animal 
 World'). This is only one, however, of many illustrations 
 that might be given of man's evil training recoiling upon 
 himself, of merited retribution, of the punishments of 
 Nemesis. 
 
 'The natural connection between democracy and irre- 
 verence it was that led Plato to make the observation that 
 even the dogs of Athens had a certain look of impertinence 
 about them, which was not observed in Sparta' (Blackie). 
 Various writers have pointed out that, according to the cha- 
 racter of its master and his household, a dog shows humility 
 or self-depreciation on the one hand, arrogance or impudent 
 self-assertion on the other. 
 
 There may be said to be two great antagonistic courses of 
 educational treatment pursued by man viz. the rule or 
 reign of 
 
 1. Fear and 
 
 2. Love respectively. 
 
 They lead frequently to the same apparent result obedience 
 in servitude. But the nature of the obedience and the 
 motive of the service rendered are very different, usually and 
 necessarily, in the two cases. In the first the result of severe 
 discipline includes a constant dread of punishment, a com- 
 pulsory and probably temporary tranquillity or docility, 
 always marked, or liable to be marked, by timidity and 
 nervousness, and in the horse by a tendency to shy and run 
 off. In the second case there is a calm, steady confidence in, 
 if not an attachment to, its master or rider, if the animal be 
 a horse (Pierquin). 
 
 The Ettrick shepherd, Walsh, and other writers show, 
 in regard to the shepherd's dog, how powerful an agency 
 is man 9 s kindly companionship in the development and cul- 
 tivation of the animal's sagacity; how the shrewdness of 
 the master reacts insensibly, but favourably, on the intelli- 
 gence of his collie. 
 
 The pariah or outcast dogs of Indian cities, too, reflect 
 the mildness and kindness of their masters, the Hindoos, 
 and form a remarkable contrast to the same class of dogs 
 
268 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 among the Turks (Low). The proverbial sagacity of the 
 Arabian steed, its humanlike qualities of head and heart, 
 arise from its intimate association with and education by 
 man (Farley) ; and the same may be said in a minor degree 
 of the Irish pig. 
 
 Woman's companionship exercises frequently quite as 
 marked an influence as man's, both for good and evil, but 
 unfortunately rather for evil than good. The constant asso- 
 ciation of pet animals e.g. lap-dogs with ladies in their 
 boudoirs and drawing-rooms no doubt begets in some cases 
 a certain politeness, manners that may be called refined or 
 aristocratic; but these manners are apt to include an ob- 
 jectionable hauteur or superciliousness, while there can be 
 no question as to the common development of selfishness and 
 jealousy. In woman's case, however, such results may be 
 due less to imitation of a mistress's character than to her 
 injudicious petting and pampering. 
 
 Among the advantages of association with man is the 
 development of powers that would or might otherwise re- 
 main latent (Houzeau). An animal's whole moral nature 
 may not only be improved, but almost created. The quality 
 of the general intelligence may be so much improved also as 
 to appear different in kind from and inferior to the special 
 skill to be found in other individuals of the same species. 
 This is well brought out in the comparison instituted by 
 Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, between the home-bred collie 
 the dog that is left at home as a protector and a com- 
 panion for the shepherd's wife, children, and homestead 
 and its brother that is taken or sent daily to the hills, that 
 is specially trained to manage sheep. He tells us that the 
 home-bred animals ' are far more acute at taking up what is 
 said in a family ' that is, they understand more readily and 
 fully the import of man's conversation. Bnt the evils or 
 defects that sometimes at least attend or characterise special 
 training are of a more practical and serious kind. 
 
 Thus Hogg says of one of his collies, specially trained 
 to accompany him to the hills and to manage sheep, c if 
 coming hungry from the hills and getting into a milk-house, 
 [he] would most likely think of nothing else than filling his 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 269 
 
 belly with the cream ; ' while another individual, a member of 
 the same litter or family perhaps, that remains at home as the 
 playfellow of the shepherd's children and the guardian of his 
 other household gods, c is bred at home to far higher principles 
 of honour. I have known such [a dog] lay night and day 
 among from ten to twenty pails full of milk, and never once 
 break the cream of one of them with the tip of his tongue ; 
 nor would he suffer cat, rat, or any other creature to touch 
 it.' 
 
 On the other hand, among the disadvantages of associa- 
 tion with man are the savagery, ferocity, stupidity, and 
 want of affection that characterise, for instance, the bull- 
 dog, none of which qualities are natural to the animal, 
 though they are the natural fruits of its evil up-bringing 
 by man (Walsh). 
 
 The effects of the up-bringing of young dogs or other 
 animals with children are frequently very remarkable ('Ani- 
 mal World'). Thus bear whelps brought up in the same 
 nursery with children, in intimate companionship, become 
 even amiable. Bad humour is rare ; they learn to behave 
 themselves even at table, as well at least as their child 
 companions do (Cassell). 
 
 Domestication is virtually a form and process of education, 
 in which man's object is to render certain animals his slaves 
 or servants, companions or pets, his beasts of draught or 
 burden, his sources of food supply or his means of amuse- 
 ment. He cultivates alike their physical and mental nature 
 in the directions that are to be useful to himself. His 
 system of training, where he has a system, is determined 
 solely by considerations of direct and obvious utilitarianism. 
 He makes no special effort to develope either their moral 
 nature or intellectual faculties for their own sakes, in order 
 to greater moral excellence or a higher kind of knowledge. 
 
 And yet there can be no doubt of the increased economic 
 value, as companions, playthings, or servants at least, of 
 animals highly educated, morally and intellectually. Man's 
 truest economy or policy, his highest privilege and most 
 obvious duty, is, where he makes any use of subject animals 
 (unless for the mere purposes of food), to educate thoroughly, 
 
270 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 to the fullest practicable extent, all their faculties or powers, 
 moral, intellectual, and physical. 
 
 Domestication in the case of the Quadrumana involves a 
 high degree of what may be quite properly called civilisation, 
 including the acquisition of domestic habits for instance, 
 as to behaviour at table, bed-going, visiting, and equitation. 
 This has already and specially been pointed out in reference 
 to the orang and chimpanzee, chacma baboon, and various 
 apes. 
 
 Domestication involves a certain kind or degree of 
 mutual understanding, attachment, confidence, sympathy, 
 and sociability, a desire to please as well as a readiness to 
 be pleased. 
 
 In domestication various noteworthy physiological trans- 
 formations take place, including the loss of certain natural 
 aptitudes or habits and the acquisition of new ones (Elam). 
 A marked change of disposition usually occurs (Spencer). 
 
 But these changes in the temper or intelligence or mode 
 of life are not always for the better. Nor are they all to be 
 attributed to education, whether indirectly or directly. They 
 are due partly to alterations in food, drink, temperature, 
 humidity, altitude, climate, shelter, and occupation; they 
 include the results of an unnatural mode of life, with its 
 involved deprivation of exercise, freedom, and gratification 
 of the sexual or other instincts, as pointed out in the 
 chapter on the ' Mixed Causes of Mental Derangement. 3 
 
 The practice of domestication of other animals, other 
 genera and species, is not confined to man. There are 
 certain other animals that resort to the practice, with the 
 same kind of objects in view ministration to their own 
 physical wants or comforts for the sake of their service or 
 produce. Thus certain ants keep certain Aphides, just as 
 man keeps milch cows, the Aphides being trained to yield 
 their honeydew in the same way as the cow is trained to 
 give up its milk. 
 
 There are certain other 'ants that capture and train other 
 species as their slaves or servants, to do their work and wait 
 upon them ; and there is a certain kind of domestication- 
 there is at least the subjection of one animal and its will to 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 271 
 
 the superior power, intelligence, and will of another, the 
 subservience of a weaker to a stronger animal in the case 
 of apes that lay hold of dogs and use them as man does the 
 horse ride upon them or otherwise employ them as beasts 
 of burden. 
 
 Domestication and taming may be synonymous; but 
 they are not necessarily so, for it cannot be said that all 
 animals that are tamed by man are domesticated. Domes- 
 tication implies perfect resignation to man's power and 
 sovereignty, as well as free and full companionship or fel- 
 lowship. All this exists in the case of the dog, cat, horse, 
 elephant, ox, pig, and our common fowls and song birds. 
 But it cannot be said to occur in the case of the majority 
 at least of menagerie animals of those exhibited in our 
 Zoological Gardens. 
 
 In the itinerant exhibitions known as e happy families ' 
 even the tameness is more superficial than real; the ap- 
 parent harmony is liable to be disturbed for instance, by 
 the pangs of hunger or by fright. Nevertheless they are 
 wonderful and suggestive illustrations of man's power of so 
 training the most unpromising animal pupils as to lead to 
 the control, unless under exceptional circumstances, of their 
 strong natural instincts, appetites, or passions. It is as- 
 tonishing what man can achieve in the taming of animals 
 by the practical application of such qualities as patience, 
 perseverance, sympathy, kindness, mercy, if only the ani- 
 mals are taken in hand at a very early stage of their 
 growth. 
 
 Frederick Cuvier mentions a tame wolf that, thus trained 
 by man from the youngest stage upwards, became c as tract- 
 able as a dog.' 
 
 Sir John Lubbock contrived to tame the wasp. The 
 reputedly intractable otter has been tamed and taught to 
 fish for man's benefit instead of its own (Baird). The 
 taming of a brace of butterflies, and teaching them to come 
 at call, is mentioned by Wood. Many apparently dangerous 
 wild animals have become by training substitutes for the 
 dog or cat as house pets or for the horse as beasts of burden 
 e.g. the Cape hyaena, Madagascar lemur, American skunk, 
 
272 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 
 
 Egyptian ichneumon (Houzeau), buffalo, tiger, bear cubs, 
 vulture, and various snakes. In short, it may be said that 
 all kinds of wild animals can be subjected successfully to 
 the process of training, so as to become man's playthings, 
 companions, or servants a circumstance that very properly 
 forms one of the most conspicuous and commendable of 
 man's triumphs in the education of the lower animals. 
 
 The difference, however, between mere taming and do- 
 mestication probably depends, frequently at least, on the 
 different methods of education employed by man. Where 
 fear or terrorism has been used instead of kindness or love, 
 the resultant obedience or subjection is apt to be unreal, 
 insecure, insincere, and shortlived. 
 
 The tameness of captive animals is, or may be, more 
 apparent than real. It is at least not to be trusted in the 
 case, for instance, of the large, fierce, predatory Carnivora, 
 in proof whereof the accidents to man that every now and 
 then happen from menagerie animals may be cited. 
 
 It has to be observed also that the term tameness is fre- 
 quently misapplied, used improperly, for that fearlessness of 
 man which arises from unfamiliarity with him as an enemy. 
 It is in reality simply an absence of the acquired fear of man, 
 because as yet the confiding animal has had no experience 
 of his treachery and is aware of no reason for getting out of 
 his way. 
 
 As in other forms of education, there must be in taming 
 a due combination of the suaviter in modo with tliefortiter in 
 re, the one or the other predominating in individual cases. 
 Thus lion-taming is brought about by a judicious combina- 
 tion of kindness, firmness, and severity (Buckland) . 
 
 Much depends also on the capacity or qualifications of 
 the teacher or trainer. It has been noticed by travellers 
 that there is a singular difference in the capacities of civi- 
 lised and savage man to tame wild animals, the savage 
 possessing the great advantage of a superior knowledge of 
 the habits and dispositions of his animal pupils, as well as a 
 keener sympathy with their feelings and requirements. 
 
 The economic value to man of animal education appears 
 to be little, if at all, considered the usefulness to him of 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN. 273 
 
 educated compared with uneducated animals and yet this 
 can be readily shown by the uselessness of certain untrained 
 or imperfectly trained individuals, and the usefulness of 
 certain others, highly trained or properly educated, of the 
 same species. Thus we are told of the uselessness of the 
 Australian cattle dog from imperfect training (Baden Powell), 
 while the converse the high value or usefulness of the 
 trained sheep dog at home is too well known to require 
 any sort of proof here. The Scotch shepherd not only saves 
 himself endless trouble, but his master much money, by 
 training his dog to tthe gentle yet firm in other words, 
 judicious and skilful management of his charges, the sheep. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHEE. 
 
 IT is one of the many delusions under which man labours in 
 regard to the mental characteristics of other animals that 
 the lower animals are born with all their faculties perfect 
 that the young duck swims as well as its mother, the young 
 bee builds its cell as well as its sire, and so forth but the 
 fact is that at least many young animals require tuition for 
 the proper development both of their physical and mental 
 nature, just as the human child does. 
 
 And the degree and direction of development depend very 
 much on the kind or character of the education employed. 
 In a great many cases the direct influence of the parent or 
 parents is obvious ; in others it is not so. But, whether it is 
 so or not, various kinds of self-tuition the teachings of 
 experience exist among all the higher and more intelligent 
 animals. 
 
 There are also sundry cases in which older, experienced 
 animals, who are not the parents of their pupils, teach the 
 young and inexperienced, or those that are, while mature in 
 age, inexperienced in certain kinds of practical knowledge. 
 
 It is frequently, indeed, necessary to educate young ani- 
 mals in so essential a matter as the avoidance of poisonous 
 food and the selection of that which is suitable. They have 
 to be taught, moreover, how best to procure what food is 
 appropriate, the manner of seizing and eating it, the search 
 for and pursuit of prey. As is pointed out in the chapters 
 on * Error, from ignorance or inexperience even animals 
 of mature age are constantly making mistakes as to what 
 food and drink to select or to avoid. The chicken has to learn 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER. 275 
 
 not to eat its own excrement, as well as how to drink, accord- 
 ing to Spalding, who describes the awkwardness of its first 
 attempts at eating and drinking. 
 
 Falcons teach their young to catch and eat their prey in the 
 air, using at first dead mice, then wounded individuals, and 
 lastly living and lively ones. Here is a good instance of the 
 use of graduated or progressive lessons, and a satisfactory proof 
 of intention in instruction. Ants teach their young to open 
 their mouths for food (Houzeau). Parent partridges show 
 their young 'the food suitable for them, and teach them 
 how to procure it by scratching the earth with their claws ' 
 ('Animal World'). The cat teaches her kitten its future 
 duties in mouse-catching and hunting, greediness being 
 sometimes reproved ; and the bitch treats its pups similarly 
 in regard to rats, as has been depicted on canvas in one 
 of Landseer's celebrated paintings. 
 
 Young sea-lions have at first a great aversion to water, 
 and are taught to swim by their mothers (Clarke). The 
 eider duck too gives its offspring lessons in swimming, the 
 sea swallow in fishing, the eagle in flight, the horse and mule 
 in the application of cautiousness and adroitness in the 
 avoidance of obstacles. The cat developes muscular agility 
 in her kittens by leading them to play with her tail. 
 
 The cow and goat instruct their young in the use of the 
 head as a weapon of offence and defence, teaching them, as 
 a fencing master would his pupils, how to make and avoid 
 thrusts. Parent rooks teach their young first to hop and 
 then to fly ; the young make experimental voyages, and they 
 are encouraged to effort by sounds and gestures in their 
 parents (White). 
 
 Here too we have graduated lessons, and procedure on the 
 part of the mother teacher suitable to the age and progress 
 of her pupils. The swift teaches her young alertness or 
 alacrity (White). In the swallow there is systematic tuition 
 or training by parents (' Percy Anecdotes, 3 Wingel) . It is the 
 special business of the neuters among the Hymenoptera to 
 instruct the young (Houzeau). 
 
 Among other animals that educate their young in such 
 useful qualities or accomplishments as industry, food-selec- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER. 
 
 tion, the use of proper precautions against danger, the esti- 
 mation of the kind and amount of peril, present or threatened, 
 the determination of the necessity or propriety of flight or 
 migration, and of the means of setting about either, is the 
 wolf (Low) . The cat teaches caution and domestic cleanli- 
 ness to its kittens ( c Animal World ') . Many bird parents teach 
 song e.g. the wren (' Percy Anecdotes ') . Many young birds 
 require tuition in song, inasmuch as they are not natural 
 songsters (Darwin). 
 
 There are many cases in which, as has been already 
 said, the young are taught by elders or seniors who are not 
 their parents. This includes the category of foster parents 
 and foster young, where the teacher and pupil belong to 
 different genera or species. Thus we are told of an old cat 
 giving a young one, not of its own progeny, c a lesson of 
 patience or self-denial, or imposing a fear of punishment ' 
 (' Nature '), and of another, a disabled old torn, teaching a 
 young one, not its own, to avoid the bustle and moving mer- 
 chandise of a London city warehouse (Wynter). Old mules 
 encourage young ones, as they also do each other, to per- 
 severance or exertion (Watson). 
 
 There are certain other cases in which animals train or 
 teach each other, though they do not stand in the relation 
 of old and young and do not belong to the same genus or 
 species. In the first place, animals that have been trained 
 by man are sometimes employed by him to teach their own 
 fellows. Thus, in the training or breaking in of sporting 
 dogs, old, thoroughly trained, c well-bred ' dogs are used in 
 teaching the young man here, however, supervising the 
 process and progress of tuition. On the other hand, wild 
 horses sometimes teach domestic ones their own vices (Baden 
 Powell), by the force of temptation on the part of the seducer 
 and of imitation on that of the seduced. 
 
 This teaching of vices or tricks to each other is noticed 
 also in sporting dogs (Walsh). The ape, in breaking in the 
 dog for riding, does so on the principles employed by man in 
 breaking in his horses (Houzeau). 
 
 The following features are common in the instruction of 
 the young by their parents or seniors. In the first place, it 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER. 277 
 
 is direct and voluntary (Houzeau). It involves method and 
 design for instance, in the cat, that encourages the play of 
 her kittens and that herself plays with them, such play being 
 directly and obviously conducive to the development of bodily 
 agility. In the tuition of the young, parents and elders 
 apply in various ways their own experience. They employ 
 equally commendation or reward and punishment or re- 
 buke. 
 
 Among ants the masters teach or train their slaves in or 
 by fear, though the result is good, as these slaves become 
 true servants (Figuier). Pigeons are taught to fly by the 
 medium of hunger, of physical need or necessity, artificially 
 or intentionally created by the parent bird withholding food 
 just as man does in training his courier birds (Herbert). 
 
 In certain cases there is a special education of certain 
 individuals, as of the queen by hive bees (Kirby and Spence) ; 
 there is a distinctively physical training given to the young 
 queens by bee-nurses (Figuier). 
 
 Certain birds and other animals set forth their own ex- 
 ample to their young, with the evident object of its imitation 
 by them ; and there can be no doubt that it is by imitation 
 that the acquisition of ability physical and mental takes 
 place, in the first instance, in the young of all the higher 
 animals, as is the case also in the human child. 
 
 On the part of the pupil, as has been partly pointed out 
 in the chapter on ' Capacity for Education,' various mental 
 qualities are implied. There must be, in the first place, a 
 certain receptivity a capacity for learning, as well as a 
 willingness to learn. Then there is the powerful faculty of 
 imitation, whereby young animals learn to do what they see 
 done by their parents or seniors. Next there is natural 
 curiosity or inquisitiveness, a desire to know the real nature 
 of things perhaps, in the first place, in reference simply to 
 whether they are safe or dangerous. 
 
 This curiosity thirst for knowledge in many young 
 animals leads to the development of observation, attention, 
 investigation, and even experiment. In all kinds of instruc- ^ 
 tion memory is of quite as great importance as in man. In cer- 
 tain animals there is not only anxiety to learn, but diligence 
 
278 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER. 
 
 in study ; they make efforts to excel, display an honourable 
 emulation or rivalry for instance, monkeys (Rengger). 
 Moreover, there is a recognition of their parents or elders 
 as their mentors (Houzeau) a recognition that implies or 
 includes obedience and respect. 
 
 Much more general, or at least more obvious, than the 
 teaching of parents or elders is the teaching of experience. 
 Young, intelligent animals rapidly acquire experience and 
 profit by it, so that the behaviour of the old or experienced 
 and the young or inexperienced animal, under the same 
 circumstances, differs in a very marked way. Thus the 
 different results of experience and inexperience are some- 
 times well seen in the same troop of military horses in the 
 different behaviour of old and young animals in stampedes 
 or panics. Inexperience of man as an enemy is obvious in 
 certain unsophisticated wild animals. Young harriers hunt 
 without reflection, making no allowance for the doubling 
 of the hare, while the old ones leave the fatigues of the 
 chase to the } r oung, themselves watching and waiting for 
 their easier and proper opportunity (Houzeau). Experience 
 teaches, in the first place, what to trust or to fear, what to 
 eat, drink, or avoid, or what gives bodily pain. Thus a 
 London railway dog was deterred, by its having been once 
 burned by a red-hot cinder from the locomotive furnace, 
 from travelling a second time by the engine or tender ; it 
 speedily learned to avoid what had produced danger and 
 pain. Experience, too, enables hunted animals to avoid 
 snares. 
 
 Animals apply their acquired experience to their conduct 
 in new cases or circumstances. They profit by failure or 
 non-success, which prompts them to make further and suc- 
 cessful efforts. Thus the dog, in swimming, learns to make 
 allowance for tides, eddies, and currents. Many animals 
 profit by the very accidents that befall them. The bee does 
 this after an attack on its nest by the death's-head moth ; 
 it accepts the incident as a warning of what is likely to 
 happen again, and it forthwith makes provision for the con- 
 tingency (Kirby and Spence). Bees also not only steady 
 falling combs, but they learn this lesson from their totter- 
 
EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER 279 
 
 ing condition to strengthen other weak combs, so as to 
 prevent a similar condition in them. They discover the cause 
 of the fall in one case and the means of preventing a similar 
 accident in other cases. 
 
 The lessons of experience have to be learned gradually or 
 suddenly frequently at great cost to the individual, its 
 family, or race. 
 
 Just as happens in man, there are individuals among 
 the lower animals so peculiarly constituted mentally that 
 they do not gain knowledge from experience. This, how- 
 ever, is exceptional, and can usually at least be attributed 
 to the presence of mental defect or disorder. The subject is 
 fully discussed in the chapters on ' Mental Defect and Derange- 
 ment. 9 on ' Stupidity, 9 and on ' Error. 9 
 
 It is of interest to bear in mind that experience is of two 
 kinds 
 
 1. That which is acquired by the individual ; and 
 
 2. That which has been accumulated by generations of 
 individuals, and has been transmitted by or from ancestry 
 (Lewes) ; while 
 
 3. Of the two, ancestral, inherited experience is in certain 
 respects the more important (Spalding). 
 
 Self-education^ tuition, or improvement occurs in other 
 animals, under the same circumstances as in man, involving 
 the same mental qualities, developed or displayed in the 
 same way. Various birds learn for themselves the songs or 
 notes of other genera or species, and they have concerts among 
 themselves (Darwin) ; at least they do so in confinement 
 (Baird) though it does not appear how captivity operates 
 possibly simply because then only is the acquisition noted 
 or notable by man. Self-education includes, for instance, 
 the learning of lessons by practice. Various song birds and 
 other animals learn their lessons as children do. This takes 
 place in the mocking bird (' Percy Anecdotes ') and jay 
 (Jesse). Elephants have their rehearsals by themselves, as 
 was long ago pointed out by Pliny, and has been confirmed 
 in modern times by Buckland; they practise for their danc- 
 ing feats (Pliny). The horse too practises its dancing lessons. 
 There is a regular practising by the young of manoeuvres 
 
280 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER. 
 
 prior to the migration of certain birds. The nightingale 
 6 records ' or practises the notes of other species. 
 
 ' Practice makes perfection/ or at least tends towards it, 
 in other animals as in man; steadiness in lesson-learning 
 leads sooner or later to excellence. Practice has the same 
 kind of effect in developing and improving the various mental 
 faculties of other animals as in man. Its beneficial results 
 are perhaps better seen in the efforts of song than in the 
 arts of construction. 
 
 This learning of lessons involves the perception and cor- 
 rection of mistakes, and progress or improvement in song, 
 flight, nest-building, and other accomplishments. It implies 
 also what in man is called study, which is exhibited in various 
 ways and degrees. Birds study, for instance, how best to 
 display their own physical beauty (Darwin). 
 
 Self -tuition includes systematic muscular exercise regu- 
 lar gymnastic exercises in order to due bodily culture, 
 even in insects e.g. among young ants. The play of all 
 young animals is to be regarded as an important part of 
 physical education, as a means of imparting or developing 
 that bodily agility which is so necessary in the struggle for 
 life. Hence their mimic fights and races, their gambols, 
 games, sports, pastimes of all kinds, have a high educational 
 value, as well as an important relation to health, mental and 
 bodily. 
 
LANGUAGE. 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 PRESUMPTUOUS man never made a graver mistake than 
 when he distinctively denned himself as differing from all 
 other animals in the possession of language. He has fallen 
 into error by ignorance of what language is ' any manner 
 of expressing thought,' and, it may be added, of expressing 
 feeling, idea, wish, or intention. This is the comprehensive 
 sense of the term the sense in which it is used in this 
 volume. It is the definition of the word according to the 
 most recent English dictionaries. 
 
 Speech, articulate language, written and printed language, 
 are mere forms of language, the forms with which civilised 
 nations are no doubt most familiar ; but they are neither 
 the most common nor the most important forms of general 
 language, which includes many kinds of what have been 
 variously denominated gesture, sign, pantomimic or mimic, 
 sound, look, and eye language. In. other words, even in 
 man the outward, visible, or audible exponents of feeling 
 and thought are both numerous and varied constituting a 
 general language of expression. 
 
 Those forms of physical expression which are not vocal 
 for instance, the language of the look or eye are frequently 
 incomparably more powerful in their influence more elo- 
 
282 LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 quent, more intelligible than any of the ordinary forms 
 of verbal, spoken, written, or printed language, appealing 
 much more immediately to the heart if not to the head, to 
 the feelings if not to the intellect. The language of simple 
 emotion is used by man to a much greater extent than he is 
 aware, frequently superseding what has been called c intel- 
 lectual ' language by Carpenter. 
 
 Language is too much regarded as synonymous with mere 
 articulate speech. We forget that the articulation or pro- 
 nunciation of words that verbal language is not a native 
 attribute of man, is not innate, but the result of imitation 
 and training (Houzeau) in other words, a gradual acquisi- 
 tion. We also forget the non-necessity for words in the 
 formation of thought, in the interchange of ideas. We 
 constantly lose sight of the possibility of thinking without 
 giving audible expression to our thoughts, or of signifying our 
 feelings, wishes, requirements, or intentions otherwise than 
 by word of mouth, by writing, or by printing. 
 
 The student of comparative language cannot too soon 
 disabuse himself of the notion that words are indispensable 
 to the expression of feelings or ideas, that words are essen- 
 tial either to thought or to language. In all countries the 
 dumb make themselves understood, and understand each 
 other, or those who can make use of their special form of 
 language, by means of symbols, sign language, or other sub- 
 stitutional modes of expression. 
 
 They cannot litter words, but they can write and read 
 those of them who are educated and it would be absurd to 
 deny to them the possession of ideas and feelings, the faculty 
 of thought. Erasmus Darwin gives a case in which speech 
 was lost in a deaf man by disuse, gesture language super- 
 seding it ; so that, even in civilised races and individuals, 
 articulate language requires cultivation and practice- 
 
 Unlinguistic tourists on the Continent manage to find 
 their way and to get what they want by somewhat similar 
 means the use of gesture or pantomime language. I have 
 myself found less difficulty in understanding, and being un- 
 derstood by, the natives of countries with whose printed or 
 spoken language I was unacquainted, or imperfectly ac- 
 
LANGUAGE IX LOWER MAX. 283 
 
 quainted, when I and they made use of signs or pantomime, 
 than in understanding the verbal language of a London 
 servant girl. The talk of the latter has been to me, in fact, 
 sometimes quite unintelligible ; it was impossible for me to 
 understand either what she said, meant, or wanted. 
 
 I have not experienced similar difficulty in New Zealand 
 with the Maoris, in Egypt, Syria, or Morocco with the 
 Arabs, in Iceland with the Icelanders, or in Norway and 
 other parts of the continent of Europe. 
 
 Gesture language alone is made use of by certain monks 
 (Darwin). It is largely employed by some of the most 
 highly civilised peoples possessed of a beautiful and copious 
 spoken, written, and printed language for instance, by the 
 French and the superior eloquence and intelligibility of 
 their non-vocal forms of expression are frequently obvious 
 to the English tourist in France. 
 
 The writer of a recent tract on the life of the factory 
 girls of Lancashire says, C I have seen girls in the Lan- 
 cashire mills perhaps a dozen or twenty yards apart amid 
 the deafening noise of spinning and weaving machinery, tell 
 one another many a long tale on different subjects, the 
 tender passion included, all by motions of the mouth and 
 arms.' 1 The practice of some modern elocutionists such as 
 Mr. Melville Bell, of Edinburgh, in their methods of teaching 
 the dumb to speak, shows that ideas can be conveyed by the 
 mere movements of the lips without the utterance of any 
 kind of sound. The late Sir Benjamin Brodie mentions a 
 deaf girl who could tell her mother's meaning by the mo- 
 tions of her lips and the play of her features. 
 
 Again, what has been called the dumb commerce of Mexico, 
 ancient China and Africa, and the modern East, shows that 
 buying and selling, interrogation and reply, all the details of 
 purchase or sale in the Eastern bazaar, can be, and are, carried 
 on by gesture, symbols, hieroglyphic language, and ivithout 
 words. Many idiots express themselves only by signs (Ire- 
 land) ; and there is much pantomimic language also in the 
 insane adult as well as in the sane child. 
 
 And, lastly, there is a loss of the so-called faculty of 
 
 1 'North British Daily Mail,' November 17, 1874. 
 
284 LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 language, of intellectual expression which merely means 
 the capability of giving expression in words to thought or 
 emotion in certain forms of organic disease of the brain, 
 especially in those recently described as aphasia and amnesia. 
 
 Houzeau points out that in pre-historic man there was 
 probably either no articulate language, or it was confined to 
 mere interjections or cries, which form part of the vocal 
 language of other animals. The earliest form of language 
 in man is probably the expression of pleasure and pain, of 
 joy and grief, of surprise and satisfaction. But the same 
 emotion is frequently differently expressed by different races 
 or individuals (Houzeau). The cries wrung from man under 
 agony or distress are involuntary, spontaneous, and natural. 
 They may be referred to what is called animal language, or 
 emotional language, or imitative language, in contradistinc- 
 tion to that which has been denominated by Max Miiller, 
 Carpenter, Tylor, and others ' rational ' or ' intellectual.' 
 But this emotional language is at least as eloquent and as 
 intelligible as rational language can possibly be. 
 
 The distinction between emotional and rational language 
 is purely artificial. The one passes into the other, and both, 
 in different degrees, are possessed by other animals as well 
 as man. Tennyson describes the human infant, ' crying in 
 the night' and 6 crying for the light,' as having ' no language 
 but a cry. 9 The language of the infant unquestionably con- 
 sists at first of mere cries or calls, like those of many other 
 young animals. 
 
 The savage, if he possess and express any sense of bereave- 
 ment, does so by cries or ivails (Houzeau) . He employs noise, 
 including cries, to terrify certain animals e.g. the shark 
 just as the lower animals intimidate their enemies (Houzeau). 
 
 Various authors regard this simple animal cry as the 
 rudiment of speech the root of all verbal language. 
 
 Even in civilised man grunting occurs from surliness, 
 and growling from dissatisfaction, anger, or resentment. 
 
 There are many peoples destitute of ivritten and printed 
 language, and not a few savage races that can scarcely be 
 said to possess a spoken language, or even distinctly articulate 
 speech. In certain cases their language of whatever 
 
LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 285 
 
 character is very limited or rudimentary. Thus certain 
 aborigines of Borneo have no language of their own, and 
 only learn with great labour to pronounce a few Malay 
 words (Biichner). Savage peoples have frequently no mne- 
 monic signs ; the language of expression in them is much 
 the same as it is in many animals. Thus their mode of 
 salutation or greeting is not more expressive, consisting as 
 it does either of 
 
 1. Some simple gesture. 
 
 2. Touching noses ; or 
 
 3. Eubbing other parts of the body against each other. 
 Or their language consists of mere inarticulate sounds of 
 
 the nature of shrieks e.g. in certain natives of the Philippine 
 Islands or among the South African Bushmen. Brazilian 
 Botokudos ' speak little to one another, but rather mutually 
 grunt and snuffle.' The Apache Indian c speaks little, and 
 rather in gesture than sounds.' The speech of the Fans of 
 Western Africa is a collection of gutturals, unintelligible to 
 white races ; it ' can scarcely be called a language in the 
 human sense of that word.' The talk of the savages of 
 Borneo and Sumatra is described as a sort of cackle or croak. 
 6 Generally savages are accustomed to talk more by gesture 
 and looks ' than by voice. Thus the Yeddas of Ceylon 
 use only * signs, grimaces, and guttural sounds (Biichner). 
 Houzeau remarks on the paucity of letter sounds in savage 
 languages. 
 
 Various classes of human idiots neither speak nor under- 
 stand speech ; others speak, but do not understand speech 
 (Ireland). Their only voice-sounds are frequently mere 
 ii-Jtines or cries (Hitchman). Their defects or peculiarities of 
 voice and speech have been commented on by many of those 
 authorities who have had special opportunities of studying 
 the phenomena of idiocy. One microcephalic idiot described 
 by Professor Cesare Lombroso chirped like a bird ; a second 
 paralytic idiot, described by the same authority, 'cannot 
 speak, or even converse by signs.' The absence of spoken 
 language, non-understanding of man's speech, words, or 
 phrases, howling or yelling by night and whining by day, are 
 among the bestial traits or habits of the wolf-children of 
 India. 
 
286 LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 Of one of them Gerhardt says, ' He has learnt to make 
 sounds. Speak he cannot, but freely expresses his anger and 
 joy.' Of another, 'They tried to make him speak, but 
 could get nothing from him but an angry growl or snarl.' A 
 third ' could never be brought to speak. He used to mutter 
 something, but never articulated any word distinctly.' A 
 fourth ' could not speak. He could be made to understand 
 signs very well, but would utter sounds like wild animals.' 
 A fifth ' could never be made to speak,' while a sixth 
 'could not be brought to speak, though it was easy to com- 
 municate with him by signs.' A seventh a case recorded 
 by Colonel Sleeman 'never could understand or utter a 
 word, though he seemed to understand signs.' And Max 
 Miiller, commenting on the histories of wolf-children in 
 India, refers to their speechlessness as a trait common to 
 all. 
 
 On the other hand, there are many idiots, imbeciles, and 
 lunatics that, giving up permanently or for the time their 
 own language, speech their use of words imitate the 
 language, along with the habits, of various wild animals. 
 Thus the victim of spurious hydrophobia, who fancies he has 
 been bitten by a rabid dog, and that so he has been inocu- 
 lated with a dog's propensities, barks, liowls, and whines like 
 a dog. 
 
 Those persons who were affected with certain of the epi- 
 demic delusions of the Middle Ages the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries and who fancied they had been trans- 
 formed into wolves, dogs, horses, cats, lions, cows, sparrows, 
 or cuckoos, imitated the cries or notes of these animals, 
 neighing like horses, mewing like cats, and so on, according 
 to the speciality of their delusion. And, lastly, various 
 simian, pithecoid, or apelike microcephalic idiots are as imi- 
 tative as monkeys, mimicking all man's gestures. 
 
 Verbal language, then, is not innate in man, but ( a 
 difficult acquisition,' as Grimm calls it, as gradual and 
 difficult in the race as in the individual. 
 
 It may be supposed to constitute a certain linguistic 
 difference between man and other animals that verbal 
 language and the language of facial expression physiogno- 
 
LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 287 
 
 mical control are alike used so frequently in or by man to 
 conceal not to express his real sentiments. 
 
 It may or may not be true that, as Talleyrand says, 
 6 language was given to us for the concealment of our 
 thoughts.' But it is certainly abundantly true that man fre- 
 quently makes use of words to pervert or obscure his real 
 ideas or feelings. It is, however, a mere assumption, and 
 an incorrect one, that in other animals there is always a 
 transparency or intelligibility of motive, feeling, or thought 
 that ' he who runs may read ' the ideas, the wants, or 
 wishes of his dog, for instance. 
 
 In point of fact, as is pointed out in the chapter on 
 6 Deception,' the language employed is not necessarily or 
 always a key to the real emotions, desires, or designs of 
 shrewd, cunning, ingenious animals. They are quite 
 capable, for adequate reasons, of masking their real inten- 
 tions of misrepresenting their real condition, so as con- 
 stantly to deceive man himself and throw him off his guard. 
 
 Even among the most highly civilised races of man, and 
 in the most highly educated individuals, the natural, universal 
 language of emotion asserts itself as dominant over all other, 
 conventional forms of language. Dr. Gustav Jager refers, 
 for instance, to the simple emotional cry produced by intense 
 feeling, such as the fear of death (Biichner). 
 
 Let us ever remember that, among even civilised races 
 
 a. Different nations do not understand each others' 
 language spoken, written, and printed without laborious 
 study and incessant practice. 
 
 &. In the same people the written, printed, or spoken 
 language of the educated is little, or not at all, under- 
 stood by the uneducated classes ; the language of the meta- 
 physician or mathematician, theologian or poet, philosopher 
 or man of science, is utterly unintelligible to the common 
 run of the populace. 
 
 c. The application or use of mere spoken, written, and 
 printed language is therefore very limited. 
 
 And on the other hand let us bear in mind that 
 
 d. The only form of language which is universal in man 
 and intelligible among all races and peoples is that which 
 
288 LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN. 
 
 is common to other animals, and equally useful to them 
 and to man. Laughter and weeping, the shout of joy, the 
 cry of alarm, the groan of pain, or the other sounds, the 
 looks, attitudes, gestures, or other signs whereby both man 
 and animals express their feelings of body or mind con- 
 stitute a common or natural language, understood as a rule 
 by all races, genera, and species. 
 
 The mental phenomena of deaf-mutism in the most highly 
 civilised communities, in relation to man's modes of ex- 
 pressing his feelings and ideas, are most instructive. The 
 congenitally deaf and dumb, in whom the dumbness is the 
 natural result of the deafness, are 6 ignorant of all ordinary 
 written and spoken language ; ' but, nevertheless, they are 
 quite capable of education to a high degree. 
 
 This instruction of the deaf-mute is conducted partly 
 by gestures and signs, whereby is imparted a knowledge of 
 things. In a church for deaf-mutes in New York, we are 
 told, f one service every Sunday is conducted in the language 
 of signs. 9 Sounds, therefore, are not necessary to the com- 
 munication of ideas ; a circumstance that is shown, more- 
 over, by the fact that ' it is a common thing for a man to 
 teach himself to read a language though he cannot pro- 
 nounce it ' (' Chambers's Encyclopaedia '). 
 
 Again, the expressiveness of attitude in man, in relation 
 both to ideas and emotions, is well illustrated by the phe- 
 nomena of braidism or hypnotism (Carpenter) of what is 
 commonly but erroneously described as animal magnetism, 
 electro-biology, or mesmerism. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 IN contempt, pity, or ignorance or perhaps under the influ- 
 ence of all these feelings or conditions man is in the habit 
 of designating the lower animals c poor dumb creatures.' The 
 fact is, however, that they possess a language much more 
 comprehensive than, and quite as eloquent as, his own 
 much more generally intelligible than is his verbal language, 
 which is merely one form of language or expression that 
 only with which he, in his pride and prejudice, is most 
 familiar. 
 
 Certain animals are not absolutely unacquainted with 
 verbal language with speech as is shown in another 
 chapter ; but they have a very affluent language of sound, 
 look, and action, capable of expressing not only emotion but 
 ideas or thoughts, plans or intentions, wishes or require- 
 ments. Houzeau points out the inferiority of the language 
 of certain savages to that of various animals, and Darwin 
 shows the superior expressiveness to mere words of the in- 
 articulate cries, which, along with feature-play, eye or look 
 language, and gesture or attitude, are common to man with 
 other animals. 
 
 There is sometimes a superiority in eloquence in favour of 
 the lower animals as regards the mode of expression of the 
 same emotion for instance, of love and humility in the dog. 
 
 Man falls into many grave or absurd errors from his 
 ignorance of animal language, which language naturally 
 becomes intelligible just in proportion as it is studied. He 
 gives much pains in his youth to the study of the languages 
 of ancient Greece or Rome, or of modern Germany and 
 VOL. i. u 
 
290 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 Trance, and he finds too frequently, after long courses of 
 serious effort, that his knowledge of them is very imperfect. 
 
 But it never appears to strike him as equally necessary, if 
 he is to understand the language of the lower animals, that 
 he must give a corresponding attention to its study. Even 
 in our universities, or wherever as in Germany it is scien- 
 tifically taught or studied, comparative philology includes 
 only the spoken, written, and printed languages of man. 
 
 The very name philology is literally a fondness for ivords 
 mere words that is, for one form merely of the expression 
 of feeling or thought. Comparative language, however, should 
 obviously include all forms of expression, not those only that 
 are vocal or that are represented by words. A chair or pro- 
 fessorship of comparative language should exist in all our 
 great universities, and due attention should be given to 
 those rudimentary forms of expression that are common to 
 other animals with man, and that are much more practically 
 important than that limited form of language which is 
 spoken, written, or printed. 
 
 As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, even 
 in man himself the latter form or forms of language do not 
 always occur, while in such birds as the parrot very distinct 
 speech and very appropriate remarks are occasionally ex- 
 hibited or made. In a succeeding chapter it is shown that 
 by mutual understanding of each other's language conversa- 
 tion becomes possible between man and his dog. 
 
 Man soon learns to understand the meaning or signifi- 
 cance of the feature- changes, of the gestures, attitudes, or 
 movements, of the vocal utterances, of other animals when 
 it becomes his interest to do so when, in order to their 
 training, for instance, for this or that purpose of his own, 
 he has to interpret their thoughts and feelings, gauge their 
 tempers and temperament, form an estimate of their character 
 or capabilities, ascertain the kind and amount of their intelli- 
 gence. And similarly the dog, elephant, horse, and other 
 animals, when a sufncient motive arises, and they have the 
 necessary opportunity, speedily learn man's language not 
 the meaning of his looks and acts merely, but frequently of 
 his words, phrases, and conversation. 
 
LANGUAGE IN OTHEE ANIMALS. 291 
 
 Dog language is quite a study of itself, including the 
 separate study of the 
 
 1. Language of the voice bark, howl, whine, snarl, 
 growl. 
 
 2. Language of the eye and look. 
 
 3. Language of the tail and ear. 
 
 4. Language of the general attitude movement, aspect, 
 or gesture. 
 
 Bird language the language of song in birds is another 
 study by itself, and attention may well be separately given 
 to the different modes of expression in particular groups, 
 such as poultry, cage birds, and parrots. Ant language, 
 again, is equally peculiar and interesting. 
 
 Nay, the different intonations of a single sound may prove 
 quite a study of itself for instance, the bark or howl of the 
 dog, the mewing or caterwauling of the cat. 
 
 The diversity of language, or its forms, even in a single 
 family, is sometimes very marked, as much so as it is in the 
 various races of mankind. Thus among ants inhabiting a 
 given locality there may be said to be different peoples, using 
 a different language and occupying different ant-hills or 
 nests, each people or tribe being as much distinguished by 
 its language as by its territory or district (Houzeau). 
 
 The recent experiments of Professor Terrier, according 
 to his own interpretation of the phenomena, tend to show 
 that human and animal language are identical that the 
 barking of the dog and mewing of the cat are the equi- 
 valents of speech in man, and that the faculty of language in 
 man and other animals has virtually the same seat in the 
 brain. He describes opening the mouth, putting out the 
 tongue, and barking in the dog, mewing and spitting or 
 hissing in the cat, as 'signs corresponding to speech.' 
 But it needed not the experiment of the physiologist or the 
 pathologist, or the research of the anatomist, to tell us that 
 the dog's bark, the cat's mew, and the horse's neigh, as well 
 as corresponding vocal expressions in other animals, are the 
 analogues of speech or speaking in man. 
 
 Language in animals whatever be its nature is both 
 (a) natural and (6) acquired. In the latter case it may be 
 
 u 2 
 
292 LANGUAGE IN OTHEK ANIMALS. 
 
 the result of (a) self-tuition or of (I) man's instruction or 
 training. In both cases its variety is to be remarked upon, 
 and, j ust as in man, this variety which involves expressive- 
 ness or the range thereof is frequently, if not always, in 
 proportion to the degree of cultivation or education of the 
 faculty. 
 
 The interpretation of animal language, in its varied forms, 
 is of the utmost importance in relation to the discrimination 
 of motive. It is, however, beset with difficulties, which arise 
 mainly from the following causes or sources : 
 
 1. The significance of animal language has been little 
 studied by man. 
 
 2. The same feelings or thoughts are expressed in an 
 infinite variety of ways, not only 
 
 a. In different tribes, genera, or species, but 
 I. In different individuals of the same species- 
 different members of the same family dif- 
 ferent offspring of the same parents. 
 
 c. In different sexes of the same species. 
 
 d. In the same individual at the same time, as well 
 
 as at different ages or times, or under different 
 circumstances. 
 
 0. The same outward expression may arise from or indi- 
 cate very different mental states. 
 
 4. Other animals than man in proportion to their dif- 
 ference in structure and habits do not necessarily express 
 the same mental states in the same way. 
 
 5. Even in man there are differences in the modes of 
 expression of the same feelings or thoughts : e.g. 
 
 a. In the infant and the adult. 
 
 b. In the philosopher and the savage. 
 
 c. In health and disease. 
 
 6. In other animals, as in man, there is a wonderful 
 power of represssion or inhibition of natural expression ; so 
 that real feelings and thoughts are successfully concealed. 
 
 7. There is, further, a power of assumption of expressions 
 that are intended to deceive man or other animals as to the 
 real mental condition. 
 
 8. One feeling frequently expresses itself by, or leads to, 
 
LANGUAGE IX OTHER ANIMALS. 293 
 
 the instant development of another, each having its suitable 
 and intelligible mode of outward manifestation. 
 
 9. New expressions or modes thereof arise under new 
 conditions or circumstances. 
 
 It is desirable to illustrate certain of these propositions 
 in order to show the nature of the difficulties that will con- 
 stantly occur to the student in the interpretation of animal 
 language. 
 
 There are, in the first place, then, certain peculiarities 
 in the mode of expressing the same feelings, wants, ideas, 
 in different animals. In other words, there is a difference in 
 the mode of expression for instance, of an emotion accord- 
 ing to the kind of animal ; there is a natural aptitude for a 
 particular mode of expression in each species and genus ; 
 there is even, in a sense, a different language for each great 
 group of animals (Houzeau). 
 
 Thus, while the dog barks, bites, growls, howls, whines, 
 sniffs, and snarls, the horse neighs, kicks, stamps, paws, 
 snorts, champs, and lashes its tail; the cat purrs, scratches, 
 hisses, mews ; cattle low, butt, gore, bellow ; the elephant 
 trumpets, roars, screams; the sheep and goat bleat; the 
 ass brays ; the cock crows, and the hen clucks and cackles. 
 
 Not only, however, are there different forms of language 
 in different genera and species of animals, but different 
 dialects in the same family. Thus we are told that each 
 caste or clan of ants has its own language (Houzeau) . 
 
 But, as a per contra to these peculiarities of species or 
 genera, the same physical expression is frequently common to 
 many species or genera, though it may not necessarily or 
 always have the same significance. For instance, biting, or 
 what is equivalent thereto snapping with beak or bill 
 is common to the dog, horse, ass, wolf, and many birds ; 
 howling is common to the dog and certain monkeys ; kick- 
 ing to the horse, with many other animals ; tail-lashing to 
 the horse, mule, ass, and lion ; butting to sheep and goats, 
 with the ox ; baying to the dog and wolf. 
 
 Expression may be given to a great variety of feelings or 
 ideas by the same physical phenomenon. In other words, the 
 same action or kind of action may result from very different 
 
294 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 causes may have the most different significance. The 
 most opposite passions or emotions such as joy and grief, 
 pleasure and anger may produce the same or a similar 
 result (Eeynolds, Darwin). 
 
 The orang expresses anger, joy, and peevishness by 
 stamping (Cassell) . The hen's well-known cluck may signify 
 either (a) food discover}^ or (ft) satisfaction at the delivery 
 of an egg, or (c) maternal pride at seeing her brood around 
 her (Darwin). 
 
 The camel expresses, by the same sound, likes and dis- 
 likes, pleasure and annoyance (Drake). Elevation or 
 depression of head-crests, wattles, or ruffs occurs equally 
 from fear, surprise, and curiosity. Elevation or depression 
 of the crest in the cockatoo may arise from agitation, 
 surprise, curiosity, fear (Baird). Fondling or caressing of 
 the young by mothers is the result of love, grief, or regret. 
 Expressions that in the monkey denote pleasure, in the dog 
 may proceed from anger, irritation, or displeasure (Darwin). 
 
 The howl of the dog may proceed from, (a) bodily pain ; 
 (b) loss of way or master ; (c) any kind of disappointment ; 
 (d) grief, anger, despair, or even mere impatience ; or (e) a 
 disagreeable or agreeable note in music striking on its sen- 
 sitive ear. Wailing may arise from bodily pain, grief, expos- 
 tulation, protest, or refusal. 
 
 The mewing of the cat may express anguish, sadness, 
 melancholy the result of ungratified love (Pierquin) or it 
 may be a mere signal of demand or petition its form of 
 making request for instance, to be admitted to, or allowed 
 exit from, some given room. Moaning may be a sign equally 
 of grief, of mental pain, or of that which is purely physical 
 (Cobbe). The snort of the horse may express fear or aver- 
 sion, or both. The snorting of the musk ox 'is a sign 
 either of fear or anger,' says Captain Koldeway. 
 
 The screams of crows may denote joy, fun, or mischief. 
 The bleat of the sheep and lamb may arise from petition for 
 aid, enquiry as to the place of a missing mother or offspring, 
 intimation of danger or of accident, maternal gratitude or 
 affection (Watson). The grin of the ape may indicate either 
 anger or fun (Wallace). Flight may be the result of defeat, 
 
LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 295 
 
 cowardice, unequal strength in combatants, confession of 
 weakness or desire for safety, sense of guilt and shame, or 
 fear. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that it should frequently be 
 difficult or impossible for man to be sure that his interpreta- 
 tion or construction of the conduct or look of this or that 
 animal is the correct one ; and that there should arise even 
 among those who have studied animal language, including 
 eminent authors, irreconcilable differences of opinion as to 
 the meaning to be attached to given sounds, attitudes, or 
 actions. 
 
 A familiar instance or illustration of such difficulties 
 and differences is to be found in the case of the beautiful 
 peacock, which is so usually regarded as an emblem of 
 man's self-conceit, self-love, vanity, or pride. Its dignified, 
 strutting gait ; its slow, deliberate movements ; its ex- 
 panded tail may signify or arise from the feelings in 
 question. There may be pride in the possession of its 
 personal adornments ; a consciousness of their power to 
 fascinate ; a knowledge of the means of displaying them to 
 the greatest advantage. 
 
 The turkey cock is another unfortunate bird, whose 
 strut and gobble have led it to be considered an emblem of 
 human conseqiientiality , as it is so often manifested in civic 
 Bumbledom. There is, however, as little proof of the 
 existence of such a feeling of self-importance in the turkey 
 as of personal vanity in the peacock. I do not say that, in 
 either case, these emotions do not exist. All that I contend 
 for is that there is nothing approaching the character of 
 proof or demonstration either for or against the supposition 
 of their existence, and that man, therefore, may either be 
 right or wrong in his interpretation of the meaning or 
 motive of the strut of the peacock or turkey cock. 
 
 White regards the parade walk of the Gallinacese as 
 probably a mere peculiarity of gait, having even no sexual 
 significance. The ' swagger ' of the crow or daw, like the 
 strut of the peacock, may be a mere habit of body, un- 
 associated with any feeling akin to what we call pride or 
 vanity (White). In other words, ( showing off personal 
 
296 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 attractions by the erection of hoods, the expansion of tails, 
 or other means does not necessarily indicate, as is too 
 generally supposed, self-conceit or personal pride; nor, 
 indeed, is such erection or expansion necessarily in man's 
 sense of the term a * showing off.' Gould suggests, on the 
 other hand, that the shyness of male birds may arise from 
 a consciousness that their beauty is a source of danger to 
 themselves. But it has to be proved that, as a rule, male 
 birds are shy, and in proportion to their beauty ; while it has 
 to be determined that no other more probable explanation of 
 these facts, if proved, is open to us. 
 
 Dujardin and Lubbock suggest other interpretations of 
 the facts observed and described by Gelien as to bees than 
 those which occurred to that naturalist himself. Thus bees 
 have been described as licking each other ; and this has been 
 ascribed to their mutual or fraternal affection. Lubbock 
 admits the fact of the licking, but points out that only those 
 bees covered with honey are so licked ; and hence his 
 inference, whicli is at least legitimate, if it be not also the 
 real explanation of the fact : 'I am satisfied that this is for 
 the sake of the honey rather than of the bee.' 
 
 What has been supposed to be excessive caution in the 
 parrot may really be mere physical awkwardness or slowness 
 of motion (White). 
 
 Many animals possess and exercise the same power that 
 man has of controlling or repressing their feelings for 
 instance, of bodily pain when a sufficient motive for doing 
 so exists. This power of self-control of stifling emotion, 
 of inhibiting or preventing all outward expression of the 
 fear or other poignant feelings which nevertheless exist 
 is illustrated in many common feints, the object of which is 
 to escape danger or death, in many dogs, birds, and beetles. 
 Nor is it always or ever easy, especially for a novice, or for 
 any man unacquainted with the mental character or physical 
 peculiarities of a species with the individuality of some of 
 its members to discriminate between the real or natural 
 and the false or feigned expression even of feature. 
 
 For certain dogs at least can assume as man so 
 constantly does ' company manners ' a behaviour in the 
 
LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 297 
 
 society or presence of man, or of particular men that do not 
 represent their true feelings or thoughts, but are the result 
 of conventionality and constraint. It is quite common, again, 
 for the guilty but quick-witted dog to assume the aspect of 
 ignorance or innocence, and it may require long and close 
 watching to detect and only when it believes itself un- 
 watched by man the little signs by which it betrays itself 
 the furtive look, the slinking gait, the avoidance of man. 
 
 And there are other animals quite as capable as man is 
 of assuming, for the purposes of deceit, such looks or mien 
 as will serve to throw man himself, or their animal enemies 
 or prey, off their guard. 
 
 While, as a rule, and especially in young animals, there 
 is an obvious outward demonstration or dernonstrativeness 
 of feeling ; and while also there are cases mostly in mature 
 and experienced animals in which there is, for some specific 
 purpose, a successful repression of emotion, there are certain 
 other cases in which there is simply, for various reasons, a 
 non-expression of wants, desires, or ideas. Such animals do not 
 give natural vent to their feelings ; they are not naturally 
 demonstrative ; they are what in man would be called cold 
 and self-contained, stolid, indifferent, impassive. This con- 
 dition, however, when it exists, is generally the fruit of 
 mental defect or disorder ; in other words, it is morbid in its 
 character. 
 
 Such animals find their human analogues in many savage 
 races, and in many individuals among civilised peoples. 
 
 Thus Wallace says, ' In character the Malay is impas- 
 sive. . . . He is riot demonstrative. His feelings of surprise, 
 admiration, or fear are never openly manifested, and are 
 probably not strongly felt.' 
 
 Among the most interesting features of animal language 
 are the fact that and the means by which such animals as the 
 dog make themselves intelligible to man for instance, by 
 
 1. Attracting his attention to themselves, their young, 
 or other animals ; to things, persons, places, or events. 
 
 2. Making reports to him of the occurrence of events, 
 involving the communication of information or intelligence. 
 
 3. Issuing invitations to him to go to a given place. 
 
298 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 4. Preferring requests to him to do some desired thing. 
 
 That all this is frequently done is illustrated by the dog's 
 behaviour when its master is murdered or meets with some 
 accident. It not only instantly communicates intelligence 
 of the event in the proper quarter, but it solicits immediate 
 aid spares no effort in obtaining it, and will take no denial. 
 It does all this inter alia by the 
 
 1. Anxiety, earnestness, or seriousness, not only of its 
 look, but of its whole demeanour. 
 
 2. Persistency or pertinacity of its barking or whining, 
 as well as its unusual character or its occurrence at unusual 
 times and in unusual places. 
 
 3. Unusual character of its other voice-sounds, such as 
 moans. 
 
 4. Eestlessless or eccentricity of its movements, unusual 
 excitement, agitation, or action, including incessant and 
 wild leaping or running round or about a room or place, 
 or round a person apparently without immediate aim, but 
 obviously not in or from joy. 
 
 5. Catching the dress of a master or mistress, and 
 peremptorily dragging, pulling, or tugging him or her in a 
 particular direction thereby. 
 
 6. Scampering off in a fixed direction when it finds itself 
 likely to be followed by those whose aid it has solicited. 
 
 7. Going in front when it finds itself so followed 
 leading or showing the way to a given locality. 
 
 8. Looking behind, however, now and again, to make sure 
 that it is being duly followed, and by the proper parties. 
 
 9. Stopping at a given spot, and pointing, scratching, 
 tearing, or barking, as circumstances may require. 
 
 10. Frequency of visits unaccompanied to the same 
 spot. 
 
 By some such means by an intelligent dog many 
 a murder has been discovered, many a tipsy or wounded 
 master rescued, many lost articles recovered. Again, a dog 
 guarding a sleeping child summons the absent nurse, on 
 the infant's awaking, by searching for and discovering her 
 in some other apartment, pulling at her dress, and so draw- 
 ing her towards the nursery all just as a child itself would 
 do under similar circumstances. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 THE principal forms of vocal language among the lower 
 animals the chief voice-sounds by which they exhibit or 
 give expression to their various feelings or emotions, ideas 
 or thoughts, wants or wishes are the following : 
 
 1. Articulate speech, consisting mainly of successful imi- 
 tation of man's words and phrases for instance, in the 
 parrot, parroquet, starling, jackdaw, grakle, raven, crow, jay, 
 magpie, and blackbird. 
 
 This subject includes 
 
 a. The distinct utterance of words and phrases, so as to 
 deceive man himself, as well as certain other animals that 
 are accustomed to, and that understand, man's words and 
 phrases e.g. the dog and the horse. 
 
 6. The repetition of words and sentences, without neces- 
 sarily knowing their meaning otherwise mere mechanical 
 repetition by rote, including recitation, quotation, decla- 
 mation, and song-singing. 
 
 c. The appropriate use of words and sentences, involving 
 the power of composition and the association of ideas with 
 words, including the association of the same kind of ideas 
 that man attaches to the same kind of words and phrases. 
 
 Illustrations are to be found in the form of 
 
 1. Pertinent remark or comment. 
 
 2. Question and reply. 
 
 3. The expression of physical wants. 
 
 4. Salutation or address, including the use of the 
 
 proper names of persons. 
 
 5. Giving orders. 
 
300 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 6. Correction of error. 
 
 7. Satire. 
 3. Kebuke. 
 
 9. Use of oaths or vituperation. 
 
 d. The consequent power of conversation with man. 
 
 e. The acquisition and use of various of the languages of 
 man, including, unfortunately, slang and oaths in more than 
 one European language. 
 
 2. Inarticulate cries of different kinds, comparable to the 
 interjectional exclamations of man, commonest in young 
 animals of the most diverse genera and species, such as 
 the dog, elephant, camel, seal, bear, mule, ox, hysena, red 
 squirrel, hedgehog, capybara, gorilla, siamang, orang, chim- 
 panzee and certain apes and monkeys, swan, parrot, wood- 
 pecker, waterfowl, common fowl, owl, rook, turkey, swallow, 
 and other birds. 
 
 This category may be held to include 
 
 a. Screams for instance, in animals so different as the 
 dog, camel, elephant, orang and certain monkeys, goose, 
 flamingo, fish hawk, North American kingfisher, swallow, 
 hen turkey, crow, and other birds. 
 
 b. Shrieks in the dog, some apes, and swallow. 
 
 c. Yells in the soko, dog, and pig. 
 
 d. Moans or groans, shouts, and many other voice-sounds 
 that need not here be specified. 
 
 The cries of animals are of special interest in at least two 
 respects, viz. 
 
 1. Their frequently 7mm<m-childlike or infantile charac- 
 ter; and 
 
 2. The fact that they constitute one of the main primary 
 elements out of which all human-spoken language has grown 
 or been constructed (Blackie). 
 
 The war-cry of the gorilla is said to be humanlike in 
 its tone or general character, resembling that of savage 
 man (Houzeau). The bear whelp cries like a child when 
 hungry. The wail of the motherless 'cat' (or babe) seal 
 is 'very like that of a human infant.' It is described as 
 6 crying piteously ' for its slaughtered mother (Buckland). 
 Mary Howitt describes the cries of a woodpecker as resem- 
 
VOCAL LANGUAGE. 301 
 
 bling those of a child. Milne Edwards points out that 
 the cry of agony or distress occurs equally in the child and 
 animal. The female jaco monkey cries when tired, just as 
 the child does. The young siamang utters pettish cries and 
 offers resistance while being washed by its mother, just as 
 the human child does (Cassell). Apes have cries and the 
 chimpanzee shouts of pleasure in their amusements. 
 
 Wallace says of a young female orang that unsavoury 
 food caused it c to scream and to stamp with its feet, just like 
 a child in a passion. It was its usual tactic to scream if it 
 thought itself neglected and wished to attract attention .... 
 gradually ceasing to scream when no notice was taken ; but 
 it immediately began again if it heard anyone's footstep.' 
 Of another orang a male Dr. Yvan tells us that ' his master 
 having taken away from him a mango fruit, he set up a 
 peevish howling, like a vexed child. As this was not suc- 
 cessful, he threw himself flat on his belly, beat the ground 
 with his fist, screamed, wept, and howled. . . . When at 
 last the fruit was given back to him he threw it at his 
 master's head.' 
 
 Of all the varied forms of vocal expression there is none 
 of greater interest to the student of comparative psychology 
 than that of articulate speech the power of speaking or 
 talking possessed by such birds as the parrot. 
 
 That its enunciation of words and phrases picked up by 
 imitation from man, either spontaneously or by means of his 
 efforts at the bird's linguistic education, is both correct and 
 clear there can be no doubt. It is proved by the frequency 
 with which man allows himself to be misled by the talk of 
 the parrot, fancying he is listening to some fellow-man, and 
 by the perhaps even greater frequency with which such 
 animals as the dog and horse, accustomed to obey man's 
 words and sentences of command, commit the error of obey- 
 ing instead the waggish, counterfeit orders of a parrot. Of 
 the Truefitt parrot, and its mimicry or imitation of the 
 manner of and the words and phrases of command used by a 
 volunteer drill sergeant, a captain of volunteers asserted 
 that he had ' never heard a drill sergeant whose articulation 
 was to be compared with that of the parrot.' Nor is this 
 
302 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 distinctness of utterance confined to the parrot. We are 
 told, for instance, of a jackdaw, at one of the Crystal Palace 
 bird shows in 1875, that it could speak ' 141 words as plain 
 as any human being' (' Animal World '). These correct 
 repetitions of man's words, when combined in sentences, 
 sometimes of considerable length, include 
 
 1. The recitation of 
 
 a. Quotations from Shakespeare or other dramatists or 
 poets. 
 
 b. Creeds or portions of Church services. 
 
 2. The giving of orders or commands. 
 
 3. The use of oaths in vituperation. 
 
 The parrot may do all this and a great deal more without 
 necessarily knowing the meaning of what it says it may 
 associate no ideas with the words or verbal sounds to which 
 it gives such glib utterance. 
 
 It is too common an error of man's, however, to regard 
 the parrot as learning to articulate or utter and to repeat 
 words only by rote, without attaching any ideas to them as 
 school children, in point of fact, so much more frequently 
 do. It is a libel on the intelligence of the parrot to talk of 
 such school children repeating their catechism, for instance, 
 ' like a parrot,' as synonymous with c by rote.' 
 
 That in children such an effort is mainly mechanical is 
 more than probable. No doubt the same may be the case in 
 some parrots, but it is certainly not true of all, and probably 
 not of many of them. Abundant evidence has been adduced 
 to show that many so-called talking parrots (which are 
 generally the common grey parrot, the most intelligent, 
 though not the most showy, of its race) attach man's ideas 
 to man's words learn their meaning, apply them properly, 
 not singly only, but in various combinations in other 
 words, speak sense and talk to the purpose. 
 
 Endless stories have been told me, orally and by eye- 
 witnesses, of the pertinence of remark involved in the talking 
 feats of favourite parrots remarks of such a kind as some- 
 times shamed, sometimes astonished, their too indulgent 
 and too careless masters or mistresses. And I have met with 
 many incidents of a similar kind recorded in print. One or 
 
VOCAL LANGUAGE. 303 
 
 two illustrative parrot biographies are all, however, that need 
 here be referred to. 
 
 One of the best and most recent narratives showing the 
 wonderful power of appropriate remark in the grey parrot 
 was given in * Chambers's Journal ' in 1874, the animal 
 described belonging to a well-known photographer (Truefitt) 
 in that beautiful promenade of Edinburgh Princes Street. 
 The bird was * interviewed ' by a clergyman specially in order 
 to the publication of the results of his enquiry. To satisfy 
 myself of the perfect accuracy of the description given by 
 the journalist, of the authenticity of all the facts narrated, 
 I visited the parrot in the summer of 1875. It was then at 
 summer quarters with its master at Cramond, near Edin- 
 burgh. In addition to witnessing at great disadvantage, 
 however many of the animal's speaking performances, I 
 had full conversations with both its master and mistress ; 
 and the result is that I can substantially confirm the state- 
 ments of the reverend essayist who first brought its re- 
 markable linguistic attainments under public notice. 
 
 Of this Truefitt parrot the following anecdotes are told : 
 Eoused from sleep by the one o'clock time-gun fired from 
 Edinburgh Castle, he would exclaim, c One o'clock ! one 
 o'clock ! Polly wants his dinner, Jeanie ! ' addressing the 
 housemaid. ' Lay the cloth ' the tablecloth repeating this 
 cry till the cloth was laid and the dinner duly set out. He 
 would originate, interrupt, and take part in man's conversa- 
 tion, some of his observations being 'quiet, grave, solemn, but 
 intensely satirical,' throwing in now and then a little French 
 or slang. He administered rebuke in very sharp tones, 
 that could not be misunderstood. He invited himself to sing ; 
 then, f coughing like a nervous young lady about to entertain 
 a party,' he sang verse after verse of different songs, each to 
 its appropriate tune, making himself the hero by ingeniously 
 substituting in the proper places his own name. He called 
 his master, but ordered the servant, obviously recognising 
 the difference in social status, made enquiries and uttered 
 exclamations, cajoled, scolded, and hurrahed, all in such a 
 way as to lead his interviewer to remark, ' What surprised 
 me most was the appropriateness of the bird's words to the 
 
304 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 circumstances.' And after any of his exhibitions he indulged 
 in self-gratulation, ' as if aware that he had shown himself 
 off to some advantage.' 
 
 Again, the parroquet whose talents are so lovingly and 
 admiringly described by Lady Clementina Davies made 
 sensible, well-timed comments for instance, on its food. 
 Not only did it possess the gift of speech, but it had the 
 additional accomplishment of knowing more than one spoken 
 language of man. It swore when enraged, arid it could 
 venture to abuse both in French and English those who 
 affronted it. 
 
 And, what is even niora interesting and less objectionable, 
 after recovering from an illness its talk became excited and 
 incoherent a circumstance having a most important bearing 
 on delusion, delirium, and mania in the lower animals. 
 Pierquiir long ago pointed out a correlative fact that not 
 only do certain birds acquire a certain power or knowledge 
 of human language, but that the loss of such acquired 
 language accompanies disuse or want of practice, as well 
 as bodily or mental disorder, just as in man. 
 
 A knowledge of foreign languages, though commonest in, 
 is not restricted to, the parrot; for a Senegal jackdaw, at one 
 of the Crystal Palace bird shows in 1875, ' not only spoke 
 English but French too ' (< Animal World J ) . 
 
 Professor Low describes a parrot belonging to a hostelry 
 as calling for the waiter or hostler, according to the cha- 
 racter of the arrivals at the inn on foot or on horseback, 
 in carriages or in carts. 
 
 The parrot, unfortunately, does not always display its 
 power of speech for good purposes, for among the ends 
 which this accomplishment is occasionally made to subserve 
 are mendacity, deception, jeering, swearing, mischief, and 
 practical joking (Jesse). It picks up man's oaths with as 
 great readiness as his pious ejaculations, and uses them 
 with all man's emphasis and theatrical effect. 
 
 Starlings and ravens have also been described as using 
 man's words with a consciousness of their purport, and this 
 even without man's teaching by spontaneous imitation, 
 observation, reflection (Biichner). 
 
VOCAL LANGUAGE. 305 
 
 But speech, like song, is more frequently the result of 
 tuition by man and of incessant practice in lesson-learning. 
 
 According to Houzeau, however, articulate sounds are not 
 confined to the Psittacidce or to birds, but occur in certain 
 other animals for instance, in the siamang and the gorilla. 
 
 Certain 'learned' dogs have been taught a kind of speech 
 (Leibnitz) to use certain words so as to express certain 
 wants (Watson), so as at least to be able to order or call for 
 certain articles. But this sort of speaking, when it does not 
 consist of mere differentiated tones of the bark, falls very 
 far short of the true speech of the parrot, both as regards 
 the distinctness of the utterance and the knowledge of the 
 meaning of words and their appropriate applications. 
 
 Certain other learned dogs, while they cannot in any 
 way speak or utter words, can yet compose words, possess- 
 ing as they do a certain knowledge of man's alphabet and of 
 the practice, if not some of the principles, of applying it in 
 composition (Watson). They recognise certain at least of 
 his printed letters and words, and they can select and 
 arrange the former so as to constitute the latter that is to 
 say, to a certain limited extent they can compose words. 
 
 It is, then, quite legitimate to speak of the loquacity, 
 garrulity, prattle, or talk of certain parrots, and probably 
 also of certain other birds, such as the starling, raven, and 
 jackdaw. In other cases, however, what is called speech in 
 birds may be mere sounds, resembling, or supposed to re- 
 semble, man's words or phrases; what is magniloquently 
 described by itinerant showmen as talking in fish which 
 are really seals is merely the emission of a kind of cry, 
 resembling some such word or sound as 6 Ma-ma.' 
 
 There is, for instance, a so-called 'speaking bird' in 
 Guiana (Watertoii), and the 'talking crow' of Jamaica (Wat- 
 son), with the exact nature of whose speech I am unac- 
 quainted. The forms of indistinct utterance that constitute 
 spurious speech include the chatter, jabber, or palaver of 
 monkeys and apes, of sparrows and swallows, of the merlo 
 and goose, of the hyaena and peccary, and much, 110 doubt, 
 of the so-called talk even of the starling. 
 
 Those who have studied bird song have pointed out the 
 VOL. i. x 
 
306 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 interesting fact that the song of the nightingale and of other 
 singing birds is capable of reduction to and interpretation 
 by words. It may be translated into man's written words, 
 and it is therefore in a sense quite proper to speak of the 
 articulation of bird song. 
 
 Not a few authors have directed attention to the fact 
 that many of the modes of expression employed by the lower 
 animals are to be regarded as the equivalents of speech in 
 man. Thus in this sense certain animals have been said, 
 with perfect propriety, to possess watchwords that is, sounds 
 or signs that are analogous in their uses to watchwords. 
 Others are said to speak to or converse with each other to 
 tell or ask news, to address or harangue assemblies, to call 
 one another or man. 
 
 Barking in the dog is the physiological equivalent of 
 speech in man, according to Terrier. Sparrows and other 
 birds may be said to tell each other, for instance, where 
 food-supply is forthcoming. They communicate information 
 facts to each other quite as effectually as if they had 
 done so by words or sentences. The dog can tell itself, in its 
 own way, whether its master is in good or bad humour. 
 
 Certain observations of Gelien on bees led him to con- 
 clude that in each hive they have some common sign, of 
 which he speaks as a pass-word. And this conclusion seems 
 to have been adopted by subsequent writers, such as Bur- 
 meistor, who says that the use of such a sign or word 
 'serves to prevent any strange bee from intruding into the 
 hive without being immediately detected and killed ' (Lub- 
 bock). Amatory converse may be very real, though not 
 necessarily by sounds at all. Palpation by the antennae in 
 the ant takes the place of man's speech and writing or 
 printing. The dog may truly be said to possess ' speaking 
 eyes ' (Cobbe), or to speak with its eyes. During the siege of 
 Paris by the Prussians in 1870-1 the street dogs are said to 
 have held deliberative assemblies, in which they spoke by their 
 looks or features and tails, as well as by their throats, 
 mouths and lips (barks and mutterings). Messengers ap- 
 peared to bring news, and the assembly made comments 
 thereon (Gautier). 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 THE principal forms of non- vocal language the chief modes 
 of expression of thought or feeling, other than those which 
 consist in the emission of sounds of various kinds are the 
 following : 
 
 1. Actions movement or motion including gesture and 
 gesticulation, attitude and posture, gait, carriage, mien, 
 manner, deportment or demeanour, conduct or behaviour. 
 
 a. General, involving the whole or greater part of the 
 body : e.g. 
 
 1 . Capers or antics, gambols, frolic, frisking. 
 
 E.g. in young animals generally, such as the 
 lamb, puppy, and kitten ; but also in many 
 adult birds in the season of love ; in the 
 adult rabbit and dog, ape and chimpanzee. 
 
 2. Skipping, leaping or jumping, bounding, scamper- 
 
 ing, racing or running, coursing, charging or 
 careering. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, horse, and cattle. 
 
 3. Dancing, hopping, prancing, plunging, flinging, 
 
 rearing. 
 
 E.g. in the horse, hare, mongoose, certain 
 monkeys, dog, and goat. 
 
 4. Prostration, crouching, grovelling, cowering, 
 
 crawling, cringing, fawning. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, cat, and mouse. 
 
 5. Self-concealment or hiding, flight, sneaking, 
 
 skulking, slinking, shirking, or shrinking. 
 E.g. in the dog, cat, and orang. 
 x 2 
 
308 NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 6. Writhing or wriggling. 
 
 E.g. from pain. 
 
 7. Rubbing body against the bodies of other animals 
 
 or against hard inert substances. 
 
 E.g. in the elephant, horse, dog, cat, cattle, 
 sheep, ape, and parrot. 
 
 8. Strutting, including swaggering. 
 
 E.g. in the turkey and peacock, Cupid and 
 Argus pheasants, and gander. 
 
 9. Immobility, from refusal or inability to move. 
 
 E.g. in the horse and ass. 
 
 10. Gyration whirling round and round in a circle. 
 
 E.g. in the dog and horse. 
 
 11. Tumbling, revolution, rolling over and over in 
 
 the air or on the ground. 
 
 E.g. in certain pigeons (such as the tumbler), 
 certain dogs, and the orang. 
 
 12. Salaaming and bowing. 
 
 E.g. in elephants and certain monkeys. 
 
 13. General restlessness, muscular and nervous. 
 
 b. Special of particular parts or members of the body. 
 
 1. Mouth, lips, teeth, and tongue, beaks or bills. 
 
 a. Biting, including worrying, tearing, gnaw- 
 
 ing, gnashing. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, horse, camel, guaiiaco, 
 monkey, ass, suricate, and Magellan 
 fox. 
 
 b. Snapping. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, horse, wolf, dove, and 
 other birds. 
 
 c. Spitting. 
 
 E.g. in the camel, vicuna, guanaco, cat, 
 certain monkeys, and scorpions. 
 
 d. Licking. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, cat, wolf, pig, rabbit, 
 Guinea-pig, and certain bees. 
 
 e. Pouting. 
 
 E.g. in certain apes and monkeys. 
 
 2. Legs and arms, paws, heels, hoofs, claws. 
 
NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 309 
 
 a. Touching or tapping 
 
 1. With paws. 
 E.g. in the cat. 
 
 2. With antennae or pincers. 
 
 E.g. in ants, common and white. 
 I. Embrace, caress, fondling, hugging. 
 
 E.g. in the siamang, orang, lori, certain 
 apes, dog, and elephant. 
 
 c. Striking blows, beating, pushing, jogging. 
 
 E.g. in the horse, orang, capybara. 
 
 d. Scratching. 
 
 E.g. in the cat and dog. 
 
 e. Kicking and pawing. 
 
 E.g. in the horse and ass. 
 
 f. UaftcZ-wringing, squeezing, or shaking. 
 
 E.g. in the lori, certain monkeys, and 
 anthropoid apes. 
 
 3. Head and its appendages, including horns. 
 
 a. Butting and goring. 
 
 E.g. in cattle, deer, sheep, goats, capy- 
 bara. 
 I. Head- shaking, tossing, rubbing. 
 
 E.g. in certain apes, bull, horse, dog, 
 and cat. 
 
 4. Nose and nostrils. 
 
 a. Sniffing. 
 
 E.g. in the dog, horse, and various other 
 Euminants. 
 
 b. Nose-rubbing. 
 
 E.g. in the horse. 
 
 5. Ear movements, including erection, depression, 
 
 and retraction. 
 
 E.g. in the dog and horse. 
 
 6. Wing movements, including expansion, flapping, 
 
 and fluttering. 
 
 E.g. in birds. 
 
 7. Tail movements, including erection, expansion, 
 
 vibration (wagging and lashing). 
 
 E.g. in the wolf, goat, ram, stag, lion, 
 
310 NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 dog, cat, horse, ox, and other Ru- 
 minants ; sparrows and various other 
 birds. 
 
 2. Erection, inflation, expansion, or elevation, with their 
 opposite condition of depression, of various dermal appendages, 
 including especially 
 
 a. Hair, bristles, and quills. 
 
 E.g. in the lion, hog or boar, dog and cat, 
 certain caterpillars, porcupine, and hedge- 
 hog. 
 
 b. Feathers, including ruffs. 
 
 E.g. in ruffling or other displays of plumage 
 in birds. 
 
 c. Spurs, combs, wattles, crests, hoods, frills of the 
 
 head, neck, or throat. 
 
 E.g. in the cockatoo, frill lizard, bladdernose 
 seal, rook. 
 
 d. Head, neck, throat, or breast puffing, swelling, 
 
 dilatation, or distension. 
 
 E.g. in certain serpents and lizards, such as 
 the Egyptian cobra and the anobis, the 
 pouter and other pigeons. 
 
 3. Coloration and decoloration of the skin of the face 
 or throat, or their appendages such as wattles, combs, 
 feathers, bristles, or hair including 
 
 a. Hypercemia increase of blood-colour by con- 
 
 gestion or determination of blood, leading to 
 flushing, blushing, and reddening. 
 
 E.g. in the mandrill and other baboons, dog, 
 turkey cock (wattle). 
 
 b. Ancemia decrease of blood-colour from sudden 
 
 local removal of blood-supply, leading to pallor 
 or colour-loss. 
 
 E.g. in the stickleback. 
 
 c. Other colour-change. 
 
 E.g. in the chameleon, anobis, and other 
 lizards. 
 
 4. Cutaneous or other exudations, such as sweat, in- 
 cluding the emission of coloured fluids. 
 
SON- VOCAL LANGUAGE. 311 
 
 5. Emission of smells or odours, mostly pungent and 
 disagreeable. 
 
 6. Emission of light, including so-called ' phospho- 
 rescence.' 
 
 E.g. in the glowworm. 
 
 7. Physiognomy facial expression, the play of feature, 
 peculiarities of countenance including especially the look, 
 stare, or gaze of the eye, constituting what has been called 
 eye language ; and also including 
 
 a. Grimace. 
 
 E.g. in apes and baboons. 
 
 b. Vacancy of feature, usually indicative of disease. 
 Of all the non-vocal forms of animal language the most 
 
 important to the student of comparative psychology is pro- 
 bably the last. But there are great difficulties in the study 
 of feature-changes in the lower animals, and in their com- 
 parison with those occurring in man, the principal being the 
 fact that the face in other animals is so frequently covered 
 with hair, feathers, or other cutaneous adjuncts or ap- 
 pendages, that prevent our seeing the play of the facial 
 muscles. The physiognomy of the lower animals can, there- 
 fore, be best or only studied in those that are bare-faced, 
 the number of whom is extremely limited. There are, how- 
 ever, a few literally or comparatively bare-faced monkeys, 
 apes, or baboons such as the mandrill dogs, and other 
 animals, in which even the phenomenon of blushing, or 
 flushing of the skin, and its converse can be observed. 
 
 Two points are especially noteworthy in our consideration 
 of facial expression in the lower animals 
 
 1. Its eloquence the number of mental states of which it 
 is the correlative and 
 
 2. Its wonderful variety or variability, not only in different 
 genera and species, or in different individuals of the same 
 species, but even in the same individual at different times 
 or under different circumstances. 
 
 In the dog and horse especially the whole phenomena of 
 feature-change of the varying states of the countenance 
 in particular of the look and eye as the signs of feeling, 
 may be studied with equal advantage and interest. The 
 
312 NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 physiognomy of the dog and certain of the Quadrumana in 
 many respects resembles that of man. The beggar's dog 
 returns thanks partly at least by its look (Murray). It has 
 looks of enquiry as to the meaning of unfamiliar ceremonies 
 or events, as to the nature or character of unknown things 
 or persons. It throws pathos or plaintiveness into its look 
 as much as into its howl. It has an abashed or apologetic 
 look when, knowing it to be a fault, it soils a drawing-room 
 carpet with its muddy feet (Houzeau). Its look as well as 
 the movements of the head or tail, or body as a whole, in- 
 cluding its gait convey the expression of pride or exultation 
 at success, business importance, and many other feelings or 
 mental states (Watson). Its look of friendly recognition is 
 frequently equivalent to man's bow or nod to fellow-man. 
 Houzeau speaks of its look of interrogation in difficulty and 
 of the expressiveness of its mere glance. Dogs 
 
 Woo kind words by look, 
 
 says Southey. 
 
 Darwin refers to sporting dogs looking or waiting for 
 further instructions from their masters when in doubt. A 
 dog's look of shame when caught in a fault is notorious 
 (' Animal World'). The eloquence both of its look and mien 
 has been pointed out by Grenville Murray, who also de- 
 scribes its wistful, sad, or sorrowful looks and longings 
 its looks of gentleness, timidity, gratitude, eagerness of 
 desire to please, or happiness. 
 
 The physiognomy of the lower animals facial and 
 general has successfully engaged the talents of many gifted 
 artists, such as the late Sir Edwin Landseer, and the living 
 Eosa Bonheur, Joseph Wolf, and Harrison Weir ; and it is 
 one of the best possible proofs, on the one hand, of the reality 
 of the close connection between mental states and facial or 
 other forms of expression in other animals as in man, and, 
 on the other, of the fidelity to nature of the painter's art, 
 that he can depict on canvas the mental character of such 
 animals as the dog, horse, ass, or monkey, which may some- 
 times be said in a sense to e speak' from the painter's canvas. 
 The attention of artists, however, has been attracted to what 
 
NON-VOCAL LANGUAGE. 313 
 
 may be fitly called the physiognomy of health ; but another 
 chapter shows that there exists among the lower animals, 
 as in man, a less familiar, but not less eloquent or important, 
 physiognomy of disease. 
 
 Unfortunately some of the lower animals have imitated 
 from man certain of his most objectionable modes of ex- 
 pression intimating their derision, for instance, as the 
 masked callithrix (monkey) does, by putting its thumb to 
 its nose (Cassell). 
 
 One of the most interesting forms of non-vocal language 
 is that of touch, especially as it occurs among ants. By 
 strokes of their antenna? they intimate the presence of booty 
 or of palatable food, point out suitable prey and the best 
 places for foraging. Their antennae give them the means of 
 intercommunication of ideas of holding conversation with 
 each other of sending requests for aid (Houzeau, Watson, 
 Smith). This exchange of thought or feeling includes the 
 conveyance of intelligence or news for instance, of dis- 
 coveries. One animal can show the way to others. Mutual 
 greetings and recognition take place after long separation 
 (Franklin, Kirby and Spence). By such means they issue 
 orders and invitations, and give advice (Figuier). Commu- 
 nication of ideas by means of antennae, or analogous organs, 
 occurs also among bees, and probably many other insects. 
 The soldiers of the white ants signal to the workers by 
 strokes of their pincers (Figuier). Thus we see that an- 
 nouncements of all kinds are not necessarily vocal. 
 
 Another of the most interesting forms of non-vocal 
 language is the use made by certain ' learned ' animals of 
 man's alphabet of letters in the construction of words. 
 Thus we are told that the performing dog Minos, ' by means 
 of a double alphabet of separate letters, writes or constructs 
 w 7 ords. } 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 
 
 THERE are certain modes of expression of the feelings that 
 deserve special consideration from their having hitherto 
 been generally considered essentially or peculiarly human 
 as confined exclusively to man. Of these the most interest- 
 ing and important is laughter. 
 
 But, in. the first place, as regards man himself, it is not 
 generally borne in mind that there are whole races who do 
 not laugh, and that in those who do laughter is not neces- 
 sarily or always associated with, nor does it proceed from, 
 a perception of the absurd or ridiculous. The American 
 Indians and the Cingalese Veddas are illustrations of races 
 that do not laugh. And we know, on the other hand, as 
 well as the poet, that there is the laugh 
 
 That speaks the vacant mind 
 
 that means nothing, that is utterly inane and apparently 
 causeless that characterises the human idiot, lunatic, or 
 fool. 
 
 As regards the lower animals, it can be shown that 
 certain of them possess, on the one hand 
 
 1. The facial, vocal, or other muscles, including the 
 diaphragm, that are concerned in the physical phenomenon 
 of laughter in man ; and, on the other 
 
 2. The emotions or ideas which in man give rise to 
 laughter. 
 
 It is obvious that if it could be shown that the lower 
 animals are devoid of the muscles whose action creates the 
 expression or phenomenon of laughter, what has been called 
 
LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 315 
 
 laughter in them would have to be relegated to some other 
 category than human laughter. In studying this subject of 
 the physical manifestations in other animals comparable to 
 laughter in man, I applied in the first place to two expe- 
 rienced comparative anatomists, enquiring whether and how 
 far the lower animals, or certain of them, possess the various 
 muscles concerned in laughter that is, physical apparatus 
 for its exhibition. 
 
 These authorities were Professor Macalister, of the Uni- 
 versity of Dublin, and Professor Morrison Watson, of the 
 Owens College, Manchester. The replies received from 
 both left me in no doubt that various animals do possess 
 such muscular apparatus, and that, so far as it is concerned, 
 there is no reason why certain of them should not laugh as 
 well as smile, grin, or grimace. Macalister, for instance, 
 demonstrates the presence of the facial muscles of laughter 
 in the gorilla, while Darwin had previously pointed out 
 that various monkeys possess the same facial muscles which 
 in man are engaged in laughter. It is well known that all 
 the Mammalia, in common with man, have a diaphragm 
 capable of rapid alternations of contraction and relaxation, as 
 well as of spasmodic or convulsive action. 
 
 In other animals, as in man, the physical phenomena of 
 laughter include 
 
 1. Certain changes in facial expression. 
 
 2. Certain voice or other sounds ; and 
 
 3. Certain convulsive or other movements of the chest 
 or other parts of the body. 
 
 Changes in facial expression, of a kind comparable with 
 those that occur and are characteristic of laughter, are met 
 with also in smiles, grins, and grimaces in certain ani- 
 mals. Some monkeys and apes such as the chimpanzee 
 smile (Darwin, Pierquin). The smile of the titi is described 
 as a 'playful' one (Cassell). Smiling in the dog has been 
 represented as occurring from the very different feelings of 
 hypocrisy and good-nature. Grins and grimaces, again, are 
 common among monkeys and apes, but are described also 
 as occurring in the dog under the influence of pleasure or 
 affection (Darwin). That 'broad grin' which is usually 
 
316 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 
 
 associated with, or arises from, a sense of fun is developed 
 in the orang, according to Romanes, who also speaks of 
 grinning- in a Skye terrier of his own as ' intended to imitate 
 laughter.' It was the result of e evident purpose ; ' the dog 
 ' wished to be particularly agreeable,' and he imitated man's 
 laughter even to c shaking his sides in a convulsive manner.' 
 
 The soko too grins (Livingstone) ; and so does the orang, 
 which smiles also when tickled (Darwin and Watson). 
 
 Among voice-sounds comparable with laughter arising 
 from the same kind of feelings or ideas are chuckling, 
 giggling, and tittering, which have been described as occur- 
 ring in certain animals. Thus chuckling, as a prelude to 
 laughter, is producible in the chimpanzee by the action of 
 tickling (Darwin). The parrot chuckles at the success of 
 its own practical jokes (Darwin). Chuckling occurs also in 
 certain monkeys. The soko giggles (Livingstone). Tittering 
 occurs among monkeys when they are pleased (Darwin). 
 
 Various animals imitate, and successfully, man's laughter 
 that is, its outward expression. The parrot, for instance, 
 can be taught to imitate its master's laughter, just as it 
 learns to speak his verbal language and to pipe or whistle 
 his tunes (Darwin). But the same animal is capable also of 
 hearty and spontaneous laughter of fits or peals of laughter. 
 It laughs at its own mistakes or mischief (Watson) Sir 
 Wy ville Thomson describes the ' loud, mocking laugh ' of a 
 Brazilian one at the success of a practical joke . of its own. 
 A writer in * Chambers's Journal ' describes a well-known 
 Edinburgh parrot as ' a capital laugher,' and as laughing 
 'heartily.' White speaks of heartiness of laughter in the 
 woodpecker. A pet magpie of Jesse's had a laugh that was 
 6 so hearty, joyous, and natural, that no one who heard it 
 could help joining in it.' Wood tells us that certain 
 swallows, on the successful issue of a practical joke played 
 by them on a cat, seemed each ' to set up a laugh at the 
 disappointed enemy, very like the laugh of a young child 
 when tickled.' 
 
 Laughter has been frequently described as occurring 
 in the Quadrumana including the orang and chimpanzee 
 when tickled (Darwin, Watson, Le Cat, Grant), and 
 
LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 317 
 
 certain monkeys and apes when pleased (Buckland, Dar- 
 win, Pierquin). The laughter of certain apes is said to 
 be analogous to man's own, in that it is noisy and ex- 
 pansive or hilarious. So close indeed is the resemblance 
 or analogy that the grave Turks compare laughing Western 
 Europeans to apes (Houzeau). A chimpanzee at the London 
 Zoological Gardens can be made by his keeper to laugh 
 when pleased or caressed (' Graphic ') . 
 
 It is obvious that in such cases laughter proceeds from, 
 or is the expression of, a considerable variety of feelings, 
 bodily as well as mental, for tickling seems as capable of 
 producing certain kinds or equivalents of laughter in other 
 animals as in man ; while among mental states productive 
 of it are to be mentioned 
 
 1 . A sense of fun or humour. 
 
 2. Perception of the absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, odd, or 
 droll. 
 
 3. Pleasure or satisfaction. 
 
 4. Exultation. 
 
 5. Derision. V ^ 
 
 6. Joy, especially when sudden and excessive. 
 
 It must here be remembered that laughter, though 
 usually in man an expression of pleasure or of pleasurable 
 emotions, is not so always or necessarily. When it is pro- 
 duced, for instance, by tickling, it is a purely reflex physical 
 act, and, so far from being associated with pleasant feelings, 
 there may be ' intense pain so great, indeed, as to excite a 
 sense of impending dissolution' (Burton). The same is 
 probably the case in other animals ; so that we ought to be 
 careful in our interpretation of the nature and causes in 
 them of laughter or laughter-like sounds. 
 
 ISTor does tickling always produce the same kind of 
 results in other animals as in man ; for White tells us that 
 this sort of touch begets ' franticness ' not laughter or 
 anything resembling it in the horse. 
 
 Not only, then, do certain animals laugh, but they are 
 actuated by the ideas and emotions which in man give rise 
 to laughter. In particular many of them have a keen sense 
 of fun or humour, to which they give expression in a great 
 
318 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING." 
 
 variety of ways. And not only do they enjoy and appreciate 
 fun in each other, but they understand, appreciate, and 
 enjoy that of man, distinguishing fun or joke from earnest, 
 and the fun of good humour and good intent from that of 
 ridicule or derision. 
 
 Writing to me in July 1871, the late Sir Henry Holland 
 remarks, ' I especially allude to the sense of fun in the 
 higher animals as a striking demonstration of the relation 
 of their [mental] faculties to those of man. 5 In some of his 
 published works he draws a distinction between wit and fun, 
 ascribing a sense of fun to the monkey and the dog, but 
 regarding wit as a characteristic of man. alone. In order, 
 however, to justify man's monoply of wit, as contrasted with 
 or separated from fun, it must obviously be redefined in 
 some special way ; for, according to the usual or dictionary 
 definition of wit 'the power of combining ideas with 
 ludicrous effect' there can be no doubt of its being an 
 attribute of various quadrupeds and birds. 
 
 A sense of fun is exhibited in various ways by a con- 
 siderable variety of animals, including especially, among the 
 Mammalia, the monkey and the dog, and among birds the 
 parrot, mocking-bird, and starling. They show it more 
 particularly both adult and young animals in their 
 own 
 
 1. Practical jokes and 
 
 2. Sports or games 
 
 and in the part which these animals so frequently play in 
 the jokes and sports of man. Miss Buist asserts that some 
 of our other common cage birds, besides the parrot and 
 starling, display what appears to be a sense of the humorous. 
 The c Animal World ' tells us of a canary ( meaning fun.* 
 The parrot obviously enjoys and appreciates fun ; it exhibits 
 merriment or mirth sometimes of a rollicking, boisterous, 
 demonstrative kind (Broderip). White speaks of a pet 
 rabbit making and enjoying fun with various playfellows. 
 Fun in the mouse is displayed in its antics (' Animal World '). 
 Fun occurs even in the bull (Bucklaiid). Miss Cobbe says, 
 ( The goose .... has perhaps the keenest appreciation of 
 humour of any animal, unless it be her own arch-enemy the 
 
LAUGHTER AXV WEEPING. 319 
 
 fox. 5 And she illustrates this assertion by the narrative of 
 a practical joke played on a number of pigs by a flock of 
 geese. The poor porkers were caused to c run the gauntlet ' 
 down a ]ane of geese biting at them with their bills, simply 
 in order to frighten them and that the geese might enjoy 
 the terror and squalling of the pigs. Wood mentions an 
 Irish terrier that had a keen love of fun, ' and no one could 
 have been more fertile in hitting upon plans for gratifying 
 it.' The horse (Nichols), the hare (' Percy Anecdotes '), rooks 
 (White), all engage in frolic of different kinds. All young 
 animals occupy themselves largely in gambols, and all their 
 various modes of self-amusement involve a certain amount 
 of fun. The humorousness of their practical jokes has 
 been specially noted in the Ehesus and Diana monkeys 
 (Cassell). 
 
 These practical jokes, and consequently the humour 
 involved, are sometimes of a grim or ghastly kind for 
 instance, in certain cases in which the perpetrator takes a 
 cruel delight in the suffering or torture of its fellow. Such 
 cruel fun is not confined by any means to monkeys (Buck- 
 land), but is to be met with also in the parrot. The dog, 
 too, has certain modes of making or taking fun at the 
 expense of suffering in other animals. For instance, it 
 amuses itself not only by chasing sheep, but by worrying 
 them or biting their forelegs or feet ('Animal World'). I 
 had a terrier that proved a nuisance from its habit of seizing 
 all barefooted beggars by the feet. 
 
 ' One of my horses,' says Baker Pasha, ' out of pure 
 amusement, kicks at the men as they pass, and having 
 succeeded several times in kicking them into the river, he 
 perseveres in the fun I believe for lack of other employ- 
 ment.' 
 
 Certain animals, and especially certain dogs, under- 
 stand or appreciate man's fun, entering into it thoroughly, 
 co-operating with him in carrying it on or out. Thus a 
 favourite terrier of Sir Edwin Landseer's 'readily learned 
 his master's will, and equally understood his fun ' (Macaulay 
 and ' Animal World '). Dogs, and even cats, take part in the 
 fun and frolic sometimes rough or boisterous enough. of 
 
320 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 
 
 their child playfellows. Thus a cat would allow itself to 
 be rolled up or swung about in a tablecloth, never making 
 any resistance, but purring and seeming to enjoy the fun ' 
 (' Animal World'). 
 
 Moreover, some dogs distinguish the different kinds of 
 man's laughter that which is good-humoured or sympa- 
 thetic from what is sarcastic. They know full well the 
 difference between being laughed at and laughed with 
 being made the subject of derision and being the cause of 
 harmless merriment. Their sensitiveness to anything like 
 ridicule from man causes them to dislike, and probably to 
 resent, all forms or degrees of being laughed at; they 
 decline becoming the subjects of any sort of derisive 
 laughter. They not unfrequently even try to produce laughter 
 in man that sort of laughter which betokens his being 
 simply amused and they are chagrined if their efforts fail. 
 Thus Romanes tells us of a Skye terrier that endeavoured 
 to amuse its master and provoke his laughter by performing 
 certain tricks that it had taught itself, the dog becoming 
 sulky if its efforts to please were not successful. An orang, 
 too, in the London Zoological Gardens showed gratifica- 
 tion at the human laughter excited by its practical jokes 
 (Romanes). Wood mentions a tame jackdaw enjoying the 
 fun of boys' games leapfrog or races as much apparently 
 as the boys themselves did. 
 
 We have already seen how frequently, and in how many 
 respects, the character of such an animal as the dog becomes 
 a reflex of that of its master. A man brimful of good- 
 natured fun a human wag, fond of amusing practical jokes 
 naturally begets, by imitation and sympathy, what might 
 be called a c comical ' dog one ready not only to take part 
 in its master's fun, but to indulge in fun on its own account 
 (Cobbe). 
 
 It has been shown, then, that certain animals can, on the 
 one hand, laugh, and on the other possess unmistakably a 
 sense of humour ; but it does not follow that the sense in 
 question, and its expression in laughter, co-exist in the same 
 animal in the relation of cause and effect. Doubtless they 
 do so sometimes, as in the case of the waggish, fun-loving 
 
LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 321 
 
 parrot. But, in the first place, there are in various ani- 
 mals laughterlike sounds frequently or usually described as 
 ' laughter ' that have no connection probably with a sense 
 of fun ; while, in the second, the sense in question, where it 
 exists, is not necessarily, or even generally or frequently, 
 manifested by laughter. 
 
 Nor does it follow that, in other animals any more than 
 in man, laughter is to be considered an expression of fun or 
 humour only. In such a bird as the parrot it may embody 
 sarcasm or derision, defiance or insult, as well as fun. The 
 grinning of certain monkeys and apes is also not necessarily 
 or always associated with a sense of amusement; it may, and 
 does, arise from other feelings or causes, as in man. A 
 chuckle, too, may arise in the same animals from a simple 
 feeling of satisfaction at success or good fortune. 
 
 Of mere laughterlike sounds the following are illustra- 
 tions : 
 
 1. A certain Indian hyaena is called the 'laughing' 
 hyaena, from the peculiarity of its cry. The voice of this 
 the spotted hysena, when excited, ' resembles a most un- 
 earthly laugh' (Sclater). 
 
 2. An Australian bird a kingfisher is known as the 
 laughing ' jackass for a similar reason ; and Baden Powell 
 speaks of the ' ridiculosity ' of the laugh both of the bird 
 and the hysena in reference apparently to its resemblance 
 to human laughter. Sclater says that the note of this 
 ' laughing kingfisher,' as it is called in the * Guide to 
 the Zoological Gardens of London,' ' strangely resembles a 
 rude, powerful laugh.' 
 
 3. The francolins of South Africa birds, species of Scler- 
 optera have notes that ' resemble a succession of hysterical 
 laughs at first slow, but increasing in rapidity and strength 
 till they suddenly cease' (Andersson). 
 
 4. One of the cries of the dog-hysena is what Murray 
 calls a ' laughing chatter.' 
 
 5. A pigeon the Indian turtle dove is called c the 
 laugher' (Schmidt). 
 
 6. Livingstone mentions an African (brown) ibis whose 
 cry is ' a loud ha-ha-ha ! ' 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
322 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 
 
 7. Miss Cobbe describes the cackling, screeching or 
 screaming, and yelling, in delight or exultation, of a flock 
 of geese as ' almost indistinguishable from human laughter.' 
 
 It must be evident that in animals so different in struc- 
 ture and habits not only must the various forms of 'laughter' 
 so called differ materially in their character even as 
 mere sounds, but must also be the vocal expressions of very 
 different feelings. In certain birds the laughterlike sound 
 is either the ordinary note or call, or one of the ordinary or 
 extraordinary notes or calls, intended to intimate their pre- 
 sence, solicit the society of their mates, issue warning of 
 danger, or give expression to some other want or feeling. 
 In the hysena, and probably other animals, the sound 
 emitted is more of the nature of a cry of annoyance or 
 irritation. Only in the case of the geese is there any 
 provable association of a sense and enjoyment of fun. 
 
 On the other hand, humour may be exuberant and yet 
 not express itself in laughter, or in voice-sounds of any 
 kind. The dog, for instance, shows his appreciation of fun 
 in his sparkling, merry eye, in his facial features as a 
 whole, in his rolling over and over, running about wildly or 
 round and round, in his whole aspect and demeanour, look 
 and manner. 
 
 Just as it has been shown that various animals possess 
 the physical apparatus necessary for laughter while they 
 are actuated by those feelings or ideas that in man give rise 
 to it so it can be equally shown that certain animals are 
 not only gifted with the physical apparatus necessary for 
 the production and effusion of tears, and for the actions or 
 phenomena of weeping and sobbing, but also with the 
 emotions or conceptions that in man give rise to tears and 
 weeping. 
 
 What have been described as true tears are shed 
 especially under the emotion of grief by a considerable 
 number and variety of animals, including the dog, horse, 
 elephant, bear, rat, donkey, mule, various deer, soko, chim- 
 panzee, mandrill, orang, titi or other monkeys or apes, 
 cattle, camel, giraffe ; while there are other animals such 
 as the parrot (Watson) in which, though tears are not 
 
LAUGHTEK AND WEEPING. 323 
 
 specified, the action of sobbing or weeping is nevertheless 
 represented as occurring. Whatever may be the case in 
 man, it would appear that in other animals the phenomena 
 of weeping or sobbing do not necessarily involve the presence 
 of tears. 
 
 Whether accompanied or unaccompanied by demon- 
 strable tears, the action of weeping occurs most frequently, 
 in other animals as in man, under the powerful influence of 
 grief or sorrow of all kinds, especially that resulting from or 
 connected with bereavement of young, mates, companions, 
 or human masters. But weeping is the fruit also of other 
 emotions, some of them of a, curious or a complex cha- 
 racter. Thus I have notes of its occurrence from 
 
 1. Mere emotionalness as in certain monkeys, from 
 being pitied by man (Darwin and Kengger). 
 
 2. Despair as in the stag at bay (Low) or the caged 
 rat (Reedy). 
 
 3. Fright, terror, or fear in the titi or other monkeys 
 (Humboldt, Cassell). 
 
 4. Captivity and its resultant melancholy in the Indian 
 and Cingalese elephant (Darwin and Tennent), and in 
 monkeys (Darwin). 
 
 5. Joy. 
 
 6. Bodily pain, fatigue, or want such as thirst. 
 
 7. Sense of ill-usage, including wrong or degradation. 
 
 8. Fond or sad memories. 
 
 9. Sympathy. 
 
 10. Disappointment or chagrin as in monkeys (Eengger), 
 and elephants (Houzeau). 
 
 11. Sadness and regret. 
 
 12. Old age or the dying state. 
 
 13. Pettishness at non-compliance with whims as in 
 the young soko (Livingstone) and orang (Yvan). 
 
 14. Dread of punishment in chimpanzees or other 
 Quadrumana trained to man's service. 
 
 Weeping, like laughter, then, arises from emotions and 
 ideas of the most opposite kind, as well as from bodily 
 sufferings or impressions all just as in man. 
 It is not enough, however, merely to assert that various 
 
 T 2 
 
324 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 
 
 animals shed tears under certain mental influences ; it is 
 desirable, if not necessary, to give illustrations of the fact, 
 with the names of the authorities who have observed it. 
 
 Mrs. Burton, speaking of thirsty horses in the Syrian 
 Desert, says, ( I have seen the tears roll down their cheeks 
 with thirst.' Of a mule crippled by a two-inch nail in its 
 foot, ' His face was the picture of pain and despair. Tears 
 streamed out of his eyes.' And, again, of a camel, f Tears 
 streamed from the eyes.' Cows 'weep often when in sorrow,' 
 says another authoress Mrs. Mackellar. She mentions one 
 sold by its mistress, who had brought it up, that ' would 
 stand lowing pitifully all day long .... with the tears 
 streaming down her face.' A young soko, Livingstone tells 
 us, if not taken up in the arms like a child, when it desired 
 and appealed to be so carried, engaged in ' the most bitter 
 human-like weeping.' 
 
 Chimpanzees, in Sierra Leone, that have been trained to 
 carry water-jugs for man, f weep bitterly ' when they let 
 them fall and see them in pieces at their feet ( ( Wonders of 
 Nature and Art '). Dr. Boerlage shot a female (mother) 
 ape in Java, that fell mortally wounded from a tree, * tightly 
 clasping a young one in her arms, and she died weeping ' 
 (Biichner). 
 
 A giraffe, wounded by a rifle shot, was also found to 
 have 6 tears trickling from the lashes of his dark, humid 
 eyes' (Sir Wm. Harris). Some old rats, finding a young 
 one dead by drowning, 'wiped the tears from their eyes 
 with their fore-paws ' ('Animal World'). Gordon Gumming 
 describes large tears as trickling from the eyes of a dying 
 elephant. 
 
 Steller, the companion of Behring's second voyage of 
 discovery, asserts that the mother sea-bear of Kamtschatka 
 ' sheds tears ; ' while the male parent, ' when he sees that his 
 young is irrevocably lost .... like the mother, begins to 
 cry so bitterly that the tears trickle down upon his breast ' 
 (Hartwig). Dr. Yvan mentions an orang that wept when a 
 mango was taken from him, just as a child would have 
 done. 
 
 Tn certain cases there is sobbing without tears, or the 
 
LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. t 325 
 
 utterance, unaccompanied by tears, of cries, groans, or 
 moans, though arising from the same kind of causes as 
 weeping. Tennent describes sobs and ' choking cries,' as. 
 well as tears, in the captured elephant; while Houzeau 
 speaks of a young one ' crying ' on the death of its mother. 
 Buckland alludes to sobs in the dog. 
 
 Weeping, like laughter, is sometimes very humanlike in 
 its character. Thus Bontius describes the weeping of an 
 orang as resembling that of a woman. 
 
 Not only, however, do certain animals themselves shed 
 tears, but the dog at least frequently understands the signi- 
 ficance of those of man. That is to say, it connects them 
 with sorrow or suffering, and this connection leads it to 
 offer fond expressions of condolence to make various 
 attempts at consolation. 
 
 It only remains to note that, as in man, the same cause 
 the same emotion may give rise equally to laughter and 
 tears in the same or different animals at the same or 
 different times, according to their temperaments or idiosyn- 
 crasies. Thus joy, especially when sudden and excessive, 
 produces sometimes laughter, sometimes tears, sometimes 
 neither, just as in man (Darwin). 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 LANGUAGE of whatever form- -among the lower animals is 
 used voluntarily and deliberately, or involuntarily, mainly 
 for the following purposes : 
 
 1. To call each other or man, either particular individuals 
 or the various members of a family, or of a flock or herd. 
 These ' calls,' which are in an infinite variety of forms, 
 include 
 
 a. Sexual calls for suitors or mates in the season of 
 sexual love, for the purposes of pairing. 
 
 &. Maternal and parental calls to the young, having 
 reference chiefly to two great objects food-supply and pro- 
 tection from danger. 
 
 c. Assembly calls to rally or collect, or keep together, 
 the scattering or scattered members of a flock or herd in 
 war, the march, or migration. 
 
 d. Summonses for aid. 
 
 2. To make intimations or announcements of 
 
 a. Their intentions, purposes, plans including their 
 decisions. 
 
 b. Their wants of all kinds including their urgency. 
 
 c. Information or intelligence of various kinds relating, 
 for instance, to food, booty, or danger. 
 
 3. To hold consultations deliberative councils, discussions, 
 or debates on important ( questions of the day ' concerning, 
 for instance, the necessity for war, the means of defence, the 
 sites of emigration-fields, or the time for migration. 
 
 4. To conduct public trials, apparently by jury, including 
 advocacy, accusation, conviction, judgment, and punishment. 
 
EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 327 
 
 5. To give expression to their emotions or feelings, 
 changes of mood or temper, passions, appetites or desires 
 including their sense of hunger and thirst of cold, heat, or 
 fatigue. 
 
 6. To give warning of danger including the use of 
 signals. 
 
 7. To attract notice or attention. 
 
 8. To intimidate or terrify, including menacing or 
 threatening, in jest or earnest for instance, in 
 
 a. Practical jokes. 
 6. Prey-capture. 
 c. War or defence. 
 
 9. To charm, captivate, or fascinate 
 a. The other sex in courtship. 
 
 fe. Prey in order to their capture. 
 
 10. To issue orders or commands ; make requests or de- 
 mands. 
 
 11. To make responses or replies. 
 
 12. To demonstrate or point out places or things de- 
 sirable, or the reverse. 
 
 13. To repress or conceal their real feelings, ideas, or 
 intentions. 
 
 14. To challenge to trials of strength in love-rivalry, 
 war, or competition for leaderships. 
 
 Such a specification of the applications of animal language, 
 however, gives no adequate idea of its expressiveness. In 
 order to the formation of some proper conception of the 
 number and variety of the mental states represented by the 
 different forms of language in the lower animals, the follow- 
 ing alphabetical table has been compiled. The words or 
 terms used or enumerated are those employed by the va- 
 rious writers mentioned in the Bibliography. No doubt 
 some terms are mere synonyms of certain others, different 
 writers using different words to express what is virtually 
 the same idea ; but, in other cases, even where words 
 may appear to be, or to be capable of being made or re- 
 garded as, synonymous, there are shades of difference, 
 which may or may not be apparent with or without due 
 observation and reflection that is to say, without proper 
 
328 
 
 EXPEESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 study of the intricate subject of animal language and its 
 interpretation. 
 
 Absorption. 
 
 Abuse. 
 
 Accident or un- 
 usual contin- 
 gency, sense of. 
 
 Acquaintanceship. 
 
 Address, paying. 
 
 Adoration. 
 
 Advantage, sense 
 of. 
 
 Adventuresome- 
 ness. 
 
 Advice, power of 
 giving. 
 
 Affectation. 
 
 Affection. 
 
 Affirmation. 
 
 Affliction. 
 
 Affront, desire to 
 offer. 
 
 Affront, sense of. 
 
 Agitation. 
 
 Agony, or 
 
 Anguish, physi- 
 cal or men- 
 tal. 
 
 Aid, desire for 
 intention of 
 giving. 
 
 Alacrity. 
 
 Alarm. 
 
 Alertness. 
 
 Amity. 
 
 Amorousness. 
 
 Amusement. 
 
 Anger. 
 
 Animation. 
 
 Announcements, 
 making and re- 
 ceiving. 
 
 Annoyance. 
 
 Answering to ques- 
 tions. 
 
 Anticipation. 
 
 Antipathy. 
 
 Anxiety. 
 
 Apathy. 
 
 Apology. 
 
 Appeal. 
 
 Appetite, sexual or 
 other. 
 
 Apprehension. 
 
 Approval. 
 
 Ardour. 
 
 Arrogance. 
 
 Astonishment. 
 
 Attachment to 
 persons, places, 
 other animals. 
 
 Attention. 
 
 Authority, sense of. 
 
 Aversion. 
 
 Awe. 
 
 Bad temper. 
 
 Begging. 
 
 Belief. 
 
 Benefit, sense of 
 
 Benignity. 
 
 Bereavement,sense 
 
 of. 
 Bewilderment. 
 
 Blame, imputation 
 of. 
 
 sense of. 
 Blandishment. 
 Boastfulness. 
 Buoyancy of 
 
 spirits. 
 Business, sense of. 
 
 Cajolery or 
 
 Coaxing. 
 Call. 
 
 Calmness. 
 Caricature. 
 Caution. 
 Chagrin. 
 Challenge. 
 Chastisement, 
 
 sense of. 
 Cheerfulness. 
 Choice. 
 Churlishness. 
 Civility. 
 Coldness, or 
 
 Coolness, of feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Combativeness. 
 Comfort, sense of. 
 Command. 
 Companionship, 
 
 love of. 
 Compassion. 
 Complacency. 
 Complaint. 
 Complaisance. 
 Compliance, 
 
EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 329 
 
 Compliment, pay- 
 ing. 
 
 Compliment, sense 
 of. 
 
 Conciliation. 
 
 Condemnation, 
 sense of. 
 
 Confession. 
 
 Confidence. 
 
 Confusion. 
 
 Congratulation. 
 
 Consciousness. 
 
 Consequentially. 
 
 Consternation. 
 
 Constraint. 
 
 Contempt. 
 
 Content or 
 
 Contentment. 
 
 Conventionality, 
 
 Coquetry. 
 
 Cordiality. 
 
 Courage. 
 
 Courtesy. 
 
 Courtship. 
 
 Covetousness. 
 
 Cowardice. 
 
 Coxcombry. 
 
 Craftiness. 
 
 Craving for love, 
 society, or com- 
 panionship. 
 
 Cruelty, sense of 
 received. 
 
 Cunning. 
 
 Curiosity. 
 
 Danger, sense of. 
 Decision. 
 Defeat, sense of. 
 
 Defence. 
 Defiance. 
 Dejection. 
 Delight. 
 Deliverance, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Delusion. 
 Demand. 
 
 Demon strati veness 
 Demureness. 
 Deprecation. 
 Depression,mental. 
 Derision. 
 
 Desire and desires. 
 Despair. 
 Desperation. 
 Despondency. 
 Detection, sense of. 
 Determination. 
 Difference, sense of. 
 Difficulty, sense of. 
 Diffidence. 
 Dignity. 
 Disappointment. 
 Disapprobation. 
 Discomfiture, sense 
 
 of. 
 Discomfort, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Discomposure. 
 Disconsolateness. 
 Discontent. 
 Discovery, sense of. 
 Disdain. 
 Disease, mental 
 
 and bodily. 
 Disgrace, sense of. 
 Disgust. 
 Dislike. 
 
 Disobedience. 
 Displa} r , love of. 
 Displeasure, sense 
 
 of man's. 
 Dissatisfaction. 
 Distress, mental. 
 Disturbance, or 
 
 Disorder, men- 
 tal. 
 
 Diversion. 
 Doubt. 
 Dread. 
 Drollery. 
 
 Drudgery, sense of. 
 Duty, sense of. 
 
 Eagerness. 
 Earnestness. 
 Ease, sense of. 
 Ecstasy. 
 Effrontery. 
 Effusiveness. 
 Elation of spirits. 
 Embarrassment. 
 Emergency, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Emotion. 
 Emulation. 
 E ncouragement, 
 
 desire to give. 
 Encouragement, 
 
 sense of 
 Endurance. 
 Energy. 
 Enjoyment. 
 Enmity. 
 Ennui. 
 Enquiry. 
 Enthusiasm. 
 
330 
 
 EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 Entreaty. 
 
 Envy. 
 
 Error. 
 
 Escape, sense of. 
 
 Esteem. 
 
 Exaltation, sense 
 of. 
 
 Exasperation. 
 
 Excitement, men- 
 tal. 
 
 Execration. 
 
 Exhaustion, bodily 
 
 Exhilaration. 
 
 Exhortation. 
 
 Existence, sense of. 
 
 Expectation or 
 Expectancy. 
 
 Expostulation. 
 
 Exuberance of 
 spirits or of 
 emotion. 
 
 Exultation. 
 
 Falsehood, sense of. 
 
 Eamiliarity. 
 
 Farewell or 
 Goodbye. 
 
 Fatigue, bodily. 
 
 Favour, design to 
 confer. 
 
 Favour, sense of. 
 
 Favouritism. 
 
 Fear. 
 
 Fearlessness. 
 
 Feelings and feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Fidgetiness. 
 
 Fierceness or 
 Ferocity. 
 
 Fiermess of tem- 
 per or spirit. 
 
 Fondness. 
 
 Forebodings. 
 
 Freedom, sense of. 
 
 Fretfulness. 
 
 Friendliness or 
 Friendship. 
 
 Fright. 
 
 Frivolity. 
 
 Fun. 
 
 Fury. 
 
 Gaiety of spirits. 
 
 Gallantry. 
 
 Generosity. 
 
 Gentleness. 
 
 Gladness. 
 
 Glee. 
 
 Gloom, or 
 
 Gloominess, of 
 spirits. 
 
 Glory, sense of. 
 
 Good breeding, 
 feeling. 
 
 Good luck, sense 
 of. 
 
 Good nature, tem- 
 per, or humour. 
 
 Good wishes. 
 
 Gratification. 
 
 Gratitude. 
 
 Gravity or 
 Graveness. 
 
 Greeting. 
 
 Grief. 
 
 Gruffness. 
 
 Guardianship. 
 
 Guilt, sense of. 
 
 Happiness. 
 
 Hate or 
 
 Hatred. 
 
 Haughtiness. 
 
 Heartiness. 
 
 Hesitation. 
 
 Holiday, sense of. 
 
 Hope. 
 
 Hopelessness. 
 
 Horror. 
 
 Hostility. 
 
 Humiliation, sense 
 of. 
 
 Humility. 
 
 Humour. 
 
 Hunger. 
 
 Hypersensitive- 
 ness. 
 
 Ideas. 
 
 Identity. 
 
 Ignorance. 
 
 Ill humour or na- 
 ture. 
 
 Illness, bodily and 
 mental. 
 
 Imagination and 
 Imaginativeness. 
 
 Imitation. 
 
 Impatience. 
 
 Imperiousness. 
 
 Importunity. 
 
 Imposture. 
 
 Impudence. 
 
 Inclination. 
 
 Incoherency. 
 
 Indifference. 
 
 Indignation. 
 
 Indolence. 
 
EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE, 
 
 331 
 
 Information, or 
 Intelligence, giv- 
 ing and receiv- 
 ing. 
 
 Injustice, sense of. 
 
 Innocence. 
 
 Insanity, various 
 forms of. 
 
 Insolence. 
 
 Insult, desire to 
 offer. 
 
 Insult, sense of. 
 
 Intentions. 
 
 Intentness. 
 
 Interest. 
 
 Interrogation. 
 
 Irascibility. 
 
 Irritability. 
 
 Irritation. 
 
 Investigation. 
 
 Jealousy. 
 
 Jeering. 
 
 Jest. 
 
 Joke. 
 
 Joy. 
 
 Justice, sense of. 
 
 Kindness, sense 
 of. 
 
 Lamentation. 
 Languishing. 
 Liberty, sense of. 
 Likings. 
 Listlessness. 
 Loathing. 
 Longings. 
 Loss, sense of. 
 
 Love, sexual. 
 Lugubriousness. 
 
 Magnanimity. 
 
 Malice or 
 
 Maliciousness. 
 
 Meaning. 
 
 Meanness. 
 
 Meekness. 
 
 Melancholy. 
 
 Memory, retentive- 
 ness of. 
 
 Menace. 
 
 Mercy, receiving 
 and showing. 
 
 Merit, sense of. 
 
 Mildness of dispo- 
 sition. 
 
 Mimicry. 
 
 Mirth. 
 
 Mischievousness. 
 
 Misery. 
 
 Mockery. 
 
 Moodiness. 
 
 Mourning and 
 Mournfulness. 
 
 Necessities or 
 
 Needs. 
 
 Negation. 
 
 News, giving and 
 receiving. 
 
 Nobility of cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Novelty, sense of. 
 
 Obedience. 
 Obstinacy. 
 Offence, sense of. 
 
 Order, sense of. 
 Orders, giving. 
 
 Pain, both of body 
 and mind. 
 
 Passions. 
 
 Pathos. 
 
 Patience. 
 
 Peace, sense of. 
 
 Peevishness. 
 
 Pensiveness. 
 
 Peremptoriness. 
 
 Perfunctoriness. 
 
 Perplexity. 
 
 Pertinacity. 
 
 Pertness. 
 
 Petition. 
 
 Pet or 
 
 Pettedness. 
 
 Pity and 
 Piteousness. 
 
 Petulance. 
 
 Plaintiveness. 
 
 Plans. 
 
 Playfulness. 
 
 Pleading. 
 
 Pleasure, both of 
 body and mind. 
 
 Politeness. 
 
 Praise, apprecia- 
 tion of. 
 
 Preference. 
 
 Pretence. 
 
 Pride. 
 
 Promptitude. 
 
 Propitiation. 
 
 Protection, sense 
 of. 
 
 Protest. 
 
332 
 
 EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 Provocation. 
 Punishment, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Purpose. 
 Pusillanimity. 
 
 Quarrelsomeness. 
 Questioning. 
 
 Rage. 
 
 Rapture. 
 
 Rebuke. 
 
 Recognition. 
 
 Recovery, sense of. 
 
 Refinement. 
 
 Reflection. 
 
 Refusal. 
 
 Regret. 
 
 Reinstatement in, 
 
 or Restoration 
 
 to, favour, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Rejoicing. 
 Relaxation, sense 
 
 of. 
 
 Release, or 
 Relief, sense of. 
 Remonstrance. 
 Repartee. 
 Repentance. 
 Reply or 
 
 Response. 
 Repose, sense of. 
 Reproach. 
 Repugnance. 
 Repulsion and 
 Repulsiveness. 
 Requests. 
 Requirements. 
 
 Resentment. 
 Resignation. 
 Resistance. 
 Resolution. 
 Respect or 
 
 Regard. 
 Restlessness of 
 
 mind. 
 Revenge. 
 Rivalry. 
 Rudeness. 
 
 Sadness. 
 Safety, sense of. 
 Salutation. 
 Satire or 
 
 Sarcasm. 
 Satisfaction. 
 Scolding. 
 Sedateness. 
 Self-absorption. 
 
 approbation. 
 
 compliment. 
 
 conceit. 
 
 control. 
 
 defence, sense 
 
 of necessity 
 for. 
 
 gratulation. 
 
 importance. 
 
 love. 
 
 reliance. 
 
 repression. 
 
 - satisfaction. 
 
 - sufficiency. 
 Selfishness. 
 Sensations. 
 Seriousness. 
 Shame, sense of. 
 
 Shelter, sense of. 
 Shyness. 
 Signs or 
 
 Signals. 
 Slyness. 
 Soberness or 
 
 Sobriety. 
 Solemnity. 
 Solicitation. 
 Solicitude. 
 Sorrow. 
 Spirit. 
 Spite or 
 Spitefulness. 
 Sportiveness. 
 Sprightliness. 
 Stealthiness. 
 Strangeness, sense 
 
 of. 
 Strength, sense of, 
 
 or of its ab- 
 sence. 
 Stupidity. 
 Suavity. 
 Submissiveness and 
 
 Submission. 
 Success, sense of. 
 Suffering, mental 
 
 or bodily. 
 Sulkiness. 
 Sullenness. 
 Supplication. 
 Surliness. 
 Surprise. 
 Suspicion or 
 Suspiciousness. 
 Sympathy. 
 
 Temper. 
 
EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 333 
 
 Tenderness. 
 
 Terror. 
 
 Thanks. 
 
 Thirst. 
 
 Thoughtfulness. 
 
 Thoughts. 
 
 Threats and 
 
 Threatening. 
 Timidity. 
 Thnorousness. 
 Transport. 
 Trepidation. 
 Triumph, sense of. 
 
 Unconcern. 
 Understanding. 
 Uneasiness of 
 
 mind or body. 
 Unseen, dread of 
 
 the. 
 
 Unusual, sense of 
 
 the. 
 
 Upbraiding. 
 Urbanity. 
 Urgency. 
 Uxoriousness. 
 
 Valour. 
 
 Vanity. 
 
 Vehemence. 
 
 Vexation. 
 
 Victory, sense of. 
 
 Vigilance. 
 
 Vivacity. 
 
 Vulgarity. 
 
 Wants. 
 
 War, disposition or 
 
 readiness for. 
 Warning. 
 
 Watchfulness. 
 Waywardness. 
 Weakness, sense 
 
 of physical. 
 Weariness. 
 Welcome. 
 Wilfulness. 
 Willingness. 
 Wishes. 
 Wistfulness. 
 Woe. 
 Wonder. 
 Wooing. 
 Worry, sense of. 
 Wrath. 
 Wrong-doing, 
 
 sense of. 
 Wounded feeling. 
 
 Yearning. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 INTELLIGIBILITY OF EACH OTHER'S LANGUAGE. 
 
 THE different individuals of the same species thoroughly 
 understand the language of the species, whatever be its nature. 
 It is as intelligible to the whole community as is the 
 language of any nation of men to the individuals composing 
 the nation ; much more so indeed, when it is remembered 
 that among civilised peoples at least, what is called and 
 considered the proper language as written, printed, and 
 spoken of the people, is intelligible only to the educated ; 
 while the special language of one class is unintelligible to 
 those who are not members of the class, or who have not 
 studied its special phraseology. 
 
 Animals then of the same species have mutual under- 
 standings. They show in a thousand ways how speedily and 
 readily they interchange feelings and ideas ; receive and 
 communicate information ; realise each other's position, 
 wants, or wishes. They make instant response or reply to 
 the calls or signals of their fellows, whether in the wild 
 or domesticated state, and domesticated to those of wild 
 animals, or vice versa as in the goose, ape, or elephant. 
 The number ,and variety of the feelings and ideas which are 
 communicated to each other by the ant and hive bee are 
 pointed out by Houzeau. The leader of wild horse or 
 elephant troops makes his wishes or orders on the march or 
 in defence thoroughly known to the rest (Watson). 
 
 Gestures of mutual understanding between the sexes 
 take place in the fowl (Darwin). The mother fox's plaint or 
 wail is understood and obeyed as a danger signal by her 
 young (Houzeau). 
 
INTELLIGIBILITY OF EACH OTHER'S LANGUAGE. 335 
 
 The dog conveys his wishes and purposes to his fellows 
 (Low), but how he does so does not always appear for 
 instance, among the pariah dogs of Damascus, according to 
 Mrs. Burton. The dog issues invitations to his companions 
 to share food, to go poaching, to assist in defence or 
 punishment, and the others accept or decline these invita- 
 tions (Cobbe). 
 
 Certain animals use different danger signals for different 
 kinds or degrees of danger, and their relative significance is 
 thoroughly understood by those for whom they are intended. 
 Certain other animals engage in their assemblies in discussion 
 or debate, which is understood by the whole body of auditors 
 or spectators. The alarm notes of the sentinels of many 
 gregarious animals are instantly understood. In ants on the 
 march there is communication of intelligence throughout 
 the troop. They show their mutual understanding in asking 
 aid, issuing invitations, and giving advice (Figuier) . 
 
 Bees give each other information of their projects. Their 
 sentinel or watchman issues his summons to defence, which 
 command is instantly understood and obeyed. They ( beat to 
 arms ' (figuratively) when defence becomes necessary in 
 threatened danger (Figuier). Their power of communication 
 with each other before they swarm is commented on by 
 Watson. The warning cry of cattle in danger collects the 
 whole herd, to act on the defensive or offensive (Pierquin). 
 The despatch and reception of news is described in rooks by 
 Watson. The issuing and accepting of invitations is illus- 
 trated by bower-birds inviting their neighbours to their 
 dancing assemblies. 
 
 Sound becomes an important means of establishing iden- 
 tity of recognising each other when there is a change 
 both of aspect and smell. For instance, the bleat of the 
 sheep or lamb, after sheep-shearing or washing, leads to 
 mutual recognition by mother and offspring (White). Be- 
 sponse of the young to the old to the parental call -notes 
 of birds, for instance implies an understanding on both 
 sides of the significance of the sounds (Houzeau). 
 
 According to Belt, foraging ants follow each other by 
 scent, and communicate intelligence for example, as to the 
 
336 INTELLIGIBILITY OF EACH OTHER'S LANGUAGE. 
 
 presence of danger or booty ' by the different intensity or 
 qualities of the odours given off.' 
 
 In some cases a species or certain individuals thereof 
 learn the language, or to understand the language, of other 
 species, genera, or groups. 
 
 The rapidity of the acquisition of the language of other 
 species varies greatly, as does also necessarily facility of 
 acquisition. Thus of a hen that, as foster mother, brought 
 up, or tried to bring up, three orphaned ferrets, Romanes 
 says : e It took the hen one day to learn the meaning of their 
 cries of distress.' But he could ' not say that the young 
 ferrets ever seemed to learn the meaning of the hen's 
 clucking.' 
 
 The acquisition of the language of other species is not 
 confined to, though it is best illustrated by, the imitation of 
 voice-sounds. It includes the whole phenomena of mimicry 
 -of 
 
 1. Man's voice, speech, tone, talk, whistle, words. 
 
 2. The songs of a considerable number of birds. 
 
 3. The calls or cries of various animals, made use of for 
 the purposes of decoy or deception. 
 
 The mocking-bird successfully imitates the hen's call, 
 and the cat's mew (Houzeau). The starling mimics man's 
 voice, the cries of certain quadrupeds, and the song of 
 various birds. The spotted hysena counterfeits the bleat 
 of the lamb. 
 
 Acquired songs consist frequently of combinations of the 
 notes of different species, forming a medley therefrom. How- 
 ever, in acquiring the notes or songs of other birds, it 
 occasionally happens that a species or individual loses its 
 own for instance, the redbreast (Houzeau). 
 
 From intimacy of association with them, the dog soon 
 comes to understand the language of several different genera 
 and species of other animals. For instance, it learns the 
 signification of various bird-calls, including those of poultry, 
 and takes advantage of this knowledge ; its action or be- 
 haviour is in accordance with the nature and significance of 
 each cry or call (Houzeau). 
 
 The language of blandishment or command of the collie 
 
INTELLIGIBILITY OF EACH OTHEE'S LANGUAGE. 337 
 
 is understood both by sheep and shepherd (Watson). The 
 horse learns to appreciate the cries of sporting dogs for 
 example, in the case of Houzeau's horse, who understood 
 the cries that intimated the successful driving of rabbits to 
 shelter, and that constituted a sort of call to both master 
 and horse to come and perform their share of the task in 
 the hunt. Various cries used as danger signals are under- 
 stood by animals of other species (Darwin). Various 
 animals understand have probably been taught by sad 
 experience to do so the signals of sentinel bees, when, for 
 instance, they warn off intruders (Figuier). 
 
 A case is given in ' Science Gossip ' of sparrows 
 understanding the call by bark of a terrier to be fed ; and 
 of both dog and sparrows remembering the feeding and the 
 call winter after winter. Ants of different species under- 
 stand each other's signs (Forel). Intercommunication of 
 suggestions, plans, wants, and wishes takes place between 
 the horse and cow (Macaulay). 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 ANIMAL MOTIVES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION BY MAN. 
 
 PIERQUIN, Montaigne, and other authors have pointed out, 
 and dwelt upon, the fallacies connected with man's interpre- 
 tation of the feelings, ideas, or thoughts of other animals ; 
 they have shown the fallibility of man's inferences, when he 
 endeavours to form a judgment regarding their motives or 
 causes of action their reasons, inducements, or impulses. 
 We are constantly reminded that we do not know and that 
 there is no possibility of our knowing what .are, for 
 instance, the impressions or ideas of the outer world formed 
 by animals. 
 
 We can only infer that similar actions in other animals 
 are determined by similar motives to those which actuate 
 man. It is only by the comparison of our own actions, in 
 relation to our own motives, that we can infer what are the 
 motives of other animals when they perform similar actions, 
 or are placed in the same kind of circumstances, But man's 
 inference may be wrong in what is essential^ the attribution 
 of human motives to the lower animals ; similar actions in 
 other animals may be attributable to causes or motives that 
 are really dissimilar ; in short, the processes of feeling and 
 reasoning in other animals may not be the same as in man. 
 But, it appears to me, that a bugbear is made of this 
 theoretical objection, which is one of the arguments adduced 
 in support of the opinion of those who deny that there is 
 any community of character between the f reason ' of man 
 and the ' instinct ' of the lower animal. Precisely the same 
 line of argument might be adopted in regard to man him- 
 self; it might be fitly applied to the comparison of the 
 
ANIMAL MOTIVES. 339 
 
 mental condition of the civilised man and the savage, the 
 scholar and the boor, or to the human mind in its different 
 phases of health and disease. 
 
 There is insuperable difficulty in discovering or realising 
 the animating motives, reasons, causes, or spurs of action 
 even in fellow-man. None of us can project our own minds 
 or personalities into those of our brethren, and regard events 
 from exactly the same view-point. Hence the impossibility 
 of the mathematician or metaphysician sympathising with 
 the ideas and feelings, or understanding the mental condition, 
 of the child or savage, idiot or lunatic, of the criminal and 
 uneducated classes of his own country. 
 
 It need not, therefore, be surprising that even greater 
 difficulty should be encountered in realising the mental 
 condition of other animals, differing much from man in 
 structure, habit, and surroundings. But the difficulty is one 
 that is materially lessened by proper study. The man who 
 investigates the subject of mind upwards instead of down- 
 wards; who begins with an examination of the simple 
 before he encounters the complex ; who inquires first into 
 the dawn or rudiments of mind ; who analyses its elements 
 in the lowest organisms, gradually extending his observation 
 to the higher, and ending with man ; who keeps ever in 
 mind the allowances to be made for differences in structure 
 and habit between man and other animals; and who, 
 oblivious of man's asserted supremacy, habitually views 
 animal action from what might be called an animal platform, 
 is likely to arrive at honest and satisfactory conclusions. 
 Those who assert that the motives of other animals are 
 different from those of man will have some difficulty in 
 setting forth the grounds on which they base their asser- 
 tion. 
 
 Assuming, then, that the attribution of human motives 
 to the lower animals is both legitimate and necessary, there 
 are in the first place certain motives that are at once simple 
 and transparent obvious and intelligible. This category 
 includes, for instance 
 
 1. Hunger and thirst ; ( want ' in all its forms or degrees. 
 
 2. Sexual love. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 ANIMAL MOTIVES AND 
 
 3. Maternal or parental affection. 
 
 4. Need of protection or assistance ; necessity of all 
 kinds. 
 
 5. Love of life. 
 
 6. Sense of danger. 
 
 7. Desire for pleasure or self-gratification, including 
 frequently the gratification of mere momentary desire. 
 
 8. Temptation. 
 
 9. Hope or anticipation of reward, benefit, or attention. 
 
 10. Dread of pain, fear of punishment included. 
 
 11. Gratitude, and the sense of benefit or advantage. 
 
 12. Love of society or companionship, including attach- 
 ment to man. 
 
 13. Love of approbation. 
 
 We experience no difficulty in understanding how hunger, 
 or maternal love, should be a cause or source of daring or 
 boldness even in timid animals ; how gratitude should lead 
 to attachment to man ; how ill-usage should beget antipathy 
 or fear, and these feelings lead to desertion of a master ; 
 how dread of punishment, of dismissal from a master's home, 
 or of being left behind, should induce the dog or cat to seek 
 safety in flight, or to resort to various ingenious devices for 
 circumventing man ; how fear of capture of themselves, or 
 their young, should cause various birds to have recourse to 
 successful ruses. All these and many others are common 
 and easily appreciable motives or incitements to action in the 
 dog and other animals. 
 
 It has here to be remarked that, on the one hand, the 
 same motive in different animals, or even in the same 
 animal at different times, may produce very different lines of 
 action just as is the case in man ; while, on the other, the 
 same course of action or behaviour may be determined by 
 the most diverse motives. For instance, hunger or maternal 
 love gives rise to a great diversity of conduct, while friend- 
 ship for man is determined by many motives both selfish 
 and unselfish. 
 
 It is equally noteworthy that, as in man, certain motives 
 or feelings are apt to dominate for the moment over others, 
 the result being determined by the character of that which 
 
THEIR INTERPRETATION BY MAN. 341 
 
 is dominant. Thus weariness of life may overcome in old 
 dogs the natural love of life or the tendency in all animals 
 to self-preservation, leading occasionally to suicide ; just as 
 maternal affection prevails over a selfish and it may be 
 added prudent regard for personal safety in the stork or 
 other bird that perishes with its young rather than leave 
 them to themselves in a conflagration. 
 
 As in man, in a large number of cases, motives in other 
 animals are obviousl} r numerous, conflicting, and complex ; 
 and, in proportion as they are so, it becomes difficult to 
 determine, on the one hand, what influences are present, and 
 on the other, which of them is dominant. It is in this 
 group of cases of conduct determined by complexity of 
 motive that man is apt to err most in his interpretations or 
 analyses of, or inferences from, animal conduct. 
 
 In the first place, the apparent motive, or motives, may 
 not be the real ones ; those which alone appear may not be 
 the only ones. Illustrations of this proposition are so 
 abundant that it must suffice to give a few as typical of 
 the kind, variety, and number of those which might be 
 adduced. 
 
 When a dog saves the life of its tipsy master, who is 
 perishing in the snow, by laying itself upon or beside its 
 master's body, and thereby imparting its own heat, it is 
 obvious that the incident is capable of various explanations. 
 The motive of action may have been one of several, or there 
 may have been a combination of several, motives. The 
 explanation most apt to be adopted the motive most likely 
 to be assigned in such a case is that which is least credit- 
 able to the lower, and least derogatory to the higher, 
 animal. It is suggested probably that there could have 
 been no idea of life-saving on the part of the dog no 
 realisation of its master's danger, and consequently no de- 
 vising of means of averting it or protecting him. There 
 was, perhaps, a mere selfish consultation of its own comfort 
 even a stupid ignorance of the kind and amount of danger 
 to both its master and itself. So far from desiring to impart 
 heat, its object, it may be alleged, was to withdraw it in its 
 own favour. But, on the other hand, the conduct was pecu- 
 
342 ANIMAL MOTIVES AND 
 
 liar to a certain dog under exceptional conditions ; the result 
 was such as would, or at least might, have arisen in man 
 from a realisation of danger, a knowledge of the best 
 available means of avoiding it, and an unselfish or self- 
 sacrificing readiness to adopt these means. 
 
 We know, moreover, from other incidents that certain 
 dogs are capable of the highest self-sacrifice ; that they 
 realise danger not only as it threatens themselves, but also 
 when it approaches those in whom they are interested ; that 
 they are ingenious in devising the means of preventing or 
 removing it. We equally know that dogs, like all other 
 animals, have a keen love of life that they are selfishly 
 ready to take all necessary means for self-preservation, and 
 that some are too selfish, and others too stupid, to place 
 their master's interests before their own. 
 
 While, therefore, the dog that saved its master from 
 death by cold may have been selfish or stupid, it is at least 
 quite as legitimate to suppose that it may have been 
 sagacious and self-sacrificing in other words, that it was 
 intentionally and consciously its master's saviour. That 
 such was the case no man dare, however, affirm ; that it 
 may have been so is at least probable. In such a case it is 
 only permitted to us to suppose not to know whether the 
 dog had a definite object or motive, and what, if so, that 
 object or motive was. 
 
 Escapes from new homes are common in certain runaway 
 dogs ; desertions from their masters' houses are so frequent 
 that such animals are repeatedly 'lost.' Here, again, any one 
 of several motive causes may be operative such as affection 
 for a former master or home, or dislike to a new proprietor 
 or his abode ; or the animal may be trained to abscond by- 
 one of those vendors 'of pet dogs so common in London, who 
 in this way sell the same pug or poodle over and over again; 
 or the action may be attributable to love of liberty ; or it 
 must be set down to caprice, or relegated to the category 
 of eccentricity, individuality, or unexplained phenomena. 
 Which or whether any of these motives or causes has 
 determined the conduct it may be impossible to decide, or 
 even to guess. 
 
THEIR INTERPRETATION BY MAN. 343 
 
 In certain assemblies of Shetland crows, described by 
 Edmonstone and others, we have ike facts that 
 
 1. The assembly is general birds of the same species 
 flock in large numbers from all quarters to a given point ; 
 
 2. There is a marked difference in the behaviour of 
 different individuals in the assembly, including 
 
 3. The punishment, or at least maltreatment, of one 
 individual by the whole body 
 
 and man's interpretation is that in such an incident we have 
 a criminal trial by a general jury, including arraignment, 
 evidence, conviction, condemnation, and the execution of 
 capital punishment. All this may have been embodied in 
 the proceedings of the assembly. But it is equally improper 
 to assert that it was or was not so. The unsatisfactoriness 
 of man's speculations as to the cause, or nature, of the 
 phenomena of animal conduct is frequently, however, much 
 more obvious. 
 
 The pecking to death of the wounded by birds such as 
 certain Indian crows is not necessarily an indication of 
 cruelty, rather than of humanity. It has the effect at least 
 of putting an end to an animal's torments of preventing 
 death by slow starvation, or its falling into the hands of 
 cruel enemies; while it also effectually puts an end, however, 
 to all chance of its recovery. 
 
 When the American goatsucker and other birds change 
 their nest on any interference with their eggs, the supposed 
 motive may be prudence, precaution, fear of danger and of 
 loss of eggs ; but much more probably the action must be 
 referred for its causation to the category of puerperal, 
 morbid mental phenomena. 
 
 In the mockery or mimicry of birds there may, or may 
 not, be an intention to annoy; but it is not easy to say the 
 least to determine in what cases such a feeling or desire is 
 present or absent. That it is frequently present is pointed 
 out in the chapter on ' Practical Jokes.' 
 
 What may be the motive, feeling, or idea of the dog that 
 day after day, week after week, or even year after year, 
 couches upon its master's grave as in the case of the 
 famous ( Greyfriars Bobby,' of Edinburgh is a question 
 abundantly open to conjecture. 
 
344 ANIMAL MOTIVES AND 
 
 Mutual assistance may or may not involve desire or 
 intention to assist for instance, in 
 
 1. Birds that accompany the African buffalo, rhinoceros, 
 and crocodile. 
 
 2. Birds that warn man or other animals of danger. 
 
 3. Birds such as the African honey-guide that point 
 or lead the way to honey stores. 
 
 So far from there being in such cases any moral merit, the 
 ruling motive or idea may be self-interest. In the case of 
 the African honey-guide its object is apparently selfish; 
 for Livingstone tells us 1 that it flies in front of the hunter 
 only till he arrives at the spot where the bees' nest exists, 
 waits till he takes the honey, and then ' feeds on the 
 broken morsels of comb which fall to its share.' But even 
 here distinction may have to be drawn between real and 
 apparent selfishness. 
 
 There may be a selfish reason real or apparent for 
 humanity, as in the case of ants feeding and kindly treaf>- 
 ing as friends not as slaves their milk cattle, plant lice 
 (Aphides) or beetles (species of Clariger). Various authors 
 have pointed out that Aphides are to ants their captors, 
 keepers, and masters not mere prisoners of war ; they are 
 domesticated and happy. Whether or not the motive or 
 purpose be a selfish one an act of, or prompted by, self- 
 interest the procedure itself is obviously a wise, prudent, 
 and commendable policy. 
 
 When ha.rvesting ants nip off the germinating radicles 
 of seeds prior to their storage, the possible result is a malt- 
 ing of the grain from the production of sugar; but it does 
 not follow that the animals are aware of the fact that 
 malting may or will occur, and that their destruction of the 
 radicles has this end in view. They must be aware, how- 
 ever, of the necessity for destroying the radicle, and for 
 thorough drying of the seeds in order to the proper preser- 
 vation of the grain in their granaries. 
 
 An animal regarding itself for the first time in a mirror 
 is less likely to be actuated by self-admiration than by mere 
 surprise or wonder; or the reason may be curiosity or 
 1 In his ' Last Journals,' vol. i. p. 164. 
 
THEIR INTERPRETATION BY MAX. 345 
 
 jealousy of an. imaginary rival (Darwin). Nor is the strut 
 of the peacock or turkey cock necessarily an indication of 
 vanity or pride. 
 
 Pierquin ascribes the ' running amok ' of the ' rogue ' 
 elephant to a thirst for vengeance. But if he is correct in 
 this supposition, the animal commits a mistake in directing 
 its enmity against man, seeing that its banishment is at 
 the hands of its own species. It may be, however, in the 
 elephant, as in man, that vengeance is frequently vicarious, 
 being inflicted on the weak, defenceless, and innocent when 
 it cannot be directed successfully against the strong, powerful, 
 and guilty. 
 
 The subject of motive, or object, is further, though 
 casually, discussed in other chapters, such as that on 
 ' Deception.' 
 
CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING OP HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 As known to the lower animals, the language of man does 
 not consist of mere 
 
 1. Words, whether singly, or in combination, as 
 
 2. Sentences or phrases in conversation ; but it includes 
 his 
 
 3. Looks facial expression, countenance-changes, the 
 character of his eye. 
 
 4. Actions or movements, with gesture and gesticulations, 
 attitude, manner, habits and observances, costume and its 
 changes. 
 
 5. Natural voice-sounds, and their varied tones or into- 
 nations. 
 
 6. Artificial musical or other sounds, such as those 
 made upon or by the bell, gong, horn, whistle, pipe, bagpipe, 
 lute, drum, or bugle. 
 
 By dint of observation and reflection, certain dogs 
 notably the shepherds' dogs (or collies) of Scotland that 
 live in intimate association with their masters, that are 
 man's fireside friends or companions, as well as his col- 
 leagues in work perhaps even his accomplices in crime 
 teach themselves, or are taught by him, to understand and 
 appreciate the meaning or significance of man's various modes 
 of expression. They understand, for instance, his 
 
 1. Conversation comments or remarks at least when 
 they themselves are spoken of. 
 
 2. Proper names of persons, places, and things, including 
 particularly their own names, the names of members of 
 human households, and of household goods. 
 
 3. Calls by voice or by various musical instruments. 
 
UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 347 
 
 4. Signals of eye, look, action, including those which 
 are called secret which are preconcerted by and between, 
 and understood only to, the animal and its master. 
 
 5. Hints verbal or other. 
 
 6. Instructions or directions, orders or commands, in- 
 cluding explanations and suggestions verbal or other. 
 
 7. Preparations for food, punishment, exercise, going to 
 church. 
 
 8. Games and sports. 
 
 9. Negatives and affirmatives refusal and permission 
 and the various modes of expressing them, including the 
 head-nod and shake. 
 
 10. Praise and blame, and their degrees, including en- 
 couragement, and the reverse reproach or condemnation. 
 
 11. Pleasure or gratification, and their opposites anger 
 or displeasure. 
 
 12. Esteem and contempt. 
 
 13. Tempers, moods, or humours. 
 
 14. Wishes, wants, or desires. 
 
 15. Intentions, designs, purposes, aims, objects, plans. 
 
 16. Invitations and proposals. 
 
 17. Promises. 
 
 18. Threats or menaces. 
 
 19. Oaths and abuse. 
 
 20. Irony, sarcasm, or sneers. 
 
 21. Fun and earnest pretence and reality. 
 
 22. News. 
 
 23. Emotions or feelings such as grief, pity, love. 
 There would even appear to be a certain kind or degree of 
 
 24. Divination or prescience of man's very thoughts even, 
 when unexpressed in any way, or at least not voluntarily 
 and consciously expressed. 
 
 Certain dogs form the most correct and shrewd guesses 
 at what man is thinking of or contemplating for instance, 
 when it refers to their probable or possible punishment for 
 misdemeanour. But in such cases the result depends no 
 doubt on keenness of observation, long experience, sagacious 
 reflection, rapid inference, with a vivid sense of guilt and of 
 personal interest in results. 
 
348 UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 That domestic animals know the meaning of the words, 
 or combinations thereof, embodied in man's orders is familiar, 
 as a matter of daily experience, to every master or mistress 
 of household pets, to every farmer and farm servant, ostler 
 and jockey, sportsman or huntsman, shepherd or ploughman, 
 carter or waggoner, cabdriver, coachman, or postilion, dog- 
 breaker and horse-trainer. Illustrations are abundant in 
 every farmyard, stable, or byre, on every country road, in 
 every town street, and in the homes, rich and poor, of the 
 great majority of the population of all civilised countries. 
 But notwithstanding the familiarity of the fact that the dog, 
 horse, ass, elephant, fowl, cattle, parrot, and hosts of other 
 animals understand, so as to obey, man's verbal commands, 
 there is reason to believe that little or no consideration is 
 given to the number and variety of the words and phrases 
 that are embodied in man's commonest orders to servant 
 animals. 
 
 In certain cases there may be a knowledge of the 
 meaning of each individual word used in man's conversa- 
 tion, but, more generally and probably, his dog gathers 
 only the general purport or scope of his remarks. 
 
 In either case not only is there a correct interpretation 
 of man's meaning, but the animal acts appropriately upon 
 its interpretation by obeying his commands, complying 
 with his requests, answering his queries, avoiding danger, 
 attending at meals, showing sympathy, or fear, or other 
 responsive emotions, supplying his wants, accepting his 
 invitations or promises, adopting his suggestions, and so on. 
 
 Nor is the dog the only animal which thus understands 
 man's language and is guided by it. The horse, cat, rein- 
 deer, elephant, sheep, cattle and goats, beaver, Barbary and 
 other apes, trained and other monkeys, orang and chim- 
 panzee, common seal, hedgehog, mouse, sea bear, dolphin, 
 various fish, falcon, Chinese ducks, Chinese fishing cormorants, 
 parrots, and other birds, and in general all tamed and 
 domestic animals, understand one or more of the modes by 
 which man expresses his ideas, wishes, or commands, as 
 well as these ideas, wishes or commands themselves, how- 
 ever expressed. All of them, for instance, understand his 
 
UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 349 
 
 various calls to them to attend food-supply, and many of 
 them know their own proper names. The military horse 
 knows the significance of the various drum and bugle calls, 
 and acts accordingly. The fireman's dog understands the 
 fire alarm, and its knowledge of the meaning of such a 
 signal leads on its part to the immediate and appropriate 
 action of awakening the fire brigade (Houzeau). 
 
 Many animals, moreover, not only understand man's 
 questions, but reply to them in various ways. The sea bear 
 of the London Zoological Gardens understands its keeper's 
 verbal language, and replies to his verbal questions by 
 various sounds and gestures. The performing dog picks 
 out certain cards containing, in printed letters, appropriate 
 replies to the verbal queries of its master, as if it had read 
 the printed answer before using it. 
 
 That form of man's language which is most generally 
 understood by the greatest diversity of genera and species 
 of other animals is probably his call, which is usually 
 associated, directly or indirectly, with food supply for the 
 day or shelter provision for the night. Not only, therefore, 
 is the call readily understood whether it is verbal or vocal, 
 by the aid of sonorous instruments or otherwise but it is 
 promptly obeyed. Even the mouse (' Animal World'), the 
 fishing cormorant of China (Fennel), and certain fish obey 
 man's summons by mouth, whistle or otherwise. 
 
 Many domestic animals know their own names the 
 names, that is, attached to them by man and by which he is 
 in the habit of calling them. Their own name is indeed 
 the first word usually to which a definite idea is attached, 
 whether by the child or young animal (Houzeau) . 
 
 This is therefore man's first lesson to both the bestowal 
 of a personal or distinctive appellation. Such animals as 
 the dog, horse, cat, and parrot, which live in more or less 
 intimate association with man, very soon come to learn 
 their own names, with their uses or applications by man. 
 Eastern sheep answer to their names or to the calls of their 
 shepherd, whose voice they distinguish from that of all 
 other men. Similar phenomena occur in Greece (Hartley). 
 This ordering or calling sheep by name is both an ancient 
 
350 UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 (Theocritus) and a modern (Wood) practice. Various fish 
 kept in pleasure-ponds in gentlemen's demesnes also know 
 their own master's voice or call, and sometimes even footfall 
 or footstep, from those of all other individuals. They attend 
 to the one and are indifferent to the other. The mention 
 of a dog's name in ordinary conversation is frequently 
 sufficient to rouse it at once from sleep (Houzeau) . It has 
 even been alleged that some dogs know man's names for 
 their own sex dog or bitch and associate the proper idea 
 with the said names or words (Houzeau). It is further of 
 interest to note that dogs and other animals answer to their 
 names when man's names are imitated by such birds as the 
 parrot and raven. These birds know individual dogs by 
 sight, and call them properly by their names, imitating man 
 so successfully as to deceive the higher animals (Low) 
 both man and dog. 
 
 The number of animals that know the names of the dif- 
 ferent members of a human household, and of the chief 
 articles of domestic use, is much more limited. This sort of 
 intelligence is not uncommon, however, in the dog ; and it 
 is occasionally exhibited even by the cat. Thus we are told 
 of a cat that knew the name of each member of a family, and 
 the particular seats of each at table. If asked where is 
 So-and-so then absent she would look at the vacant seat, 
 then at the speaker, and if told to fetch him or her, ' she 
 would trot upstairs, take the handle of the door between her 
 paws, put her mouth to the keyhole, mew and wait to be let 
 in,' to some particular room, containing the absentee (Clara 
 Rossiter) . 
 
 Certain dogs know not only when they are spoken to, but 
 when spoken of casually in the conversation of their masters 
 conversation sometimes experimentally intended but in 
 other cases as certainly not intended for dogs' ears. In both 
 cases the result has been the same as regards the prompt and 
 appropriate action of the animals. They are quite aware 
 when they become the subject of man's conversation (Wat- 
 son), and are naturally on such occasions all ear and atten- 
 tion, though the old adage too frequently holds good that 
 listeners unintended listeners, that is are apt to hear 
 
UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 351 
 
 nothing good about themselves. Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, 
 who studied so intelligently and lovingly the character, in- 
 tellectual and moral, of his companion and servant collies, 
 gives several striking illustrations of the correct interpre- 
 tation of their master's remarks made in conversation with 
 Iris wife, family, or friends. 
 
 ' If one calls out, for instance, that the cows are in the 
 corn or the hens in the garden, the house collie needs no 
 other hint, but runs and turns them out.' Hector, over- 
 hearing its master propose leaving it behind on a journey, 
 went off alone and in advance, meeting its master at his 
 destination. Sirrah, hearing him lament the loss of three 
 flocks of lambs, without order 'set off in quest of them, and 
 in the darkness of night collected the whole 700. Another 
 family dog (bitch), on overhearing the day of her master's 
 home-coming mentioned, never failed to go to meet him. 
 ' She could only know of his home-coining by hearing it men- 
 tioned in the family' (Macaulay). 
 
 Further illustrations are to be found in the numerous 
 cases of the sudden, temporary, or permanent disappearance 
 of sporting or other dogs that have accidentally uninten- 
 tionally as regards man overheard that 
 
 1. They were not to accompany a master or mistress to 
 church, to walk, or to sport ; 
 
 2. They were to be destroyed by shot, drowning, or 
 poison ; 
 
 3. They were to be punished for some misdemeanour 
 as well as in the shame shown by their retirement from 
 a room on hearing a discreditable anecdote of themselves 
 narrated (Scott). 
 
 The parrot, too, not only recognises its own name, both 
 when spoken of and spoken to, but it understands agreeable 
 or disagreeable, favourable or unfavourable, commendatory 
 or disparaging news or comments, communicated or made in 
 its presence (Houzeau). Like the dog, also, it appreciates 
 the significance of the tone of voice, the look, or the gesture 
 of its human visitors. 
 
 A single word uttered, and especially if emphatically so in 
 the course of man's conversation, from the train of associa- 
 
352 UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 tions it instantly awakens, sometimes produces an effect that 
 appears, by reason of its suddenness, almost magical. Thus 
 the mention of the mere word ' rat ' to a true, professional 
 rat-catching terrier sets it on the qui vive at once ; it becomes 
 on the instant all alive and alert, its tail vibrating with the 
 joys or excitements of anticipation. Again, of a certain 
 dog that very much disliked cooked fowl as an article of 
 dinner diet, its master writes, ' If we spoke of it in his hear- 
 ing we missed him for hours,' and it was subsequently found 
 that he went 011 such occasions for his dinner to the house of 
 some intimate friends of the family, who, when they saw 
 the dog, knew at once what the fare with us would be ' 
 ('Animal World'). 
 
 The dog becomes also a very keen and successful student 
 of man's physiognomy. It carefully scans or examines his 
 countenance in order to the detection of its earliest clouds 
 or sunshine. If it sees its master's face covered with 
 frowns, it infers anger and expects kicks an inference and 
 anticipation that lead it quietly to get out of the way. If, 
 on the other hand, it meets smiles or laughs, it greets its 
 master joyously in its own way, reflecting and reciprocating 
 his good humour. Should tears unexpectedly appear, it 
 offers sympathy and condolence in forms as eloquent and 
 unmistakable as man himself can use to brother man. In 
 coining by such means to a conclusion how far it has reason 
 to fear or to trust man, the dog is very much on a footing 
 with the child (Darwin). It may be said to read equally 
 well its master's smiles and frowns, laughter and tears, the 
 language of his eye, lips, and head-movements a reading 
 that implies a wonderfully just estimate of man's temper, 
 mood, or feeling. 
 
 ' Performing ' dogs, or other specially trained animals, 
 understand and act upon signs or signals from their masters, 
 which pass unnoticed by on-lookers. Thus smuggling dogs 
 understand the significance of man's danger signals; and ap- 
 propriate action follows in the form, for instance, of flight or 
 concealment (' Percy Anecdotes'). 
 
 Other intelligent dogs, such as the sheap-stealing collie 
 and the poodle, can be taught to execute man's secret orders, 
 
UNDEKSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 353 
 
 and so bamboozle or deceive on-lookers, or escape the obser- 
 vation of enemies or obstructives (' Percy Anecdotes ') . All 
 performing animals execute their performances mainly in 
 obedience to man's signs or orders, whether open and public, 
 understood by the audience and spectators or secret and 
 intelligible only to the performers and their trainer- 
 
 In some cases, however, in course of time there arises a 
 certain spontaneity of action in such performances ; for in- 
 stance, in the case of the beggar's dog that goes forth alone 
 in its master's service (Grenville Murray). Decoy elephants 
 obey a single word or sign from their keeper, including sig- 
 nals that are secret, in the sense that they are unobserved or 
 not understood by on-lookers (Watson). 
 
 But words as well as signs may be unintelligible to an 
 audience, and yet quite intelligible to and by a performing 
 animal and its master. For co-operation in theatrical and 
 other public performances the words of a foreign tongue are 
 sometimes quite as useful and quite as much employed as 
 non-vocal signs or signals of any kind. Hence the advan- 
 tage of a certain knowledge of foreign languages, especially 
 French and German, to certain horses and dogs and their 
 masters. 
 
 Frost tells us that ' circus horses are always spoken to in 
 the ring in French;' and he mentions one so addressed by New- 
 some, the circus proprietor, that at once understood his words 
 and acted upon his verbal hints or suggestions for instance, 
 in the discovery of a hidden handkerchief. Again, smug- 
 glers' dogs on the frontiers of France and Germany require 
 to know, and do know, both French and German (Watson) 
 that is to say, they acquire linguistic knowledge comparable 
 to the kind and amount thereof that a tourist must get up 
 in order to the supply of his physical wants and the prose- 
 cution of his object travel. 
 
 With or without words, sometimes simply from seeing 
 what man is doing, the dog and other animals arrive rapidly 
 at very correct conclusions as to his object or purpose, and 
 they co-operate, or make efforts at frustration, as a sense of 
 their own or of his interests may prompt. Sporting dogs un* 
 derstand their master's plan and purpose in shooting 
 
 VOL. I. A A 
 
354 UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 and they enter into the spirit of his sport. In the same way 
 other dogs enjoy man's games or children's romps, intelli- 
 gently taking their proper parts, and usually when they do 
 so take part, showing both to man and child excellent exam- 
 ples of good humour and control over their tempers, and of 
 not permitting jest to run into earnest. There is apprecia- 
 tion of man's object even in chickens, according to Houzeau. 
 
 The working elephant of India requires only to be shown 
 or told what man wants, has but to get a clear idea of man's 
 object in doing a certain work, and of the mode in which it 
 should be done, in order to execute the said work intelli- 
 gently. Its mahout or cornac otherwise keeper or driver 
 gives the necessary explanations in a mixed language, that 
 is quite intelligible to the animal, composed partly of words, 
 partly of gestures (Houzeau) . 
 
 We read, moreover, of dogs accepting man's verbal invi- 
 tations to dinner, and punctually keeping their engagements 
 (Pierquin), and of Barbary apes also begging or fishing for 
 invitations, just as children do (Cassell). 
 
 Ability to understand man's'language implies 
 
 1. A natural aptitude to learn it ; and 
 
 2. A special study of it. 
 
 And this aptitude and study, again, involve a high de- 
 gree of intelligence, the power of close and keen, long and 
 careful observation, the faculty of reflection, and ability to 
 draw inferences from the facts of observation. 
 
 Per contra, in order to the understanding ly man of ani- 
 mal language, a similar aptitude and study, similar mental 
 qualities are required. And just in proportion as he pos- 
 sesses such an aptitude, and devotes to the study in question 
 a similar amount of patience and perseverance, will be the 
 nature and degree of the knowledge of animal language 
 which he acquires. Observation, experience, practice, 
 lead man to read the meaning of the looks, gestures, cries, 
 or other forms of expression in the lower animals, just as 
 they do his. Belt could tell, from its cries and without see- 
 ing it, whether and when a certain tame cebus monkey was 
 hungry, eating, frightened, or menacing. The shepherd and 
 sportsman understand the language of their dogs. Man 
 
UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 355 
 
 accepts, by acting upon, the danger signal of the dog and 
 many other animals. According to De la Brosse, two West 
 African chimpanzees on a voyage, ' at table, when they 
 wanted anything .... easily made themselves understood 
 to the cabin boy.' The signal barks of their dogs, and the 
 significance of these various signals or barks, are known only 
 to the smuggler or brigand, or master, who has learned their 
 significance by careful study (Watson). 
 
 One of the results of this is that men and other animals 
 that study each other's language arrive, in course of time, afc 
 such a kind and degree of mutual understanding as is of im- 
 portance to both in their daily intercourse. For instance, 
 man on the one hand, and the dog, horse, elephant, monkey, 
 and, as a general rule, all ' performing' and domestic animals 
 on the other, have a common understanding, which again 
 involves what are really various forms of conversation, not 
 necessarily in either party by voice or by sound. Hogg 5 
 in one of his tales 6 A Shepherd's Wedding ' describes the 
 shepherd, accompanied by his two collies, at tea in a minis- 
 ter's manse parlour. ' He conversed with his dogs in the 
 same manner as he did with any of the other guests. Nor 
 did the former ever seem to misunderstand him, unless in his 
 unprecedented and illiberal attempt to expel them from the 
 company,' the two animals never before having lost sight of 
 their master, in-doors or out. 
 
 One of the many advantages of this mutual understand- 
 ing between a horse and its rider is that the animal, accus- 
 tomed to and fond of a particular master, learns to know the 
 meaning of his least movement of the inclination even of his 
 body and it acts accordingly, without word, whip, or spur. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was of opinion that the intercommunica- 
 tion of thought between man and the dog is capable of great 
 improvement, a belief in which I heartily share. The sub- 
 ject, however, belongs more properly to the chapters on 
 ' Education.' 
 
 The dog at least distinguishes between man's pretence 
 and reality, or seriousness, whether of intention or action 
 (Watson) ; it knows what is jest and what earnest. Not only 
 does it understand man's gestured threat, but by rapid re- 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 flection apparently it distinguishes that which can be 
 carried out from that which is impotent. And its conduct 
 is in accordance with its belief. For instance, when man 
 pretends to throw a stone at a dog in a locality where the 
 animal knows that there are no stones to be thrown, such a 
 locality as an Irish bog or a stretch of sandy coast it gives 
 itself no concern about the futile threat, does not get rapidly 
 out of man's range, as it would do under other circumstances 
 (Houzeau). 
 
ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 INSTANCES or illustrations are simply innumerable in the 
 lower animals of their power or faculty of adaptation to cir- 
 cumstances ; of accommodation to new, unforeseen, accidental, 
 unusual, or exceptional conditions ; of appropriateness of be- 
 haviour to time and place ; of the use of proper and the best 
 means to an end; of spontaneous modification of action. 
 This adaptability the range of which is as great as its cha- 
 racter is sometimes remarkable this determination of action, 
 by external conditions, which may readily be artificially pro- 
 duced for experimental purposes by man, implies or includes 
 the operation of a number of important mental qualities or 
 aptitudes, such as the following : 
 
 1. Ingenuity, contrivance, cleverness, or inventiveness in 
 device or design, in the variation of the means of accomplish^ 
 ing an object, including fertility of resource, which again 
 involves originality, both in conception and execution. 
 
 2. Definite purpose, object, aim with intention, delibera- 
 tion, firmness, resolution, perseverance, and force of will to 
 attain it. 
 
 3. Capability of surveying and comparing, one with 
 another, each of a series of diverse means, and of judging 
 and selecting the most suitable, 
 
358 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 4. Skill, dexterity, adroitness, expertness, address in em- 
 ploying or adapting means. 
 
 5. Profiting by experience ; the acquisition of knowledge 
 much of it experimental as has been pointed out in another 
 chapter. 
 
 6. Shaping a definite course or plan of action. 
 
 7. Seizure of opportunity, including vigilance and pa- 
 tience, watching and waiting for it, with discrimination in 
 judging of its suitability. 
 
 8. Use of strategy, involving cunning and artifice, or de- 
 ception. 
 
 9. Actuation by motive. 
 
 10. Caution and discretion. 
 
 11. Balancing of probabilities, implying thought or re- 
 flection, and frequently hesitancy or doubt. 
 
 12. Decision and courage, including promptitude in ac- 
 tion. 
 
 13. Self-possession and self-control. 
 
 14. Association of ideas. 
 
 15. Knowledge of the relation of cause and effect, in- 
 cluding an appreciation of consequences. 
 
 16. Knowledge and use of advantage, natural or artificial, 
 fair or unfair. 
 
 17. Providence, prudence, foresight including certain 
 kinds of forecasting future events or conditions. 
 
 18. Perception or feeling of necessity. 
 
 The adaptation of means to an end; the variation of these 
 means with the nature of the end, or with the difficulty of 
 attaining it; and the manifold mental qualities that are 
 called into operation by such adaptation and variation, are 
 all illustrated by the following common phenomena of animal 
 life or habit : 
 
 1. The capture and use of slaves or servants, or other 
 forms of subjection of the weak to the use of the strong. 
 
 2. The wars of certain animals whatever be their object 
 including the arrangements both for defence and attack. 
 
 3. The overcoming of obstacles or difficulties, whatever 
 be their nature. 
 
 4. The arrangements made for cleanliness, safety, and 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 359 
 
 salubrity of person or dwelling, including ventilation and 
 elevation, and the removal of refuse. 
 
 5. The obtaining and use of food. 
 
 6. The construction of dwellings, including the selection 
 of material. 
 
 7. The pursuit, capture, and disposal of prey. 
 
 8. Mutual assistance of all kinds. 
 
 9. Avoidance of disagreeables in work, duty, or other- 
 wise ; or of obstacles, enemies, or dangers. 
 
 10. Use of tools, instruments, or weapons natural and 
 artificial, including the use of baits and of money all as 
 pointed out in a special chapter thereanent. 
 
 11. Organisation in all its forms; also as discussed in a 
 special chapter. 
 
 12. Preservation of life, either of each other or of man. 
 
 1 3. Storage of food for future use. 
 
 14. The stoppage of runaway animals for instance, of 
 horses and ponies, by dogs. 
 
 15. Discovery of, and action in, fires of man's dwellings. 
 
 16. The modes of murder and revenge. 
 
 17. Repair of injury to dwellings or other works of con- 
 struction. 
 
 18. Taking selfish advantage of the labours of others. 
 
 19. Behaviour in emergency. 
 
 20. Correction of error as shown in the chapters on 
 < Error: 
 
 21. Discharge of duties, self-imposed or imposed by man, 
 including the economization of labour. 
 
 22. Means of attracting attention each other's or man's. 
 as pointed out in the chapters on c Language. 9 
 
 23. Perpetration and concealment of crime. 
 
 24. Destruction or concealment of instruments of punish- 
 ment, such as whips. 
 
 25. Arrangement of decorations to please taste, or to- 
 suit a special purpose, such as a nuptial assembly or cere- 
 mony. 
 
 26. The phenomena of charming, of making the best use 
 of their personal attractions. 
 
 27. Succouring the wounded. 
 
360 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 Among ants are to be found two distinct classes or kinds 
 of slaves, viz. 
 
 1. Slaves proper, equivalent to the helots of ancient 
 Greece, the negro slaves of the southern United States, of 
 Cuba or other West Indian islands or possessions, or those 
 that are still kidnapped and sold by the Portuguese in central 
 Africa slaves that are employed as body servants, minister- 
 ing to all the personal wants and comforts of their masters. 
 
 2. Domestic animals equivalent to our milk Jcine ani- 
 mals subjected to domestication for the sake of saccharine or 
 other fluids or substances they secrete, and of which ants in 
 particular are fond. 
 
 The relation of ant helots to their masters is much more 
 intimate than that of any human slaves usually is to their 
 owner ; for, in certain cases, not the comfort only, but the 
 very existence of the master depends on the service of the 
 slave. Sir John Lubbock tells us that certain slave-keeping 
 ants ' not only cannot clean themselves, but will die because 
 they cannot feed themselves, even when surrounded by the 
 best of food, if the slaves are not there to give it them.' 
 These slaves are indispensable then as nurses to their adult 
 masters ; but they act also as domestic servants, doing all the 
 ordinary household work of the ant-nest. 1 
 
 Of other animals domesticated by ants for the sake of 
 their useful products, the most familiar are Aphides, or plant 
 lice, which yield a much-prized honeydew. Ants own whole 
 ' flocks ' of these plant-lice, which they have subjected to as 
 true and as kindly a domestication as in the case of the 
 common cow by man. The Hypoclinea, a Nicaraguan ant, 
 milks leaf-hoppers, or scale insects, as well as Aphides. Cer- 
 tain other ants keep brown scale insects for the sake of their 
 honeylike secretion. To use Belt's expression, they ' farm ' 
 them, just as we do milch cows. These Aphides and scale in- 
 sects are made to exude their honeydew by stroking their 
 sides with the antennse of their masters, the sagacious ants. 
 Ants also feed beetles for the sake of their saccharine secre- 
 
 1 ' Daily Telegraph ' report and comments on his lecture on ants at the 
 Boyal Institution, London, in January 1877. 
 
GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS. 361 
 
 tions. According to Lubbock, 1 * some ants have small blind 
 beetles in their nests, kept there apparently as domestic 
 animals. A kind of small wood-louse also lives with them 
 on amicable terms, much as cats and dogs do with men.' 
 
 6 Aphides,' says Belt, ' are the principal ant*cows of Europe. 
 In the tropics their place is taken, in a great measure, by 
 species of Coceidce and genera of Homoptera, such as Membra- 
 cis and its allies.' At least four genera of ants in Nicaragua 
 keep scale insects as we do cows, these genera being Solen- 
 opsis, Pheidole, Pseudomyrma, and Hypoclinea. Solenopsis 
 builds domed galleries, or byres, for the protection of its insect 
 cattle, and otherwise tends them carefully (Belt). Baird, 
 again, mentions the use of Cercopidw as milk cattle by ants. 
 
 Slavery and domestication, however, are by no means the 
 only forms in which one animal is rendered subservient to 
 the convenience, use, or sport of another a younger or 
 weaker generally to an older and stronger individual. One 
 of the most signal, as well as amusing and instructive, 
 instances of direct subjection of one genus and species to the 
 stronger force of will, greater ingenuity and masterfulness 
 of another is the riding of dogs, horses, asses or pigs, by 
 baboons and other apes or monkeys (Cassell). A cat has 
 been known to make use of a dog's back to get ferried 
 across streams. 
 
 Bullyism petty tyranny is perhaps as common among 
 other animals as in man. Thus one determined horse some- 
 times bullies another (submissive) one into its service by 
 biting, teasing, nagging or driving ; that is to say, it exacts 
 a forced, unwilling, compulsory service.' 
 
 In various forms of usurpation certain animals take sel- 
 fish, unfair, and sometimes violent advantage of the labours 
 of others ; and to them are quite as applicable as to man 
 Virgil's lines, well known to every schoolboy, beginning 
 ( Sic vos non vobis.' 
 
 The wars of ants exhibit a number of interesting pheno- 
 mena, including 
 
 1. The use of reinforcements. 
 
 1 As reported in the ' Daily Telegraph ' in January 1877, 
 
362 GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 2. The construction and defence of fortresses, fortifica- 
 tions, camps and barricades. 
 
 3. The employment of tactics and manoeuvres, including 
 various forms of strategy or stratagem. 
 
 4. The use of surprise. 
 
 5. The posting and vigilance of sentinels. 
 
 6. The securing and proper use of vantage ground and 
 conditions. 
 
 7. The adoption of definite plans of action. 
 
 8. The use of telegraphy by signals, or other means of 
 conveying intelligence or expressing wants. 
 
 9. Taking precautions against surprise, and for retreat 
 or failure. 
 
 10. Artificial intimidation. 
 
 11. The perception and taking advantage of weak points 
 or posts in an enemy's body, mode of attack or position. 
 
 12. Public recognition of victory and defeat. 
 
 Black ants in the Mauritius send messengers with intelli- 
 gence, call up an army, procure reinforcements when and if 
 required, both army and reinforcements assembling at some 
 fixed rendezvous (Baker). In the case of these and other 
 ants, assistance is sent when asked for and where it is 
 wanted; there is obvious judgment as to both time and cir- 
 cumstance (Figuier). They concentrate or divide their forces 
 as occasion requires (Nichols). Their tactics or manoeuvres 
 include the regulation and change of route in their marches 
 (Kirby and Spence) ; the use of pitfalls, ambuscades, or other 
 means of entrapping an enemy ; the falling upon him when 
 off guard and unprepared in other words, taking him by 
 surprise ; the employment of feints, ruses, lures, or snares, 
 or of many of the forms of deception and cunning held 
 necessary or permissible in human warfare. 
 
 On the return of ants from a military or marauding expe- 
 dition, their slaves, who have remained at home, at once 
 recognise the signs of success or non-success, and act 
 accordingly. If their masters come back as conquerors, 
 they are received with flattery, compliment, and attentions; 
 the victors are relieved of their prisoners, offered food, and 
 otherwise respectfully waited on. But in the opposite 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 363 
 
 event of failure, of return as conquered instead of con- 
 querors, the reception is characterised by sulkiness and 
 indifference (Figuier). 
 
 In ants' wars there is a cessation of the fight at night 
 and a renewal of it at dawn (' Percy Anecdotes '). In their 
 marches the active, if necessary, drag the sluggish (Davies). 
 In their fights volunteers frequently make sacrifices for the 
 sake of the rest pro bono publico (Houzeau). Ants make, 
 moreover, special provision for extreme danger (Figuier). 
 
 As in man, courage has sometimes to be stimulated or 
 inspired in or for battle. This is occasionally done by the 
 female to the male by the physical operation of the vis a 
 tergo pushing from behind (Wallace). In other circum- 
 stances their industry, perseverance, patience, endurance, 
 energy, affections, require encouragement, enticing, induc- 
 ing, cajolery, or other arts of the one sex towards the other, 
 of the old to the young, or of companions to each other. 
 
 Ants construct defensive works; their 'hills' or nests have, 
 sometimes at least, masked doors and galleries (Figuier). 
 Even in peace times, moreover, as a measure of precaution 
 against intrusion or surprise, ants close their gates or doors at 
 night, and open them in the morning unless in the case of 
 rain (Darwin, Nichols, Figuier). Fortifications or barricades, 
 however, are not confined to ants nor to war times. Barri- 
 cading of the entrance to the comb is a well-known defensive 
 expedient of bees against the intrusion of the death's-head 
 moth (Kirby and Spence). Watson cites cases of magpies 
 doing the same against other birds. Certain birds fortify or 
 protect their nests with prickly shrubs. 
 
 Strategy is not confined to ants nor to war. On the 
 contrary, it is commonly exemplified in a great variety of 
 animals, and in reference to the capture of prey or booty. 
 Indeed, we need go no further for ample and striking illus- 
 trations than to our domestic cats and dogs in their pilf erings 
 from our larders or dinner tables. In them and other ani- 
 mals strategy sometimes involves diplomacy, and diplomacy, 
 hypocrisy all of a kind that would do credit, or discredit as 
 it may be viewed, to human courtiers and statesmen and 
 all, moreover, as pointed out in the chapter on ' Deception. 9 
 
364 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 A commoner form, however, is that illustrated in such means 
 of prey-capture as the following on the part of an astute 
 American wasp, a dirt-dauber or builder. Desirous of cap- 
 turing a doodlebug beetle that was beyond its reach in the 
 bottom of its hole, the wasp tried the earth all about the 
 mouth of the said hole so as to obtain the driest, selected it, 
 scratching with its forefeet so as to throw the dust into the 
 hole, which it gradually filled, peeping down now and then 
 to see the result of its operations. The natural result was 
 that the poor beetle was driven to clamber upwards, till at 
 last he poked his head, blinded by dust, above ground, when 
 he was at once seized by his sagacious enemy. There are 
 other cases in which, in order to blind an enemy, dust is 
 literally, as well as figuratively, thrown into its eyes (Bro- 
 derip). The Barbary ape, for instance, literally flings dust 
 in the eyes of its human or other foes (Watson) ; and there 
 are cases in which sagacious animals, such as the elephant, 
 for other purposes, such as self-extrication, or the extri- 
 cation of other animals, from wells or pitfalls, have resorted 
 to the serviceable and suitable expedient of gradually filling 
 up the cavity, of whatever character, by some solid material, 
 such as branches of trees or hurdles. 
 
 Different animals have different means of rousing each 
 other, or their masters, into alertness for instance, from 
 the sleeping state. Ant-watchmen awaken sleepers in the 
 morning by strokes with their antennae, or by bites if neces- 
 sary (Huber). Certain birds, again, rouse their sleeping 
 masters by pulling their hair or nightcap, or pinching the 
 ear ('Animal World'). A dog that had discovered a fire in 
 its master's premises gave alarm by jumping upon the beds 
 occupied by the master and his family, licking their faces to 
 arouse the sleepers. Where this failed in one case, it seized 
 a boy's ear with its teeth, and shook or pulled it forcibly till 
 the boy awoke. Then it conducted those who got up to the 
 scene of the incipient conflagration ('Animal World '). A 
 regimental dog, during the Crimean war, visited the sentries 
 at night. If they were asleep, he would quietly watch and 
 wait beside them, apprising them instantly of any threatened 
 danger ; while if they were awake and on the alert he passed 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVE NESS. 365 
 
 on to the next (' Chambers's Journal'). The various many 
 of them ingenious modes in which dogs, cats, and other 
 animals attract man's attention are described in the chapters 
 on ' Language.' 
 
 In all kinds of rivalry it is common for animals to seize 
 any natural advantage over an adversary ; such as the inci- 
 dence of light, or the favouring character of ground. This 
 is a sort of fair or legitimate advantage recognised in all the 
 rivalries of man. Thus Wynter tells us of a rat taking 
 advantage of light in a fight with a ferret, and its proving 
 successful in the fight so long as it held its well-selected 
 position. Zincke refers to the choice by ' a cat, when at- 
 tacked by a dog, of the best position for defence the locality 
 offers.' Spiders and scorpions, and many other animals, 
 * take up advantageous positions where they expect prey to 
 pass' (Belt). Small birds chase the owl by daylight for 
 sport (Watson), knowing how feeble is its power of day 
 vision, and how helpless it is thereby rendered. One of the 
 commonest forms of taking advantage is making use of a 
 victim's helplessness by injury, sickness, or otherwise. And 
 this sort of advantage is taken of man himself when ill, 
 disabled, wounded, dying. Moreover, so thoroughly do 
 certain birds and other animals realise their own power of 
 torment, assault, or prey in proportion to the powerlessness of 
 an enemy, that their boldness is proportioned to the help- 
 lessness, real or supposed, of their victim. 
 
 Another kind of advantage, of which dogs and other 
 animals are fully sensible, is that of man's protection. Hence 
 they dare and do things under his auspices, or in his presence 
 or house, which they would never venture upon alone. They 
 may even presume upon such protection or patronage by acts 
 of impotent and impudent defiance or insult. The sense of 
 the protection or power of numbers, of union, of co-operation 
 and organisation, gives the same feeling of power, and im- 
 parts the same kind of courage ; so that an Eastern dog, in 
 its own territory, among its own fellows, who will rush to its 
 aid at once in case of attack, barks its defiance or utters its 
 threats with a confidence that would be absent were it alone. 
 
 The importance of taking an enemy at unawares, when 
 
366 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 off guard, not expecting, and unprepared therefore for, 
 intrusion or attack, is recognised by many animals, including 
 bees and ants (Figuier) and the weasel (Baird). The pisoti 
 tries to surprise the iguana while the latter is asleep (Belt). 
 
 Modes of ordinary defence against the attacks of enemies 
 include a variety of efficient means of protection, involving 
 usually organisation and co-operation in a common purpose. 
 Thus musk oxen, if surprised either in family or as a herd, 
 * form a square, the young ones being in the centre and the 
 old outside with their heads down ; or else the bull, placed 
 as a sentinel, takes to flight and the others closely follow, 
 the placing of their outposts being astonishing ' (Payer and 
 Oopeland). Cows protect their young by forming a circle 
 round them, while cattle, as well as fowls and turkeys, sur- 
 round the wolf or other enemies in a circle (Pierquin). 
 
 Illustrations of ingenious ruses in the capture of prey, in 
 the punishment of offenders, in the shirking of disagreeable 
 duty, are innumerable. A crane in the Zoological Gardens, 
 London, being annoyed while feeding by a pertinacious 
 sparrow, at length pretended indifference ; but when the 
 tormentor came within range in order to steal a share of the 
 crane's food, the latter bird stuck its beak into the sparrow, 
 intending to kill it. Failing in this, however, and then deli- 
 berating how to dispose of its victim, the crane thrust it 
 under water in a tank, and it was saved from drowning only 
 by one of the keepers (' Animal World '). 
 
 This incident, again, is a type of others that are of 
 frequent occurrence, relating on the one hand to pretended 
 unconsciousness, helplessness, or apathy, and on the other to 
 the various forms of deliberate murder forms suited to place, 
 time, and other circumstances. ' Science Gossip ' tells us of 
 a magpie pulling a cat's tail to divert it from its food, and 
 similar stories, no doubt true, are told of monkeys, ravens, 
 crows, and other animals that are equally mischievous, 
 ingenious, and designing. The Mcaraguan alligator lies 
 quite still on river banks, as if dead, so as to catch animals 
 that unsuspectingly approach it. To catch waterfowl it 
 floats like a log on the water, with only that part of its head 
 containing its eyes above the surface, furtively watching its 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 367 
 
 prey. When it approaches the birds, having estimated their 
 exact position and distance, it wholly submerges itself quietly, 
 comes up under the unwary prey, and drags them by the 
 legs under water. It is also said to kill wild pigs by half 
 burying itself in the ground in the forests on the same river- 
 banks (Belt). 
 
 The construction of nests or other forms of dwelling 
 affords in relation to site and material, for instance many 
 illustrations of adaptiveness. As to site or position, it has 
 first to be noted that water-hens and swans raise the level of 
 their nests with the rising of the water of ponds or lakes, of 
 streams or rivers, in flood, constructing pillars for them 
 (Watson). 
 
 Various birds expose their nests or their openings to the 
 sun, and shelter them from the wind, or they seek the shade, 
 avoiding the sun, according to climate. In other words, they 
 select a proper locality as to exposure or shelter (Houzeau)- 
 They sometimes provide double openings, for egress as well 
 as access, using the former in case of intrusion or sur- 
 prise by enemies. Watson mentions a wren opening a new 
 entrance to its nest simply to escape publicity or notice. 
 As to size, the beaver, for instance, adapts the size of its 
 private dwelling to the increase of its family (Watson, 
 6 Percy Anecdotes '). 
 
 The selection of material for nest building is even more 
 apparent. In general terms it may be said that many, if 
 not most, birds make choice of that material which is at 
 once most accessible and most suitable, including manufac- 
 tured material of man's. Thus in the southern United 
 States, in the weaving or lining of their nests, birds make 
 appropriate use of ' vegetable hair ' the Tillandsia usneoides 
 of botanists. On the other hand, Mr. Schwendler of the 
 telegraph department of India, in a communication to the 
 Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1874, describes crows' nests as 
 made of fragments of thin telegraph wire, or (in one case) 
 of the wire used in corking soda-water bottles; and he 
 contrasts the ingenuity or sagacity of the bird with the 
 mental status of the human natives 'who, in the con- 
 struction and arrangement of their houses, had not ad- 
 
368 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 vanced much by the introduction of western civilisation.' 
 Some birds give up the use of moss in favour of wool in 
 nest-making or lining. The yellow-hammer uses man's 
 thready twine, and ribbon in the attachment of its nest 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 Wasps, in their nest-making, have been known to make 
 use of coloured paper shavings covering certain strawberry 
 beds in a garden, reducing them to pulp secundum artem. The 
 observer describes the regularity of the undulating lines of 
 colour which were carried round and round the cannon-ball- 
 like nest that was suspended to the branch of an apple tree. 1 
 The President of the Entomological Society of London, 
 in February 1875, exhibited a nest of Pollistes gallica, a wasp 
 caught on the Esplanade at Corfu, of which nest the cells 
 were partly constructed of coloured paper taken from some 
 posted play-bills ('Nature'). In these two cases the colour 
 of the paper may have partly been an attraction. 
 
 Some leaf-cutting ants ventilate their underground gal- 
 leried dwellings, regulating their atmosphere both as to 
 temperature and moisture by opening or closing certain 
 apertures, and by taking care that the fragments of leaves 
 which they carry into these chambers are neither too dry 
 nor too damp (Belt). The same ants tunnel under, so as 
 to avoid crossing over, the rails of a tramway, making fresh 
 tunnels when the old ones are intentionally stopped up. 
 Certain African ants construct chimneys or air-shafts for 
 their nests in case of floods, the shaft opening above the 
 high- water level. 
 
 The repair of injury in works of construction involves, 
 inter alia, perception of weakness, and of the necessity of 
 remedying it by greater strength, while it calls forth energy 
 as well as unanimity in co-operation. Drone or other bees 
 consolidate or prop up a tottering comb by the construction 
 of buttresses, pillars, or other supports, as has frequently 
 been proved in experiments made by Huber or others with a 
 view to test their sagacity in this respect ; or they fasten 
 weak combs more securely. In other words, they erect tem- 
 
 1 < Glasgow Weekly Herald,' January 13, 1875. 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 309 
 
 porary scaffolding (Watson), just as man does, and only in 
 mi urgency when it is required. 
 
 On the other hand, some of the higher animals, per- 
 ceiving man's object, either prevent his repairs for instance, 
 of fences or destroy them as rapidly as they are made. There 
 is sometimes systematic undoing of his work for instance, 
 in trap making and setting (Houzeau). 
 
 Many of the arrangements connected with the collection, 
 preservation, and use of food illustrate a thoughtful adapta- 
 tion of means to ends an adaptation frequently the result 
 of repeated experiment and as frequent failure. As concerns 
 the gathering of food, various insects perforate the corollas 
 of flowers in order expeditiously to get at the honey they 
 contain. In the case of bees with certain ericas or Cape 
 heaths in our greenhouses, the tubular corolla c being too 
 long and narrow for admitting the body, and too deep for 
 the proboscis to reach the base, where the honey is placed, 
 they pierce the tube of the corolla from the exterior, and 
 thus procure the honey with ease' (Moore). Bees make a 
 hole at the base of the corolla of Antirrhinum majus in order 
 to get at the honey without entering the tube of the flower 
 (Mrs. Plarr), and certain honey bees do the same in the 
 French bean and scarlet-runner (Lubbock). 
 
 The same boring of holes in flower-tubes by humble bees 
 has been noticed in America by Meehan ; and what is of 
 greater interest, as illustrating how ready animals even far 
 down in the zoological scale are to take advantage of ready- 
 made means to ends, the hive bee uses the orifices so made by 
 the humble bee in nectar extraction from flowers (Darwin). 
 The glutton sometimes contrives to secure the bait, without 
 itself being entrapped, by undermining, attacking from be- 
 hind, or other means of destroying the action of the trap or 
 of detaching the bait. The black bear breaks off branches 
 from trees, and throws them on the ground in order to 
 collect at leisure the nuts they bear, sometimes partially 
 gnawing a branch, as a man would perhaps saw it, for its 
 easier breakage (Houzeau). The mother black bear of 
 North America hauls or pushes aside timber logs in order 
 that its cubs may obtain the grubs or larvae that harbour 
 
 VOL. I. BE 
 
370 GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 themselves underneath (Gillmore). Hens wait and watch 
 patiently the splitting up of firewood for the sake of the 
 embedded larvse (Houzeau). A bear in Asia Minor, accord- 
 ing to Dr. van Lennep, found access to a flock of sheep 
 penned in a stable by descending the chimney. After killing 
 several and gorging himself, c he piled their bodies in the 
 wide fireplace, and climbing thereon escaped unperceived.' 
 
 Much contrivance is expended on the obtaining access 
 to or procuring of food. A siskin belonging to a friend, and 
 the performances of which I have myself seen, pulls up 
 on a wheel and axle a thimble-full of seed that it cannot 
 otherwise reach and tilts it up, when the last seeds are 
 left, so as to capsize them on the floor of the cage. In this 
 case there was no tuition of the bird. No doubt pulley and 
 thimble, with its supply of coveted provender, are provided. 
 But the bird has taught itself to use the pulley and get at 
 the seeds in its own way, and in the proper way the way 
 that man himself, if intelligent, would choose under com- 
 parable circumstances. As the result of its own reflection 
 probably as the result also of experiment the sagacious 
 bird devised the appropriate means for the given end. 
 
 Again, a wood-pigeon helped itself and a companion to 
 food from a pheasant's feeding-box by both of them sitting 
 on the lid, so as to open it by their joint weight. One 
 had tried it but failed, its single weight being insufficient. 
 Judging it, however, a mere question of weight, the aid of 
 another individual was asked and obtained. The first comer 
 must have ascertained for itself the c trick ' of the box the 
 means by which it was, or might be, opened and it over- 
 came the difficulty of insufficient weight by resorting to 
 co-operation. 
 
 One of the most ingenious and effective means of pro- 
 curing food-supply is the ringing of bells for it by the goat, 
 dog, cat, or other animals (Watson), an expedient that has 
 frequently also as its object access to a house or room. 
 A cat belonging to Archbishop Whately's mother was in the 
 habit of ringing the parlour bell ' whenever it wished the 
 door to be opened' (Macaulay). 
 
 Various animals stupify, without killing, their prey, in 
 
GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS. 371 
 
 order that it may be quietly conveyed away as a source of 
 food-supply to themselves or their young. This stupefaction 
 is usually produced by some sort of stinging or poisoning, by 
 the injection into some part of the body of the victim of 
 some fluid having narcotising or paralysing properties, the 
 result being helplessness and harinlessness in the victim. 
 
 Certain ants of Nicaragua c use their stings to paralyse 
 their prey.' A bug there also probably kills much larger 
 and more powerful animals than itself for instance, a cock- 
 chafer by injecting a stupifying poison while its victim is 
 asleep. ' Other species of bug certainly inject poisonous 
 fluids.' Nicaraguan wasps also benumb by stinging, so as to 
 render them quiescent and removable to their nests, various 
 spiders, grasshoppers, or horse-flies, storing them away 
 while still alive for their grubs to feed on (Belt). An 
 African sphex, another insect, makes holes in the ground, 
 and places in them stupified insects along with her own 
 eggs ; while another species watches this operation, and 
 when this provident mother leaves in quest of more pro- 
 vender, lays her alien eggs in the hole (Livingstone), just as 
 the cuckoo does in reference to the eggs and nests of many 
 other birds. 
 
 The storage, burial, or concealment of food for future use 
 by themselves, their eggs, or young, implies in many cases 
 its proper preparation or preteryation for storage. The Alpine 
 hare of Mongolia lays in ' a store of hay for winter use, 
 stacking it at the entrance of its home. The hay is collected 
 towards the end of summer, carefully dried, and made into 
 little stacks. . . . This [hay] serves for its couch under- 
 ground and for food during the winter' (Prejevalsky). This 
 careful drying of damp fodder is frequently required prior to 
 its storage. 
 
 Certain leaf-cutting ants, if a shower wet their leaf 
 burdens, leave them outside to dry. When properly dried 
 by the first sunshine they are carried into the nest, but 
 if sodden they are left to rot outside (Belt). So-called 
 ' harvesting ' ants air or sun damp grain, so as to dry it, at 
 proper periods or under appropriate circumstances, storing 
 it in granaries (Houzeau, Sykes), removing husks and 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 refuse. Not only so, but by some suitable means they prevent 
 the germination of stored seeds. This is usually supposed to 
 be by their biting off the germinating ends (Watson). 
 Wallace suggests that they do so simply by ' continually 
 using for food those seeds which begin to germinate, and 
 that there always remain many seeds whose germination is 
 delayed.' But whatever be the means adopted, we know 
 what the end accomplished is. Certain harvesting ants also 
 climb up the stems of shepherd's-purse, bite off the capsule, 
 take out the seeds, transport, accumulate, and store them 
 (Moggridge). 
 
 Many animals make caches of surplus food, of what 
 remains after all the present calls of hunger have been 
 satisfied ; the surplus being buried or concealed sometimes in 
 holes scraped in the earth, and again ingeniously covered up 
 so as not to attract notice, or under rocks and stones. The 
 carrion crow removes the refuse of fishermen's nets by por- 
 tions to above highwater mark, depositing them under rocks 
 and stones (Montagu). The burial of food in order that it 
 may become ' high ' is said to be characteristic of the 
 retriever breed of dogs (' Nature ') . But in other cases, 
 though buried or concealed food may become tainted or 
 putrid in the course of time before it is consumed, it is no 
 part of the animal's object in hiding or storing it that it 
 should become so. 
 
 Certain animals have to dismember their prey or tear up 
 their food in order to its transport or consumption. Certain 
 shrikes impale or transfix their prey on thorns in order to 
 pull them to pieces ; in confine meiit using a nail for the 
 same purpose if it be provided by man or is accidentally 
 accessible (Montagu). Foraging ants cut their prey to 
 pieces for convenience of carriage (Belt). 
 
 The modes of administering food to, or of feeding, the 
 young, sick, aged, or helpless, involve a number of deliberate 
 processes ; such as 
 
 1. Crushing or soaking hard substances. 
 
 2. Masticating them ; and 
 
 3. Putting the bolus down the throat. 
 
 Colnett, in his ' Voyage to the South Seas,' says that he 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVEXESS. 373 
 
 observed an old bird in the act of supplying three young 
 ones with drink by squeezing the [juice of] the berry of a 
 tree into their mouths (Jesse) . Houzeau tells us of a duck 
 soaking hard bread in water, and so softening it. 
 
 As regards the capture of prey, certain animals drive their 
 game, just as man does, in some cases into pitfalls or am- 
 buscades. The porpoise drives its prey as packs of dogs do 
 the hare in coursing (Baird), or as the collie does sheep; arid 
 the wolf, pelican, and other animals do the same. 
 
 The somewhat common phenomenon of dogs stopping 
 ruiiaivay horses or ponies on our streets or roads illustrates, 
 inter alia 
 
 1 . The wonderful control exercised sometimes by a small 
 animal over a large one by virtue of its superior intelligence, 
 courage, and force of will ; the supremacy, in other words, 
 of mental or moral over mere physical strength ; and 
 
 2. The recognition of the rights of property or ownership 
 for the captor at once gives up the reins it holds between 
 its teeth to the proper driver or rider of the runaway. 
 
 The 'Animal World' gives the case of a retriever a cer- 
 tain Jack, well known in Glasgow that stopped a runaway 
 pony in the usual way. The pony was harnessed in, and 
 had run off with, a spring cart belonging to the gamekeeper 
 at Kilmaronock, Dumbartonshire. Pursuing the runaway, 
 the said gamekeeper saw the pony suddenly drawn up, and 
 on overtaking it c found the dog standing on his hind legs, 
 with a firm hold of the reins in his mouth, and keeping the 
 horse at a dead stand.' He at once, it is added, ' civilly gave 
 up the reins to the proper driver.' 
 
 Another case is given in which the dog acted as a groom, 
 leading the runaway horse by the bridle ('Animal World'). 
 In like sagacious manner dogs have been known to stop the 
 drifting away of boats, and even to tow back drifting boats. 
 Thus we are told of a Labrador dog that swam after a boat 
 that had got adrift, and without any sort of direction from 
 man seized the tiller rope, that was dragging in the water, 
 and by its means towed the boat ashore against a breeze- 
 ripple. 
 
 A certain small ant in Africa masters a much larger 
 
374 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 common fly by simply tiring it out by its greater pertinacity. 
 6 By seizing a wing or leg, and holding on till the fly is tired 
 out' (Livingstone), it overcomes superior size and strength 
 another illustration of the fact that in other animals, as in 
 man, there is frequently a dominance of mind over matter in 
 the practical affairs of life that c knowledge is power,' and 
 can be applied as such. 
 
 Various animals afford aid to each other when wounded, 
 or otherwise in need of it, in a great variety of appropriate 
 ways. Thus certain sparrows that failed, by seizing its 
 wings with their bills, to lift a wounded companion, so as to 
 convey it to a position of safety, got a twig, and while the 
 maimed bird took hold of its centre by its bill, two of its 
 companions seized, one each of the ends, so raised the help- 
 less sparrow from the ground, and removed it to a safer place 
 ('Animal World 5 ). 
 
 Many other arrangements for mutual advantage or aid 
 involve adaptiveness. Thus titi monkeys cuddle together as 
 children do for mutual warmth and companionship (Cas- 
 sell), and mice, as well as probably many other animals, 
 creep together for mutual heat. Mice, moreover, clean each 
 other's fur. 
 
 Equally ingenious and successful are the means adopted 
 frequently for their own personal advantage or comfort for 
 instance, in easing themselves of their burdens, or of light- 
 ening them when they cannot throw them off. The expe- 
 dients of the horse, ass, and mule to get rid of a rider arc 
 too familiar incidents to require more than reference. But 
 there are endless other instances of similarly effective inge- 
 nuity. Thus mules lighten their burdens by soaking them 
 in water when they have reason to believe they consist of 
 substances such as sugar or salt that will dissolve readily 
 in water, distinguishing such substances from others such 
 as cotton or woollen goods that will become more weighty 
 by the absorption and retention of water (Watson). 
 
 This category includes the devices resorted to for the 
 preventing of irritation or galling of the neck or other special 
 parts of the body, or general inconvenience from chains or 
 collars, in the ape, dog, buffalo, raven, and other animals 
 
GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 375 
 
 (Watson). An orang carried its chain by coiling it and 
 throwing it over its shoulder, as man would have done, or 
 by suspending it from its mouth, holding it in its teeth 
 (Cassell). 
 
 We might go on to any extent multiplying and varying 
 such illustrations of adaptiveness in the lower animals ; but 
 instances are to be found in almost every chapter of this 
 book, and further detail here is unnecessary and undesirable. 
 It is desirable, however, to call attention to the evidences 
 of judgment, of calm and deliberate reflection, or of rapid 
 thought and equally rapid decision that everywhere present 
 themselves. 
 
 Such an evidence is the hesitancy so frequently shown in 
 determining on a course of action, the animal being obviously 
 puzzled or bewildered, on the one hand, as to the nature or 
 amount of danger, and on the other, as to the best means of 
 avoiding it. In the dog especially irresolution may fre- 
 quently be noticed ; the animal is obviously ' of two minds ; ' 
 it cannot for or at the moment come to a decision 'make up 
 its mind ' in one direction or another ; it is weighing, per- 
 haps, its fears and hopes, likes and dislikes, and it has not 
 yet determined the preferable or proper course of action. 
 Dogs may often be seen pausing for reflection, for a consider- 
 ation or contemplation of ways and means ; for deliberation, 
 for instance, at the bifurcation of a road which of its two 
 branches should be followed. Elephants, too, ponder over 
 the best means of doing their work before arriving at a deci- 
 sion ( Animal World '). Such hesitation or doubt involves a 
 comparison of different means in relation to their adaptability 
 to compass a given end. 
 
 Another important evidence is to be found in animals 
 usually obedient to man such as sporting dogs venturing 
 sometimes to think and act for themselves, using their own 
 discretion instead of obeying orders, or acting according to 
 use and wont ; even setting up their own judgment in op- 
 position to that of their master, and acting upon their own 
 judgment in other words, independently of him. And it is 
 further noteworthy that in such cases, as in so many others, 
 the lower animals frequently show their superior intelligence, 
 
376 GENEliAL ADAPT1VENESS. 
 
 and when they have a sensible, liberal-minded master, they 
 reap the fruit of their superiority by his commendation for 
 their acting, under exceptional circumstances, on their own 
 discretion and for the best. 
 
 Berkeley tells us of one of his dogs, a certain Smoker, 
 going to fetch a shot pheasant which happened to fall among 
 a lot of unflushed birds. After advancing a certain distance, 
 it stopped short and returned, deeming it better not to put 
 up the living birds. Another dog Wolf being ordered 
 to drive rabbits out of the shrubbery, declined because it 
 proved to contain a covey of young pheasants. 
 
 Under other circumstances the dog, while adopting man's 
 suggestions, supersedes them by its own if it finds or thinks 
 its own better (Nichols), Though, as a rule, in the many 
 cases in which other animals co-operate with man, his 
 animal accomplice shows an unquestioning acquiescence in 
 his arrangements, this is by no means always the case ; for 
 it sometimes not only most emphatically but most success- 
 fully protests against both them and him, and, in short, takes 
 its own way or refuses all co-operation. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 THE power and practice of organisation among the lower 
 animals includes a whole series of phenomena of the highest 
 interest phenomena that involve the possession and applica- 
 tion, or exhibition, of the highest mental and moral faculties. 
 Such phenomena are 
 
 1. Forms of government. 
 
 2. Kespect for, and submission or obedience to, consti- 
 tuted authority. 
 
 3. The supremacy of strength, bodily or mental, or both 
 conjoined, including the perception, recognition, and appre- 
 ciation of superiority. 
 
 4. Union, combination, co-operation, concerted action for 
 specific purposes, including compacts or agreements, and alli- 
 ances or associations, offensive, defensive, or otherwise. 
 
 5. Division of labour, including taking turn in duty or 
 playing parts in a performance. 
 
 6. Method, order or orderliness, regularity or system, in- 
 cluding the classification of ranks, castes or clans in society ; 
 with promotion and deposition. 
 
 7. The force of discipline. 
 
 Writers on the habits of the lower animals have described 
 various systems of government as existing among them, in- 
 cluding the following : 
 
 1. The monarchical. Among certain animals there are 
 kings and queens, with all the paraphernalia of royalty, such 
 as 
 
 cu Eoyal chambers or apartments. 
 
378 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 b. Royal body-guard. 
 
 These kings and queens obviously vary in their status and 
 functions, as illustrated by the very different positions occu- 
 pied by 
 
 1. The king of the quails, of vultures, of herrings 
 
 (Houzeau, Watson). 
 
 2. The king and queen of certain Termites (Buchner). 
 
 3. Queen bees (Huber, Figuier) . 
 
 The influence of the queen bee is in many respects a re- 
 markable one. She leads or directs her subjects (Huber) 
 just as other and male chiefs do their flocks or herds. Her 
 absence or sterility leads to anarchy in the populace, to a 
 general dissolution of society, marked by the loss of all 
 activity, physical and mental, by hopelessness, the want of 
 courage or spirit, the development of theft and rapine in 
 general terms, by utter demoralisation. Her disappearance, 
 too, causes general emotion and commotion, aimless running 
 about, idleness and apathy in short, a kind of mental de- 
 rangement for the time. The effect on her subjects is para- 
 lysing. Experimental excitement and calm, may be produced 
 at will by removing and replacing her. Joy and satisfac- 
 tion, moreover, are produced by the receipt of a new queen. 
 All this arises from the presence or absence of what Figuier 
 calls ' a moral tie.' Just as among male leaders, rival bee 
 queens contend for supremacy ; their fights are characterised 
 by great rage, animosity, fury or ferocity, are accompanied 
 by general agitation or tumult in the bee community, and 
 end in the reign of the victor (Huber). 
 
 This government of bees by a queen is one of the most 
 striking instances among the lower animals of female supre- 
 macy. But it is not the only one. Figuier describes the 
 queen bee as president of a republic, with female vice-presi- 
 dents ; and there are also among bees and ants amazons, 
 female troops or soldiers (Westvvood). According to Combe 
 there are exceptional cases as in goats- where the leader 
 of a flock or herd is a female. 
 
 Certain Termites, says Buchner, ' have a perfectly organ- 
 ised state, with king, queen,' and other ranks in society, and 
 an elaborately constructed building for their residence. ' In 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 379 
 
 its interior is situated a so-called royal residence, with cham- 
 bers and galleries around for the attendants.' 
 
 2. The republican. Kepublics have been described in the 
 ant and bee (Figuier), in horses, dogs, and other animals. The 
 commomvealths of the street dogs of Constantinople, with their 
 curious regulations, have been described quite recently by the 
 ' Times ' correspondent there, 1 as they have also formed the 
 subject of remark by Watson and other writers. Communities 
 or societies of wasps live on terms of equality ; they are free 
 citizens of free cities, with no paupers ; there are no despots 
 and no despotism, according to Westwood and Figuier. But 
 the same form of government, which by one observer or writer 
 is termed a monarchy, with a king or queen at its head, is by 
 another described as a republic, with a male or female presi- 
 dent. It is quite immaterial how we speak of this or that 
 system of polity in this or that genus or species of animals. 
 The essential feature one of importance in many ways is 
 the government of a community or society, of a band or troop, 
 Hock or herd, family or other group of individuals, species or 
 genera, large or small, by a leader or chief. 
 
 The consideration of this form of government embraces 
 the following features of interest : 
 
 1. The principle of selection, and election or appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 2. Competition and ambition for rule and their results. 
 
 8. The subjection of the weak to the strong in body, mind, 
 
 4. The use and abuse of authority, including the power of 
 command. 
 
 5. The appreciation of insignia of office or status. 
 
 6. The value attached to the possession of power and 
 place. 
 
 In various forms leaders, governors, chiefs, commanders, 
 patriarchs, masters, rulers, or heads, are to be found in many 
 social animals, directing and defending the groups into which 
 they are divided. They occur, for instance, among or in wild, 
 military, and pack horses, Eskimo dog teams, bands of 
 smuggling dogs or of dogs in Eastern towns, such as Con- 
 
 1 During the Servo-Turkish war in January 187G. 
 
380 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 stantinople, camels, deer, oxen, mules, sheep, elephants,, 
 buffalo, ass, kangaroo, goats, certain of the Quadrumana 
 (such as the siamaiig gorilla, spider, howling, araguata, gue- 
 reza, and other monkeys), cranes, swallows, cocks and hens. 
 These leaders are, as a general rule, males of middle age, 
 sometimes elderly or old, possessing the following qualifica- 
 tions for office : 
 
 1. Physical superiority; they are usually or frequently 
 above the average in size and strength, being vigorous, ro- 
 bust, active, agile animals, that have proved themselves 
 successful in combat and otherwise. 
 
 2. Mental superiority. They are distinguished, more- 
 over, for their courage, cautiousness, sagacity, power of com- 
 mand, ability to act in emergency, so as to protect, defend, or 
 direct their followers ; for their experience ; special know- 
 ledge of enemies or of ground ; power of self-control, espe- 
 cially of control of temper; interest in the common weal; 
 enterprise ; ingenuity and perseverance in the overcoming of 
 difficulties in other words, adaptiveness. 
 
 This superiority is conjunct, physical and mental ; for a 
 merely huge strong animal, without the requisite intelligence 
 to adapt its strength to circumstances, would be useless as a 
 leader. But the superiority of the chief is, as a rule, of such 
 a character as to be conspicuous, and to command or secure 
 on that account confidence on the one hand, and respect on 
 the other. Confidence and respect in their turn beget obedi- 
 ence or submissiveness, so that, while all animals that possess 
 leaders follow their lead both literally and figuratively, some 
 do so only too implicitly for instance, in the case of sheep 
 that rush after their bell-wether to their own wholesale de- 
 struction. 
 
 Generally speaking, leaders are of the same species as the 
 animals they command ; belong, perhaps, to the same small 
 family or group, as in the case of certain patriarchs or mere 
 heads of families or tribes. But in other cases, the chief 
 belongs to a different species or genus, and this category 
 includes omnipotent man. Thus the axis deer sometimes 
 leads c mobs ' of kangaroos in Australia. ' The donkey in the 
 district of Smyrna, in Broussa, and the Asiatic Olympus, in 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 381 
 
 Anatolia, and other parts of Asia Minor, is frequently em- 
 ployed .... as leader of a caravan of camels ; for, contrary 
 to the prejudices of the West, in Oriental lands Longears en- 
 joys the reputation of being the most intelligent of hoofed 
 beasts ' (Hseckel). Mares are employed as leaders of droves 
 of mules in Central America. The latter animals have a high 
 respect for and pride in the horse as a 'distinguished relative;' 
 hence they willingly accept a mare as their queen (Wood). 
 
 M'tii himself frequently becomes the leader of his flocks 
 or herds, as in the case of shepherds in the East, who 
 literally c lead ' do not drive, as ours do their flocks. Man 
 is recognised literally and figuratively as its ' governor ' by 
 the dog ; his right to command is freely acknowledged ; 
 the propriety of his orders or actions is, as a rule, not dis- 
 puted. And it is important to note that in this case it some- 
 times, at least, happens that he gains and wields his wonder- 
 ful power over other animals by the exercise of kindness, not 
 of terrorism by the supremacy of love, not of fear. Thus 
 the command of the shepherd over his sheep in primitive 
 countries, where the use of the sheep dog is unknown for 
 instance, in Palestine is acquired by his constant associa- 
 tion with his sheep, by his habitual kindly usage, whereby 
 confidence in, and attachment to, his person or personality 
 are produced. 
 
 Not only so, but man educates certain animals to be 
 leaders and certain others to be followers ; he trains the one 
 to command, the other to obedience. He selects, for instance, 
 certain rams or wethers, training them to command certain 
 sheep, while he educates and accustoms the sheep to follow 
 and obey the said leaders. The leader ram himself comes to 
 understand and obey man's directions or commands, as given 
 whether by signal or gesture, or in the form of verbal lan- 
 guage, answering at once to his call ; and, as the result of 
 similar patient and kindly tuition, the whole of the flock 
 learn to understand and obey the orders or directions of 
 their wether (Youatt). 
 
 It is man, also, who selects the leaders in the case of 
 Eskimo dog teams (Parry), and the horse-leaders of Eastern 
 caravans (Macgregor) or of waggon teams (Pierquin). 
 
382 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 Whether belonging to the same or different species, 
 animal leaders have recognised and definite duties to per- 
 form, recognised equally by themselves and those under their 
 control. These duties include, for instance 
 
 1. The marshalling or ordering of large bodies of in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 2. The prevention of straggling and the collection of 
 stragglers. 
 
 3. The maintenance of authority, including the suppres- 
 sion or punishment of insubordination. 
 
 4. The exercise of command and the issuing of orders 
 by voice-sounds, signs, their own conduct or example, or 
 otherwise. 
 
 5. The making arrangements for safety, defence or flight 
 including the substitution of order for confusion. 
 
 6. Guidance in the proper path, finding the way and 
 showing it. 
 
 The animal leader has first to master his own position in 
 all its bearings, and he usually takes pains to do so. For he 
 exercises an authority one of the characteristics of which 
 is a dangerous degree of responsibility to his fellows. His 
 conduct is at all times before them, and he is liable at any 
 moment to popular vengeance in many cases it may be in- 
 nocently or unjustly to deposition and degradation, to punish- 
 ment perhaps of a capital kind for any indiscretion, for 
 any failure even in strength or courage. He is punishable 
 for errors both of omission and commission, real or supposed, 
 and the punishment may be both direct and summary. Thus 
 Houzeau mentions a furious onslaught of a herd of buffaloes 
 on their leader, a feeble old chief. So infuriated were they, 
 so blinded by passion, so absorbed in the execution of their 
 vengeance, that they were for the moment indifferent to the 
 attack of man. 
 
 Generally speaking, the animal chief enjoys his supre- 
 macy only so long as he can maintain it, and this is usually 
 vi et armis by virtue of superior bodily strength. When- 
 ever there is an approach to anything like decay physical 
 or mental, or both it is sure to be espied by observant 
 youthful, ambitious aspirants for his place and power. The 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 383 
 
 result is a challenge and a duel, command remaining with, 
 or pertaining to, the victor, be he young or old. 
 
 Naturally it is usually the younger antagonist that out- 
 strips the older. While this success is a source of exultation 
 to the one, it is a cause of humiliation in the other ; and the 
 sense of defeat, deposition, and degradation may be so keen 
 as to lead to fatal pining from, grief: the disgraced chief, in 
 short, sometimes dies of his shame. 
 
 The principle of appointment in the case of all kinds of 
 animal leaders is that the strongest, boldest, best in every 
 way, should be called to the front and invested with supreme 
 power ; and this principle actuates man equally with other 
 animals in the selection of an animal chief. Man chooses 
 and instals a leading mule, horse, dog, or ram on the very 
 same principle that leads a flock or herd to acquiesce in the 
 self-appointment of some victorious young male. In human 
 emergency of a serious kind, and on a large or public scale, 
 it frequently happens that some man of marked individuality, 
 but previously unknown, comes to the front as a volunteer 
 leader, 110 one knows how, and his supremacy is at once, by 
 tacit consent, acknowledged. Average people feel that he is 
 c the right man for the right place;' he has the requisite 
 force of character, patriotism, and the ability to command 
 universal confidence and universal confidence is forthwith 
 accorded, for the time. 
 
 For the' man of the time is as liable to be discarded by a 
 fickle people or populace as the proud and splendid stallion 
 when he begins to lose that most indefinable of all qualities, 
 popularity. So in animal panics, for instance, some previ- 
 ously unobserved or undistinguished individual starts, lite- 
 rally in this case, to the front, and is followed, for weal or 
 woe, by the rest of a troop, herd, or flock. 
 
 There is ample evidence to show that self-appointment to 
 the leadership is common among social animals ; that the 
 ambition of some young, energetic, vigorous male urges it to 
 challenge and defeat the reigning chief, a defeat that is tan- 
 tamount to the compulsory deposition of the one and the 
 self-instalment of the other. This new appointment, how- 
 ever, is, under the circumstances, homologated or ratified by 
 
384 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 the general assent or consent, so that, in one sense, it may 
 be deemed a unanimous election. There is a practical and 
 tacit acknowledgment of the fitness of things, the excitement 
 being confined mainly to the combatants themselves, though 
 the spectators no doubt look on with a varying degree of 
 interest. 
 
 Though there is a strong probability there is no direct 
 evidence in favour of the supposition that where no such 
 candidate presents himself, and takes the law of competi- 
 tion and succession into his own hands selection is made 
 by universal suffrage by placing in a position of com- 
 mand that individual among them best qualified to exercise 
 the supreme power. There is veiy distinct appointment, 
 and by a kind of universal suffrage, where the street dogs of 
 Constantinople, as they sometimes do, select as their leader 
 some animal belonging to a different quarter of the town 
 from among their natural enemies therefore the motive for 
 such a choice being signal bravery displayed by the favoured 
 individual, either in attack or defence (Watson). There are 
 certain other official appointments, both of a public and pri- 
 vate kind, in which selection may or may not be made by 
 and from the general body of a community, and with or 
 without prominent candidature, or candidature or competi- 
 tion at all by the individual selected. Thus there must be 
 some sort of appointment, by selection of the fittest, in the 
 case of 
 
 1. Mayors of towns. 
 
 2. Commissioners or ambassadors. 
 
 3. Spies or scouts. 
 
 4. Sentinels, sentries or outposts. 
 
 5. Nurses. 
 
 There are no doubt many intermediate cases in which 
 one animal takes the lead of others without any special exer- 
 tion, either on its part or theirs. There is no competition 
 and no combat, simply because there is no rival. In such 
 cases the manifest superiority is usually mental rather than 
 physical, and, moreover, the mental superiority of one may 
 overrule the physical superiority of all the others. Thus 
 a proprietor on one of the western islands of Scotland, who 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 385 
 
 also farms his own estate, informed me that he had a pony 
 which took the lead of all the horses on his farm, by virtue 
 simply of its superior intelligence. 
 
 The possession of the leadership is apt to beget in differ- 
 ent animals, according to circumstances of individuality or 
 otherwise 
 
 1. A sense of dignity, leading to or marked by demure- 
 ness or gravity of gait, look and behaviour. 
 
 2. Pride in rank, office, or status, and in its insignia, 
 badges, or trappings, involving sometimes consequentiality 
 and a stickling for precedence. 
 
 The military horse displays its pride in its caparison, as 
 it does in all the pomp or show of parade or procession ; and 
 the same sort of pride is exhibited by military elephants and 
 by leading mules in teams. But not only do some of these 
 animals for instance, the military horse recognise or ap- 
 preciate their own rank, but they are most observant of that 
 of man, or of the man with whom they have most to do 
 their master and rider. And their manner varies accord- 
 ingly. Thus the military horse that carries the general 
 sometimes shows conspicuously its self-importance by its 
 haughty gait (Watson). Such is the force of discipline and 
 habit, such the respect for rank in old regimental horses, 
 that at trumpet-call they have been known to form them- 
 selves with precision into rank led or commanded by the 
 officers' chargers ('Animal World'). The recognition of 
 distinctions of human rank is more familiar, however, in the 
 case of the dog (Watson). 
 
 Wood tells us that the leader among deer, horses, and 
 oxen ' will not suffer ' certain things to be done 'without his 
 permission, and resents the slightest interference with his 
 authority.' His rule is more or less despotic ; and it may 
 be that, under the circumstances, despotic government is 
 the only form of rule that has any chance of success. There 
 is an equal danger in other animals, as in man, however, 
 of the abuse of despotic power in tyranny. 
 
 The love of precedence is sometimes strikingly exemplified 
 among cows. Thus the case is given of an English cow that 
 was 'the very personification of pride. * . . She claimed 
 
 VOL. i. cc 
 
386 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 precedence .... always went ahead of the herd. The best 
 bit of pasture was her exclusive domain, on which no other 
 durst intrude. ... So far did she carry her pretensions 
 that, if any other of the cows entered the byre before her, 
 she would refuse to enter. . . . She would draw herself up 
 and refuse to advance in spite of all encouraging words,' 
 while ' her whole frame swelled with anger and offended 
 dignity. ... At last the cows within [the byre], as though 
 conscious that they had forgotten their place, began to come 
 out/ and then she, ' with an evident air of gratified pride, 
 strode in in state.' l 
 
 The necessity that exists among many social animals for 
 government by a leader is rendered obvious by the effects 
 of the loss of a chief. What these results are in the 
 case of the queen bee has already been pointed out. But 
 similar results follow the absence, capture, or death of a 
 leader among animals much higher in the zoological scale. 
 Thus, in Eastern caravans, in the absence of the horse- 
 leader, the camels, asses, mules, or other animals, become 
 restless and uneasy ; they stray from the path, and disorder 
 reigns (Macgregor). 
 
 In every herd of camels there is a master bull, who, by 
 his strength, ' keeps his younger brethren in subjection.' 
 Colonel Warburton, in his celebrated ' Journey Across the 
 Western Interior of Australia,' 2 describes how he suffered 
 from the illness of one of these master bulls. Insubordina- 
 tion on the part of its juniors (camels) was the immediate 
 result, each 'seeking an opportunity of asserting his own 
 supremacy.' 
 
 The usual function of animal leaders seems to be that of 
 a protector to direct measures of defence in assault, of extri- 
 cation or escape in danger. But there are other cases in 
 which their duties are rather those of regulators of the civil, 
 social, or domestic economy of the communities over which 
 they preside. Thus Houzeau describes mayors of towns or 
 villages among prairie dogs mayors who grant audiences, 
 receive visits as to administrative affairs in short, discharge 
 
 * North British Daily Mail,' December 27, 1876. 
 * 1875, p. 213. 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 387 
 
 and regulate public business and he tells us> moreover, that 
 these governors or presidents of communities, occasionally 
 at least, excel their fellows in size and strength as well as in 
 force of character. 
 
 Whatever be the character or duties of an animal leader, 
 whether he be military or civil, ruling during peace or called 
 to the front by some great emergency, his supremacy is duly 
 acknowledged by those whom he commands, as a general 
 rule, so long as he can make good his claim to supre- 
 macy or show a proper title to obedience, deference, and 
 respect. Whether the chief be a member of the same 
 species, or belong to a different species or genus whether 
 he be man himself or some other animal there is the same 
 kind of subordination to a superior, of subjection to com- 
 mand and rule, of appreciation of superiority in the form of 
 constituted authority. This sort of respect and obedience 
 includes that which is shown in many cases by the young 
 to parents or elders. 
 
 All this is the rule ; but it is one that has frequent ex- 
 ceptions ; for, as has already been seen, rebellion against 
 constituted authority is far from uncommon. Such insubordi- 
 nation occurs in a variety of forms. For instance, there is 
 frequently a refusal of obedience to man on the part of the 
 dog, horse, elephant, or other animals that are usually sub- 
 missive. Frequently, however, an obvious and intelligible 
 reason is to be found for such disobedience either in ill- 
 usage by man or in disease on the part of the animal. Thus 
 rebellion against tyranny, oppression, injustice, or other 
 forms of ill-usage is as legitimate, and even commendable, 
 in other animals as in man the pity being, in the case of 
 other animals, that it is man too frequently who is their 
 tyrant or oppressor, the cruel despot who has not the sense 
 to consider even his own personal interests in the govern- 
 ment of subject animals. 
 
 In the case of animal leaders of all kinds there is a dis- 
 tinct specialisation of duty, work, or business, a very decided 
 division of labour. But this division of labour this alloca- 
 tion of work or duty occurs among the lower animals in a 
 great many other, even more familiar forms. Thus it is 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 illustrated in the appointment from among members of a 
 community of 
 
 1. Sentinels, sentries, vedettes, outposts, patrols, guards, 
 or watchmen of all kinds. 
 
 2. Soldiers, labourers, or artisans, nurses or foragers. 
 
 3. Different ranks of officers among their soldiers, in- 
 cluding generals, aides-de-camp, and adjutants. 
 
 4. Delegates, ambassadors, or other forms of representa- 
 tives or reporters, spies, scouts, commissioners, pioneers. 
 
 5. Officers of justice including executioners, advocates, 
 judges and jury. 
 
 6. Royal personages, with their officers or courtiers, 
 bodyguard, and other attendants 
 
 7. As well as in the relative duties or occupations of male 
 and female parents, and 
 
 8. In the appropriate and harmonious playing of its 
 part by each individual of the group. 
 
 Such appointments imply, in certain cases at least, the 
 assignation of a special duty to each of a group of animals, 
 there being evidence further that there is frequently an 
 adaptation of the special work to be performed to the special 
 ability of a given individual to perform it. 
 
 Sentinels or guards are regularly posted at appropriate 
 times and places by a large number of animals including 
 the prairie dog (Gillmore, Houzeau), wild horse (Watson), 
 swan (Watson), cockatoo of Australia (Baden Powell), rooks 
 (Watson), silver-eye (bird) of New Zealand (Buller), fla- 
 mingo, shag, and many other birds (' Percy Anecdotes ' ), 
 zebra (Baird), whistler marmot (Watson), common marmot 
 (Wood), Calif ornian quail as naturalised in New Zealand 
 (Tinne), moufflon and other sheep (Youatt and Watson), 
 Alpine marmot (Baird and Houzeau), certain monkeys 
 (Cassell), Greenland and other seals (Cunningham), wild 
 African cattle, bobac (Watson), chamois and other antelopes 
 (Watson and Baker), guanaco (Darwin), Texan and other 
 ants (Darwin, Huber, Figuier), certain wasps (Kirby, Speiice, 
 and Wood). 
 
 These guardians of the public safety are appointed 
 usually for some of the following reasons, or under some of 
 the following circumstances : 
 
ORGANISATIONS 389 
 
 1. At night, or during the sleep of the flock or herd, to 
 guard against surprise. 
 
 2. During feeding, rest on a march, or pastimes. 
 
 3. In war, on the march or halt, in camp or bivouac 
 here also to prevent surprise. 
 
 It is their duty to sound or give the alarm on the 
 approach of an enemy, or the threatening of any danger. 
 If a sentinel fail in this duty, for instance, by being cap- 
 tured or destroyed before he can perform it, the capture of a 
 whole herd may become easy. Thus the German Arctic 
 Expedition inform us that Greenland seals ' set a watch 
 before they go to sleep, which watch being killed, the whole 
 herd may often be taken.' In such a case, however, it 
 may be that the watchman is also a leader, in whose ab- 
 sence the same kind of helplessness from mental confusion 
 and panic ensues as in the case of bees and some other 
 animals. 
 
 In connection with the appointment of sentinels the 
 following points have to be noticed : 
 
 1. That, as in the case of leaders, the animals selected 
 are almost invariably males. 
 
 2. That every advantage is taken of elevated ground 
 commanding a view on ah 1 sides. 
 
 3. That the animal appointed is implicitly trusted by the 
 rest ; it has a specific duty to discharge, and it performs it 
 conscientiously. 
 
 4. There must therefore be an appreciation of the dif- 
 ferent kinds of danger, as well as an idea of duty in relation 
 to that danger. 
 
 Certain African antelopes place sentries generally bulls 
 while they are grazing, and these sentries take up their posts 
 on the summits of ant-hills, which form the only heights in 
 certain parts of the plains of the Nile. Their occupancy of 
 such watch-towers is, however, unfortunate for themselves 
 in presence of the sportsman, to whom they thus readily 
 become a marked prey (Baker). 
 
 Californian quails as naturalised in New Zealand 
 'always keep a sentry perched on the stump of a neigh- 
 bouring tree, to give them timely warning of the approach 
 
390 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 of strangers ' (Tinne). Ant guards open and shut gates and 
 awaken sleepers (Huber). 
 
 Spies or scouts are employed by various animals, in- 
 cluding the elephant (Watson and Houzeau) and the wild 
 horse, the swallow ('Percy Anecdotes') and the loxia (another 
 bird) (Pierquin), and the ant (Figuier). These scouts have 
 to make investigations and reports ; in the case of the ele- 
 phant, for instance, they have to look out for pitfalls (Hou- 
 zeau). Hence it is that, as in the case of sentinels, old, 
 experienced, sagacious, cautious, observant animals are se- 
 lected. 
 
 Illustrations of a very different kind of successful playing 
 a part are to be found in the various performances of trained 
 animals in the theatrical, musical, or other exhibitions in 
 which dogs, cats, pigs, horses, and various birds, such as the 
 canary, goldfinch, and linnet, are among the artists. 
 
 Some of the best illustrations of an adapted division of 
 
 labour occur in connection with the important phenomena 
 
 of co-operation of preconcerted action for a common end or 
 
 object. In a great variety of ways many of the lower animals 
 
 recognise and act upon the principle that union is, or gives, 
 
 strength. They form combinations, associations, or alliances, 
 
 temporary or permanent, for a great number of very specific 
 
 purposes. They co-operate willingly, intelligently, and 
 
 successfully not only with each other but with man. One 
 
 of the most obvious effects of union is the inspiration of 
 
 courage and confidence, the ability to dare and do, in behalf 
 
 of themselves or their young, things that they would never 
 
 attempt in their individual capacities. Even timid sheep, 
 
 in combination in a body, and under a leader, do boldly 
 
 what they would never do individually face a dog, for 
 
 instance, or even chase it ignominiously from a field or 
 
 pasture. The meek cow and many gentle, peace-loving 
 
 birds are capable of the same feats of courage under similar 
 
 circumstances. 
 
 The simplest forms of co-operation with each other are 
 those in which only two individuals are engaged, though 
 these two frequently belong to different species, genera, and 
 even orders or classes. And in such cases the assignation 
 by mutual agreement after consultation of a special duty to 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 391 
 
 each of the confederates is frequently at once obvious and 
 successful. Thus Wood tells us of a dog and raven literally 
 hunting in couples, the bird acting as driver of the game a 
 hare out of the heather into the open, the dog then pursuing. 
 A rat, in order to convey a potato to the general store or 
 nest, e stretched himself on his back on the floor, placed the 
 potato on his chest, and kept it firmly there with his paws. 
 Whereupon his companion placed his tail in the former's 
 mouth and dragged him along to a hole that was in the 
 floor. There they let down the potato and followed after it 
 themselves ' (Stewart). Nor is this an uncommon instance 
 of one animal playing the part of a cart or wheelbarrow, 
 while another enacts the horse. In the Alpine marmot, for 
 instance, we are told that while certain individuals act as 
 reapers, collectors, and porters, others make themselves 
 useful as waggons and horses ( c Percy Anecdotes'). 
 
 We know that various baboons and other apes, spider 
 and other monkeys, make chains, suspension bridges, and 
 ladders, of their own bodies, by joining hands or clinging 
 to each other by various concatenations of paws and tails 
 (Ulloa, Cassell) bridges that are used in crossing rivers. 
 And, though not quite in the same way, what is virtually 
 the same thing is done by bees (Eendu) and ants, so that 
 on bridges composed of the bodies of the latter voluntarily 
 sacrificed for the purpose whole armies of their fellows 
 sometimes cross rivers or streams. 
 
 A certain dog and cat were confederates in a larder theft. 
 The cat by its mewing called the dog when circumstances 
 were favourable the coast clear for their depredations. On 
 one occasion the dog was followed, and the cat was found, 
 who, 6 mounted on a shelf, and keeping with one foot the 
 cover of a dish partly open, was throwing down to him with 
 the disengaged paw ' some enjoyable good things (' Animal 
 World '). 
 
 Prairie wolves, which, like many other animals, hunt 
 their prey in pairs, in attacking the bison make the following 
 arrangement : One makes a feint at the bison's head while 
 the other hamstrings him. And inasmuch as the post of 
 lonour, as of danger, is the rear assault, it is entrusted to 
 the most experienced, bravest animal (Gillmore). 
 
392 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 Two tame ravens plundered a bird trap the one lifting 
 up the lid, the other removing the captured bird (Wood). 
 In another case a wolf drove a herd of gazelles to a ravine 
 in which two of its comrades were concealed in ambush. 
 In a third instance different posts as to the locality to be 
 occupied were allotted to each of a pack of six wolves that 
 co-operated to entrap a herd of Indian antelopes. 
 
 Co-operation on a large scale on the part of large num- 
 bers of individuals, whether of the same or of different 
 species and genera includes the convention, at special 
 times and places, of convocations, conferences, congrega- 
 tions, or assemblies for the following or other specific ends : 
 
 1. Judicial for the trial and punishment of offenders. 
 
 2. Military for the holding of councils of war. 
 
 3. Recreational for the celebration of pastimes, sports, 
 or games of various kinds. 
 
 4. Migrational for conference as to the time and man- 
 ner of migration. 
 
 5. Defensive for mutual protection, security or safety. 
 
 6. Industrial for the repair of damage to public pro- 
 perty. 
 
 7. Marauding for the acquisition of plunder or booty. 
 
 8. Food-seeking or foraging. 
 
 9. Emigration and colonisation. 
 
 10. Nuptial for courtship and marriage. 
 
 11. Hybernation. 
 
 12. Criminal as for theft. 
 
 13. The rescue of their fellows from captivity or danger. 
 One of the most interesting features of co-operation 
 
 among the lower animals is rotation of duty or privilege 
 the taking by turn work, food, or drink. In drinking, various 
 sand-grouse of South Africa (species of Pterocles and Ptero- 
 churus) ( do not rush simultaneously to the pool, but each 
 one waits its turn, the first comers having the precedence.' 
 The same is the case with the pintado or wild Guinea fowl 
 of Damara and Namaqua Land, the large flocks of which, on 
 approaching water, ' go to work most systematically,' so that 
 all may have in turn access (Andersson). In the same way 
 wild geese and ducks, starlings and other birds, take turns 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 393 
 
 in feeding, those in the rear flying to the front in succes- 
 sion, so that all may have a fair and equal chance of food- 
 supply. 
 
 Dog-hysenas, when hunting in packs South African ante- 
 lopes, relieve each other when fatigued, 'the leading hounds 
 falling to the rear .... when others, who have been 
 husbanding their strength, come up,' according to Gordon 
 Gumming. On a similar principle relays as well as reserves 
 are used in various kinds of work military or other so as 
 to avoid the exhaustion of important individuals and allow 
 suitable intervals of rest and refreshment. Among foraging 
 and leaf-cutting ants there are regular relays of porters in 
 conveying food (Belt). Parent woodpeckers take their turn 
 at work, the resting one singing to the labouring mate 
 by way of encouragement or as an expression of love. 
 In war reinforcements are kept in readiness, sought or 
 ordered, and sent, implying an understanding that aid is, or 
 may be, needed, and of what kind, in what way, at what 
 time and place, and for what reason or object. 
 
 Another pleasing feature connected with unity of action 
 in the lower animals is that they have the good sense and 
 good feeling by no means always present in the case of 
 ' superior ' man before a common enemy, or in presence of 
 a common danger, or for a common good, to forget or thrust 
 aside all their individual, family, caste, clan, or tribal quar- 
 rels or feuds of all kinds. Here again, as in so many other 
 cases, they feel that their safety it may be their very 
 existence depends on that strength, that bold front which 
 the union of numbers gives ; and however ready they are at 
 other times to give vent to their petty passions and express 
 their individual animosities, they recognise the inexpediency 
 or impropriety of doing so at a time when all effort requires 
 to be concentrated in one direction. Ravens forget their 
 individual hates over a common prey, so that they consent to 
 share booty even with their enemies. There is no ran- 
 cour, grudge, or temper shown if the food-supply be abun- 
 dant (Watson). 
 
 The making of common cause often depends upon what is 
 entitled to be considered a veritable esprit de corps for 
 
394 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 instance, in the case of the street dogs of Constantinople, 
 whose clans, castes, factions, or tribes resemble in many 
 respects the human clans among the Scotch Highlanders 
 prior to, and even during, the eighteenth century. Among 
 these Eastern dogs of the present day ' hostile factions ' 
 fight out their feuds at night, when the streets are deserted 
 by mankind. But an ' injury, however well deserved, in- 
 flicted upon an individual is taken up with great esprit de 
 corps as a common cause by a whole clan.' 
 
 As in man, specialisation of work has its disadvantages. 
 Thus Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, says, ' An exceedingly 
 good sheep-dog attends to nothing else but that particular 
 branch of business to which he is bred. His whole capacity 
 is exerted and exhausted on it.' One result of this is, that 
 though he may do the one thing well, ' he is of little avail 
 in miscellaneous matters, whereas a very indifferent cur 
 bred about the house and accustomed to assist in everything 
 will often put the more noble breed to disgrace in those 
 paltry services.' In other words, the nondescript or mongrel 
 cur, untrained hanger-on, is really more ' generally useful,' 
 both to itself and to man, than the highly-bred, specially- 
 trained collie a fact calculated to be comforting to human 
 as well as animal mediocrity. 
 
 Co-operation with man is more or less familiar in the case 
 of the dog, horse, ass, mule, elephant, cow, monkey, fishing 
 cormorant, falcon, and a host of other animals that minister 
 to his comforts or pleasures. These animals become man's 
 confederates, accomplices, partners, associates for instance, 
 in 
 
 1. Various industrial or other labours, such as 
 
 a. Dragging or drawing the plough, cart, or car- 
 
 riage. 
 
 b. Acting as beasts of burden, or 
 
 c. As riding animals. 
 
 2. Various forms of crime such as 
 
 a. Theft of all kinds from shop-lifting, sheep- 
 
 stealing, poaching, brigandage, burglary, 
 smuggling, up to highway robbery. 
 
 b. Murder. 
 
ORGANISATIONS. 395 
 
 3. The detection of human crime such as theft, rob- 
 bery, and murder. 
 
 4. Life-saving in shipwreck and otherwise. 
 
 5. Man's sports the race and chase especially, but even 
 cricket and other games. 
 
 6. Human wars as in the case of military elephants, 
 horses, oxen, and dogs. 
 
 7. Man's judicial or other forms of punishment of fellow- 
 man. 
 
 Successful co-operation with man implies 
 
 1. A knowledge of man's 
 
 a. Object. 
 
 6. Language ; and the 
 c. Means by which he is endeavouring to 
 effect an object. 
 
 2. An appreciation of the nature of the occupations 
 
 in which they are conjointly engaged in- 
 cluding, their criminality or illegality. 
 
 3. A consciousness of the importance or value of 
 
 their own share in the joint labour of the 
 part they are called upon to play including a 
 feeling ot pride or honour at being called upon 
 or permitted to give aid or service to man, a 
 sense of participancy in his pursuits, schemes, 
 intrigues, sports. 
 
 4. An estimation of success and failure, with their 
 
 personal bearings or results. 
 
 5. A distinct conception of duty, with fidelity, in- 
 
 telligence, perseverance in its discharge. 
 
 The want of co-operation with each other, or with man, 
 at the proper time, and when circumstances call for it, is 
 productive of the same kind of results that occur in man 
 viz. confusion, panic, defeat, and loss of life or property. 
 This is specially observable when organised and unorganised 
 bodies come into collision the one, though small, putting 
 to rout the other, though large, in numbers. Thus the com- 
 pact charge of a few men on bison herds creates immediate 
 confusion, panic, and flight in the latter (Houzeau). 
 
 Frustration or failure of the best intended and best con- 
 
396 ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 ceived efforts for an animal's good is tbe common result of its 
 non-cooperation, for instance, with man ; and this non-co- 
 operation is the natural fruit of a non-understanding or a 
 misunderstanding of man's object. Without intelligent 
 understanding on an animal's part of the object aimed at 
 there can be no confidence in the person offering an assist- 
 ance that is not requested, however much it may be re- 
 quired ; and without complete confidence in the operator 
 or co-operator there can obviously be no hearty and efficient 
 co-operation. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 THOUGH they have not the means that man possesses of 
 giving them form in print or writing, or even of giving them 
 expression orally, certain animals, nevertheless, have laws 
 that regulate their conduct, rules established by authority 
 and custom sometimes of a very definite kind that guide 
 their procedure under given circumstances. Authors have 
 described even the existence of systems or codes of laws or 
 of rules among various animals, and have professed their 
 ability to understand or interpret them. Thus Mrs. Burton 
 says of the pariah dogs of Damascus, ' Their habits are 
 regulated by laws of their own. I have grown, in the 
 solitude of Salahiyeh, to learn them.' Animals assert or 
 maintain, defend and transgress, their own laws, and they 
 suffer the penalties of such transgression. 
 
 The following are illustrations of the kinds of law or rule 
 that guide the actions, individual or corporate, of certain 
 of the lower animals : viz. those relating to 
 
 1. The administration of public affairs in the villages or 
 communities of the prairie dog (Houzeau). 
 
 2. Territorial or district government including frontier 
 laws in the street dogs of Constantinople, Damascus, or 
 other Eastern towns (Burton, Low, Watson). 
 
 3. The common laws for the common good that charac- 
 terise wasps (Eendu). 
 
 4. The laws of battle among various belligerent species 
 or genera. 
 
 5. The law or rule of might of the strong over the 
 weak. 
 
398 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 6. The law or rule of right. 
 
 7. That of constituted authority, which may or may not 
 involve that of might and right, either or both. 
 
 8. Laws of etiquette including those regulating pre- 
 cedence. 
 
 9. Lynch law the administration of punishment for 
 offences without any form of trial. 
 
 10. Possession. 
 
 Hence some animals may be described as possessing what 
 are virtually national, provincial, territorial, proprietary, 
 public, domestic, communal, military, civil, criminal, social, 
 conjugal, moral, or other laws. 
 
 What may well be called the law of might, the rule of 
 the strongest, prevails throughout the animal kingdom- 
 including man. The dominance of the powerful over the 
 weak, of tyranny or bullyism, is everywhere common. But 
 mere physical or corporeal strength does not necessarily or 
 always prevail per se. In animals that occupy positions of 
 command or authority, physical is usually associated with 
 mental superiority; and mental acumen in the weak the 
 ingenious expedients to which superior sagacity gives rise 
 may, and frequently do, outmatch mere physical force. 
 Thus the huge Newfoundland dog succumbs sometimes to the 
 address and adroitness of the puny ape, which makes a beast 
 of burden of it, and rides on its back commandingly, as man 
 does on the horse (Houzeau). 
 
 Right, however, is respected as well as might, though it 
 is also invaded, and has to be defended. The following are 
 illustrations of the vested rights of animals as recognised by 
 each other, viz. those relating to 
 
 1. Property of all kinds, including 
 a. Food, prey, booty. 
 &. Nests or other forms of abode. 
 
 c. Young or eggs. 
 
 d. Marriageable or married females. 
 
 e. Beats, districts, hunting-grounds, quarters, or 
 
 boundaries. 
 
 /. Trappings or insignia of office. 
 g. Slaves or servants. 
 
LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 399 
 
 h. Other forms or kinds of property. 
 
 2. Bank or status, with, its accompanying respect or 
 deference. 
 
 They may therefore be said to have rights conjugal, 
 territorial, proprietary, parental, filial, which they are called 
 upon to assert and maintain, and which they also usurp 
 or infringe. Such rights, as in man, are individual or cor- 
 porate ; they form the subject of dispute and struggle. 
 
 Wrongs are equally admitted and redressed in certain 
 cases, whether they relate to individuals or communities. 
 
 For all kinds of constituted authority various animals 
 have respect, and they show it by their obedience in certain 
 cases, while they mutiny or rebel against it in others. Some 
 of them have systems or forms of government including the 
 
 1. Monarchical in the bee. 
 
 2. Republican, communal, or communistic in ants. 
 
 8. Patriarchal that of leaders or chiefs in the wild 
 horse, ass, and elephant. 
 
 4. Parental in dogs, cats, monkeys and apes, and many 
 other animals. 
 
 5. Domestic in monogamous animals. 
 
 6. Social. 
 
 The dog and other animals may be trained to respect the 
 authority or supremacy of man, to obey his laws that is, 
 the rules, unwritten, unprinted, even unspoken frequently, 
 that he lays down nevertheless for their guidance. These 
 laws are understood, and evaded or infringed, when they are 
 not obeyed. To the dog, horse, elephant, and other tame or 
 domestic animals, indeed, man's will may be said to be their 
 law. They recognise him as their lawgiver, and soon learn 
 to distinguish what is forbidden from what is permitted by 
 him. Not only so, but certain animals are trained to act 
 efficiently as administrators of man's laws, as his police, or his 
 executioners. Thus elephant and dog police or executioners 
 have been taught to capture runaways or deserters, whether 
 these are ponies, sheep, or men, and to punish them summa- 
 rily in the case of man by crushing to death or throttling 
 (Watson). 
 
 Wood asserts that the laws of precedence and etiquette 
 
400 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 among cows are ' as clearly defined as those of any European 
 Court. Every cow knows her own place and keeps it. She 
 will not condescend to take a lower, and would not be allowed 
 to take a higher.' We know, moreover, that military horses 
 and elephants are great sticklers for rank, insisting on occu- 
 pying that place in processions or pageants to which they 
 believe their own rank or that of their riders entitles them. 
 
 One of the evidences commonly adduced of the reign of 
 law among the lower animals, as in man, is the fact that 
 certain birds at least have what are, or what appear to be, 
 regular judicial proceedings, regular trials by judge and 
 before jury of culprits against law. Illustrations of such 
 trials are to be found in the absurdly so-called 'parliaments' 
 of rooks, crows, or other birds. 
 
 The various authors who have described them, and who 
 profess to be able to interpret the curious phenomena, speak 
 of the vast assemblages of birds of the same species at some 
 given point and at some given time, the birds coming from 
 all points of the compass. In the centre is placed a prisoner ; 
 his aspect, look, attitude, point him out frequently as, in his 
 own estimation, a culprit. Advocates address the audience ; 
 there are even pleadings, consultations, and deliberations. 
 At last a judgment is come to, sentence is passed, and popu- 
 lar as well as judicial vengeance is inflicted with wonderful 
 unanimity and co-operation. The whole stages of the pro- 
 cedure, in fact, resemble in miniature and in pantomime 
 those of our own law courts. Hence some authors speak of 
 such assemblies as ' courts,' and the natives of India de- 
 scribe certain gatherings of the Indian crow as of this 
 character. 
 
 In these courts or parliaments of the Indian crow the 
 birds form a ring around one individual, 'who appears to 
 have been an offender against some of the rules of their 
 society.' Then he is attacked suddenly by five or six of his 
 fellows, 'pecking at him and striking at him with their 
 wings ' (Wood). 
 
 Crow parliaments in Shetland have been described by 
 Edmonstone and Saxby, who, however, differently interpret 
 the facts observed, while the facts themselves are not the 
 
LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 401 
 
 same as noted by these competent naturalists. In all such 
 narratives it may be difficult, but it is necessary, to separate 
 Fact from inference or interpretation. According to Edmon- 
 stone, the facts are that there is an assemblage of large 
 numbers of the same species ; that there are certain noisy 
 proceedings ; that one or two individuals are put to death 
 by the mass of their fellows ; and that then there is a quiet 
 breaking up of the congregation. The conclusions, which 
 may or may not be correct, are, that there is trial by jury of 
 a criminal, characterised by formal legal procedure, and 
 followed directly by what is considered suitable that is 
 usually capital punishment. 
 
 Dr. Saxby, on the other hand, also of Shetland, the 
 brother-in-law of Dr. Edmonstone, and the author, more- 
 over, of a volume on the ' Birds of Shetland,' takes quite a 
 different view of the character of the ' craa's court ' of the 
 hooded crow, in spring, in these northern islands. He pro- 
 fesses to have seen c nothing particularly worthy of mention, 
 with the exception of occasional shortlived squabble, such 
 as is constantly occurring in any large flock of birds.' And he 
 adds, c I believe, however, that a considerable amount of 
 courting takes place at these meetings, having noticed that 
 pairing takes place very soon after the dispersal of the 
 flock.' 
 
 The probability is that Edmonstone and Saxby, Houzeau, 
 Wood, and the other authors who have described such courts 
 or parliaments, have in some cases described very different 
 kinds of assemblies. There is every reason for believing a few 
 to be judicial, others to be amatory or nuptial, while, as 
 regards the character of some, it has been shown in the 
 chapter on ' Unexplained Phenomena,' that at present we 
 know nothing satisfactory. 
 
 Wood describes rook parliaments. ' In the middle ' of 
 the assemblage in one case c was one bird looking very 
 downcast and wretched. Two more rooks took their place 
 at its side, and then a vast amount of chattering went on.' 
 Ultimately, the unfortunate central bird was pecked nearly 
 to pieces and left mangled and helpless on the ground. In 
 such a case we are led to infer, though our conclusion may 
 
 VOL. I. D D 
 
402 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 be erroneous, that we have to deal with an accused, con- 
 victed, condemned criminal ; official accusers ; and the sum- 
 in ary execution of a judicial sentence. Marcgrave long ago 
 described such assemblies of rooks, with their addresses and 
 debates, but his account has probably been regarded, as so 
 many of such narratives are, apocryphal. 
 
 The stork, too, is represented by Watson, as having, or 
 holding, trial by jury, public conventions at which harangues 
 or speeches are delivered, accusations made, defences offered, 
 by public orators and other officials, while the mass of the 
 audience takes a lively interest in the proceedings. Consult- 
 ations are held, sentence is pronounced, and capital punish- 
 ment inflicted for such supposed crimes as the hatching of 
 a gosling. The sparrow is another bird that administers 
 public punishment to offenders after holding general councils, 
 the proceedings of which are marked by much agitation, 
 tumult, and clamour (Watson). 
 
 The public trial of a prisoner before a public court by the 
 aid of advocates has also been mentioned as occurring among 
 Barbary apes (Cassell). 
 
 All such incidents, so far as they are authentic, furnish 
 illustrations of public punishment for public misdemeanour. 
 But punishment of animals by each other has not always or 
 generally this public character. Usually it is private, and 
 of an individual by an individual, as in the correction of the 
 young by parents. It may be said to have a public character 
 in those not uncommon cases in which a number of indivi- 
 duals usually, but not necessarily, of the same species- -co- 
 operate for the destruction or persecution of a common enemy 
 a case in which any one of the co-operating individuals 
 would have no power of inflicting punishment. 
 
 The grounds on which animals inflict punishment on each 
 other include the following : 
 
 I. In young 
 
 1. Ignorance, inexperience, stupidity, awkward- 
 
 ness. 
 
 2. Forwardness, impudence, or impertinence. 
 
 3. Refractoriness. 
 
 4. Theft. 
 
LAW AXD PUNISHMENT. 403 
 
 5. Various forms of ill-temper. 
 G. Want of filial deference. 
 
 7. Mischievousness. 
 
 8. All kinds of annoyance. 
 
 9. All faults of omission or commission. 
 II. In adults 
 
 10. Errors of all kinds. 
 
 11. Conjugal or other erotic offences. 
 
 12. Eivalrj. 
 
 13. Cowardice or faintheartedness. 
 
 14. Transgressions of laws of all kinds, including 
 
 all forms of crime. 
 
 15. Idleness or laziness including the shirking of 
 
 work or duty. 
 1C. Malingering:. 
 
 o o 
 
 17. All invasion of rights or privileges. 
 
 18. Straggling or wandering. 
 
 19. All rebellion against constituted authority. 
 
 20. All forms of troublesomeness. 
 
 Punishment of the young especially has frequently an 
 educational and salutary object or character, its aim being 
 ihe correction of bad habits of all kinds, and of the errors 
 naturally incident to inexperience, ignorance, thoughtless- 
 ness, and exuberance of feeling. 
 
 The modes, means, or forms of punishment adopted are 
 as various as the causes or reasons for punishment. Thus 
 they include 
 
 1. Capital punishments of various kinds the summary 
 destruction of life by 
 
 a. Pecking to death by birds. 
 I. Buffeting also by birds, 
 c. Worrying by dogs. 
 <1. Precipitation. 
 
 e. Drowning. 
 
 O 
 
 /. Stinging. 
 
 2. Banishment or outlawry, as in 'rogue' elephants; 
 deposition, or other forms of disgrace. 
 
 3. Corporal chastisement, b}~ 
 
 f. Blows or cuffs. 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 6. Bites. 
 
 c. Kicks. 
 
 d. Pinching. 
 
 e. Shaking. 
 
 4. Artificial fright as by pretended drowning or worry- 
 ing a ruse sometimes resorted to by big dogs to punish the 
 troublesomeness of little ones. 
 
 5. Simple reprimand, rebuke, reproof, by voice-sound, 
 look, or otherwise. 
 
 6. Persecution long persisted in and unremitting. 
 
 7. Practical jokes sometimes of a very cruel kind. 
 
 8. Simple repression of liberties the snubbing or putting 
 down of all kinds of presumption. 
 
 9. Threatening or pretending this or that form of violence 
 to the person. 
 
 A few illustrations of these conjoint grounds and modes 
 of punishment are desirable. A big dog, after rescuing a 
 little one from drowning, ' cuffed it first with one paw, and 
 then with the other 5 (Wood). The cat, too, cuffs with its 
 paws the kitten that is forward, impudent, lazy, or stupid ; 
 while the dog-parent treats its pup under similar circum- 
 stances with a bite or a growl. Of dogs in the East, a cor- 
 respondent of the 6 Animal World ' says : ' If a dog in the 
 interior of the city makes himself disagreeable, he is taken 
 up by the scruff of the neck and carried outside the city. He 
 is never known to return to his old haunts. In fact he is 
 unable to do so, being always hindered by those in possession 
 of the intervening districts from passing through them. He 
 thus remains on the outside of the city, an outcast from the 
 dog community, a pariah among dogs, for the rest of his 
 days.' A certain dog punished a companion for sheep- worry- 
 ing (Watson), and other dogs punish their fellows for such 
 offences negative or positive as malingering, shirking 
 work, theft, and provocation or annoyance of all kinds. 
 
 Dogs in the East punish stragglers from their own 
 proper territory (Low). Large powerful dogs frequently 
 correct the troublesomeness of small weak ones by temporary 
 submersion in water, to all degrees short of drowning ; this 
 
LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 405 
 
 being selected perhaps as the most effectual means, the most 
 dreaded kind, of punishment (Watson). 
 
 Baboons chastise their young for impudence or want of 
 deference (Cassell). The Ehesus monkey indulges in a 
 practical joke of a diabolical kind. Having caught one of a 
 flock of crows that have been annoying it by pilfering its 
 food or otherwise, it plucks the poor animal alive, and then 
 leaves it to be pecked to death by its own fellow-birds. The 
 Titi monkey, on the other hand, gives its companion against 
 whom it has a grudge a ducking (Cassell). The leader of a 
 band or troop of apes punished a female for decoying or 
 seducing the males (Pierquin). A young baboon had been 
 annoying an old one by pulling his tail. The old one sud- 
 denly turned upon his tormentor, chastised him with cuffs 
 or blows, and finally threw the shrieking delinquent over his 
 shoulder and bore him away (Drayson). 
 
 In troops of wild horses stragglers on the inarch are 
 punished by the adjutants ('Percy Anecdotes '). Elephants 
 both threaten and punish the idle and stupid ('Animal 
 World '). A fox chastises another for its stupidity in missing 
 its chance of securing prey (Watson). Bulls punish cows 
 for transgressing boundary lines (Watson). 
 
 The cock inflicts vengeance on his hen for conjugal 
 infidelity real or supposed. Thus he punishes her for 
 hatching other eggs than her own, though these alien eggs 
 may have been substituted for her own by man for experi- 
 mental or other purposes. She may have committed a 
 simple error of observation in not distinguishing other eggs 
 from her own. Hers may be the mere stupidity of ignorant 
 innocence ; while he commits a more serious error of infer- 
 ence, suspicion, and jealousy assuming criminality where 
 there is none, judging from first and false appearances, 
 rushing hastily to a conclusion without either inquiry or 
 reflection. 
 
 If a female Patagonian penguin lets her egg fall, 'the male 
 bird chastises her without pity' (Pouchet), apparently for 
 her stupidity or awkwardness. Conjugal offences are fre- 
 quently committed by birds such as the cock, stork, turkey, 
 
406 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 pigeon, and magpie and they are sometimes summarily 
 punished, as in the case of a male magpie, whose mate had 
 consorted with a stranger male (Watson). A grey lag goose, 
 whose mate had been killed by a dog, revenged herself upon 
 the latter by a course of persistent persecution, subjecting it to 
 incessant worry. Even beetles punish each other by thump- 
 ing and thrashing (Wallace). Kites found in a state of 
 alcoholic intoxication either lose caste among their fellows 
 or are unmercifully pecked to death by them (White). A 
 queen hive bee ' having laid only drone or male eggs, was 
 stung to death by the workers, who cast her body out of the 
 hive ' (Carpenter) . 
 
 While animals frequently and ' freely punish each other 
 for a great variety of offences and in a great variety of ways, 
 in certain cases they also punish man himself, usually in 
 revenge for some piece of cruelty, but also occasionally for 
 man's crimes against his fellow-man. Thus a male swan, 
 once resident in St. James's Park, London, a great favourite 
 of Queen Charlotte's, seized a boy that had been teasing it 
 6 by the leg of his trousers, and dragged him into the water 
 up to his knees' (' Chambers's Journal'). On the other 
 hand, dogs and cats occasionally attempt the murder of a 
 master's murderers, and in other practical and dangerous 
 ways they resent injury inflicted on those whom they love. 
 In the one case we have retaliation for, or repayment of, 
 annoyance or ill-usage ; in the other, the fruit of love, the 
 repayment of kindly usage by fierce attack on a human 
 aggressor. 
 
 Many animals, especially young ones, feel that they 
 deserve the punishment inflicted, and punishment is usually 
 proportionate to the offence and suitable to the age and 
 character of the offender. Thus the large powerful dog 
 contents itself with merely frightening the small cur that 
 annoys it by snapping or snarling about its heels. The huge 
 Newfoundland or mastiff gives its little tormentor a good 
 shake, a bite, or a growl, or perchance a worrying or a 
 ducking in or under water. Nay, much though punishment 
 may be deserved by such a tormentor, the animal that has 
 been tormented not unfrequently shows its magnanimity by 
 
LAW AND PUXISKMEXT. 407 
 
 refraining from punishment. Apparently such animals hold, 
 with magnanimous authors vexed by contemptible critics, 
 or at least they act upon the principle, that 
 
 The noblest Answer unto such 
 
 Is kindly silence when they brawl. 
 
 The elephant is satisfied with different degrees of ven- 
 geance according to the nature of the provocation ; in other 
 words, its placability depends upon the kind and amount of 
 annoyance or ill-usage to which it has been subjected. On 
 the other hand, punishment is sometimes inordinate, dispro- 
 portionate, unsuitable, and it is apt to be so wherever the 
 passions are unduly excited, whenever the desire for revenge, 
 exasperation, despair, bereavement, fear, or other feelings gain 
 an ascendancy and hurry on to precipitate action. In such 
 cases punishment is apt to be characterised by its fury, 
 pitilessness, mercilessness, by its not stopping short of the 
 death of the victim, and even by indignities to its murdered 
 body. 
 
 For instance, when hens attack the sparrow-hawk, more 
 than mere deterrent or corrective punishment is aimed at 
 or involved (White). The long-suffering fowls give vent to 
 long pent-up irritation ; they visit upon their victim their 
 hereditary or ancestral, as well as their individual, hostility 
 and vengeance. This leads to the remark that, as in man, 
 the innocent frequently suffer for the misdeeds of the guilty. 
 The unoffending young of a species or genus, some individual 
 of which may have committed a serious misdemeanour, or 
 whose individuals are natural enemies, and are habitually 
 committing faults of aggression, suffer for the misdeeds of 
 their ancestry, parents, species, or genus. 
 
 The particular form of punishment adopted sometimes 
 shows much ingenuity in the adaptation of means to ends, 
 and this ingenuity may take the shape of a very refined 
 
 J t>j. Thus Watson tells us of the blockade of a usurping 
 sparrow by a company of swallows. Such an incident illus- 
 trates the frequency and efficiency of co-operation or combi- 
 nation for the purpose of punishing an enemy. 
 
 A sparrow having taken possession of a marten's nest, 
 
408 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 the dislodged martin collected thirty or forty of its fellows, 
 who dragged out the intruder, took him to a certain grass- 
 plot, and there killed him. And similar co-operation in 
 similar kinds of punishment is common in dealing with bird 
 intruders. The basis of such co-operation is a feeling of 
 inability singly to punish an offender, and a knowledge that 
 union gives strength as well as courage, and can effect 
 readily what individual effort could never hope to achieve. 
 
 In certain cases a weak animal, instead of seeking the 
 aid of a number of its fellows, contents itself by soliciting 
 the good ofiices of one a sufficiently powerful and brave one 
 to act efficiently as its own substitute in the execution of 
 vengeance. And small dogs, for instance, sometimes show 
 great sagacity in their selection of a champion, and take 
 great pains to procure him, travelling long distances for the 
 purpose. 
 
 In such cases the animal selected appears to accept the 
 office pressed upon it, travels with its oppressed companion 
 to the residence of the bully who has ill-used that companion, 
 discharges its duty of severely punishing the tyrant perhaps 
 by throttling or worrying him to death and then goes its 
 way to its home, having received, we cannot doubt, the 
 thanks of the befriended animal. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 USE OF NATUBAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 AMONG the many supposed points of difference between 
 man and other animals is his use of tools and weapons, of 
 instruments of all kinds. But such a belief and such an 
 allegation are the obvious errors of thoughtlessness, for very 
 little consideration is required to show that the lower ani- 
 mals, or at least many of them, employ 
 
 1. Their own bodies, or portions or members thereof, as 
 natural instruments, as tools or weapons, as the case may be. 
 
 2. Certain natural objects to which they have access 
 for instance, sticks and stones. 
 
 3. Both the natural instruments of their own bodies or 
 the members thereof, and other natural objects as tools or 
 weapons in the most effective way. 
 
 4. They select, however, the most suitable natural instru- 
 ments for their special purposes. 
 
 5. They maintain all such instruments in good working 
 order, or render them suitable for special uses. 
 
 6. Further, they are acquainted with the applications of 
 many of the instruments constructed and used by man, and 
 they behave in accordance with this knowledge. 
 
 7. They also use these instruments themselves, and in 
 the same way that man does. 
 
 8. They substitute those of man for their own natural 
 instruments when they find the former at once more acces- 
 sible, more convenient, and more effective. 
 
 9. They use more than one instrument at the same time, 
 the one supplementing or assisting the other. 
 
 It will appear in the sequel that certain animals may be 
 
410 USE OF NATUEAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 said to be tool- or weapon-makers, just as they are indubit- 
 ably tool- or weapon-ttsers. They may surely be said so far 
 to form their own tools or weapons when they break off 
 portions of the stems or branches of trees, stripping the 
 foliage or not, as may be desirable, so as to form sticks, 
 cudgels, or clubs, fans or whisks, sunshades, bedclothes, or 
 huts, or when the chimpanzee constructs a drum out of a 
 piece of dead wood (Houzeau). 
 
 In the first place, then, many of the lower animals use 
 either their whole bodies or portions of them such as the 
 back, shoulder, arms and legs, fingers, toes, or claws, hands, 
 paws, hoofs or feet, cheeks, mouth, jaws or teeth, beaks or 
 bills, nose, proboscis, mandibles or antenna?, heads or horns, 
 spines, fins or flippers, tails or wings, spurs or other appen- 
 dages either as tools or weapons, as circumstances may 
 require. 
 
 The Quadrumana use their arms in a very humanlike 
 fashion in the carrying about of their infants, and in various 
 kinds of embrace. The anthropoid apes carry their infants 
 either in their arms, after the usual European fashion, or 
 perch them upon their backs or shoulders the latter being 
 customary to this day among Egyptian women, as I have 
 myself seen. The orang-utan swims with its infant perched 
 on one shoulder, using one of its arms and hands to hold 
 the infant in position (Pierquin). Baboons and other apes 
 carry their young on their backs (Houzeau) an operation 
 that requires the use of the arm both of mother and child. 
 Diana monkeys carry each other on their backs (Cassell). 
 The soko (Livingstone), ouistiti monkey, and various apes 
 (Houzean) and monkeys (Miss Gordon Gumming) carry 
 their young in front of the chest, as human mothers or 
 nurses do, and fondle or ' dandle ' them in the same way. 
 Miss Gordon Gumming tells us of monkeys in India c nursing 
 their babies as tenderly as a woman .... sometimes 
 carrying a baby in each arm,' or the babies were seen c sit- 
 ting on their (mothers') backs, with their little arms round 
 the parental necks.' They sometimes also run on all fours, 
 6 with the baby slung below and grasping the parental body. 
 Sometimes the young one sits on the shoulder or astride on 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 411 
 
 the back. Tii short, whatever attitudes human beings could 
 devise seem to come quite naturally to these absurd creatures.' 
 The artist of the ' Graphic ' who accompanied the Prince of 
 Wales in his Indian journey in 1875-76, describing the 
 tame and sacred Durga monkeys of the Temple of Benares, 
 represents the mother monkeys as there ' running about 
 with their babies clasped tightly to their breasts ; ' l and the 
 anthropoid apes in the same way strain their infants to their 
 breasts. The chimpanzee carries its young in its arms 
 (Houzeau) . 
 
 In the same way, moreover, in which they carry about 
 and nurse or fondle their own young, various of the Quad- 
 rurnana carry about and nurse or fondle human infants as 
 well as various animal pets. Thus Berkeley tells us of a 
 monkey that carried a human child companion in its arms, 
 though it carried the poor child by tucking him under its 
 arm, head downwards, and so taking him for air to the roof. 
 The 'Animal World' mentions a tame baboon carrying a 
 dog in the same way. Livingstone reports that the soko 
 carries in its arms the children of kidnapped natives. 
 
 We have seen that certain of the Quadrumana use their 
 arms in the caressing or embracing of their young. They 
 do so also in embracing each other, whether the embrace be 
 an expression of mutual or marital affection or the grip oi- 
 ling of the wrestler in jest or earnest. They frequently hug 
 or embrace their mates wives or husbands just as human 
 beings do in civilised society. Thus the orang-utan uses its 
 arms for embracing its mate (Cassell). The soko grapples 
 with man (Livingstone), and apes grip each other in wrestling, 
 just as our Cumberland or Westmoreland men do. Baboons 
 embrace their young (Houzeau). Bartlett speaks of the 
 mutual embraces of the chimpanzee ; Cassell of hugging or 
 embracing each other in the siamang and the tocque 
 monkey ; and various other monkeys or apes caress each 
 other by circling the arms round the neck. A male siamang 
 also embraced its master (Cassell). 
 
 The Quadrumana use their hands for many of the same 
 purposes to which man applies them ; for instance 
 
 1 ' Graphic,' January 5, 1876, p. 123. 
 
412 USE OF NATUKAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 1. In greeting, by offering and shaking Lands. 
 
 2. In expressing grief or distress, by the wringing to- 
 gether of their own hands ; or anger, by rubbing them 
 together. 
 
 3. In giving blows or fisticuffs with the hand clenched. 
 
 4. In using the closed fist threateningly, or in passion ; 
 or 
 
 5. In waving or warning off the hand being either 
 open or shut. 
 
 6. In the use of natural weapons such as sticks, fruits, 
 or stones as missiles or otherwise, or of instruments such 
 as drumsticks. 
 
 7. In the use of man's instruments such as oars, 
 pump-handles, jugs or pots, ropes, brooms or besoms, pestle 
 and mortar. 
 
 8. In shading their eyes from the sun. 
 
 9. In using the hollowed hand as a drinking vessel. 
 
 10. In warming their outspread hands before a fire. 
 
 11. In washing their own faces or hands, or those of 
 their young. 
 
 12. In making beds. 
 
 13. In receiving food or other gifts. 
 
 Various apes and monkeys shake hands with men, fre- 
 quently taking the initiative by offering their hands first 
 (Lady Yerney). A young, and necessarily wild, soko ' held 
 out her hand to be shaken ' (Livingstone). The chimpanzee 
 presents its hand in greeting or thanksgiving (Houzeau). 
 The lori exhibits its attachment to man by squeezing his 
 fingers (Cassell), and various monkeys or apes do the same. 
 
 The closed or clenched fist is used in boxing with each 
 other or with man, in chastising each other, in defiance, 
 threatening, or passion. The orang-utan uses its fists as 
 weapons both of offence and defence (Cassell). Various apes 
 punish each other by fist blows (Pierquin). The soko slaps 
 the cheek of the native whom it attacks, beats off intruders 
 with its fists and yells, and an attempted abduction of a fe- 
 male leads all his companions to box and bite the abductor 
 (Livingstone). The great chacma baboon fisticuffs its young 
 for practical irreverential jokes, such as pulling its tail 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 413 
 
 (Dray son). A young soko, 'on being interfered with by a 
 man .... tried to beat him with her hands' (Livingstone). 
 A chimpanzee in the Zoological Gardens of London boxes 
 with its keeper in sport, no doubt. 1 Monkeys in New 
 Guinea shake their fists in defiance (Lawson). The orang 
 beats the ground with its fists when in passion (Yvan). 
 
 The collared callithric monkey rubs its hands in anger 
 (Cassell). Wriiiyiny the hands in certain monkeys, as in 
 man, is an expression of anguish. A young soko ' wrings 
 her hands quite naturally, as if in despair ' (Livingstone). 
 The sacred Durga monkeys of Benares ' hold out their hands 
 for food;' 2 in other words, adopt this means of begging. The 
 chimpanzee uses its hand, as man does, to wave or warn off 
 intruders (Houzeau). A young soko 'holds out her hand 
 for people to lift her up and carry her, quite like a spoiled 
 child' (Livingstone). 
 
 The siamang mother washes her young (Cassell) ; while of 
 the gibbon Duvancel asserts that he has seen the ' mothers 
 carry their young ones to the water and wash their faces ' 
 (Buclmer). The titi monkey washes its hands as man does 
 (Cassell). The chimpanzee washes its own hands and face 
 (Houzeau). A young soko 'wipes her face with a leaf 
 (Livingstone). 
 
 Many monkeys and apes make use of missiles, throwing 
 stones or pieces of rock, fruits or sticks, or other accessible 
 movables. Baboons throw showers of stones (Cassell). The 
 orang-utan uses fruits and branches (Wallace). The Ehesus, 
 coaita, and other monkeys throw . stones in retaliation or 
 otherwise (Cassell). 
 
 Some wield sticks as cudgels or clubs, as weapons of 
 offence or defence for instance, the gorilla and chimpanzee 
 (Cassell). A cebus (monkey) of Belt's, in order to catch 
 ducks, held out a piece of bread with one hand, and when it 
 had tempted one of the birds within reach, seized it with 
 the other, itself swinging meanwhile from a verandah by its 
 chain. An ouapavi (monkey) brushed its own clothes and 
 shoes (Cassell). The monkeys of Darfur (Africa) cling to 
 
 1 < Graphic,' August 28, 1875, p. 199. 
 
 2 Ibid., January 5, 1876, p. 123. 
 
414 USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 each other, hand in hand, when purposely intoxicated, in 
 order to their capture, by man. Baboons cuff or skelp their 
 young (Cassell). 
 
 In many of the operations involving the use of the arms 
 and hands the employment of the fingers and thumbs is also 
 implied. But there are many operations in which, among 
 the Quadrumana, the nicely adjusted use of the fingers and 
 thumbs, and even the nails, is as much required as in many 
 of the works of man. These operations include 
 
 1. The picking out of vermin such as pediculi from 
 the hair and skin of various parts of the body. 
 
 2. The picking up of pins or other very small articles. 
 
 3. The undoing, untying, or uncoiling of knots in cord, 
 string, rope, rings or links in chains ; including also the 
 picking out of thread in sewn articles, as well as the tying 
 of knots. 
 
 4. The use of keys or other instruments of man's such 
 as table utensils. 
 
 5. The picking of pockets and other forms of theft. 
 
 6. The prizing open of lids of boxes of all kinds. 
 
 7. Turning over the pages of books. 
 
 8. Doing or undoing the fastenings of articles of man's 
 dress such as boots. 
 
 9. Hairdressing. 
 
 10. Extracting nails, staples, or holdfasts. 
 
 As pickpockets, many monkeys may well be termed ' light- 
 fingered,' and in other ways they prove themselves adroit 
 thieves, mainly by the use of their fingers. The titi monkey 
 theftuously removes cabinet specimens of insects from the 
 pins by which they are fastened (Cassell). The moiia monkey 
 opens locks, unties knots, and undoes rings (Cassell). The 
 orang-utan also unties knots in a chain (Cassell). A pet 
 whitefaced (cebus) monkey of Belt's opened the links of its 
 chain and so escaped several times. ' It could loosen any 
 knot in a few minutes,' whether of cord or raw-hide 
 thong. A young female soko untied a cord that bound her, 
 'with fingers and thumbs in quite a systematic way,' ac- 
 cording to Livingstone, who also describes an older male as 
 sitting picking his. nails. A tame capuchin monkey released 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 415 
 
 itself from the irksome bondage of straps ' by picking out 
 the threads by which the straps were sewn to the buckles, 
 and so rendering the fastenings useless' (Wood). Mother 
 monkeys in Abyssinia dress the hair of their young (Mans- 
 field Parky ns). The macaco monkey shows great dexterity 
 in opening boxes (Buffon). The marmozet uses its fingers 
 in turning over the pages of a book, which it pretends to 
 read. The collared callitlrrix, disliking tobacco smoke, 
 snatches its master's cigar from his mouth (Cassell). A 
 female gorilla in the Dresden Zoological Gardens takes off 
 and replaces, for the amusement of visitors, the boots of her 
 keeper ( c Mature '). A capuchin monkey took the hinges off 
 the door of its cage in order to escape. * No matter how 
 firmly they were fixed, he was sure before long to extract the 
 staples, pull out the nails, and so open the door ' (Wood). 
 The Durga monkeys of Benares occasionally * snatch some 
 particularly noticeable turban off the wearer's head,' among 
 visitors to the monkey temple of that city, and now and 
 then they *' pelt passers-by with remarkably good aim.' 1 
 
 Mandrills that live on scorpions use their fingers and 
 hands to lift the stones under which their prey conceal 
 themselves (Smith). 
 
 While giving such instances of what may be called 
 k handiness ' among the Quadrumana, it is desirable to con- 
 trast them with a parallel series of illustrations of what may 
 equally appropriately be denominated the c handlessness ' of 
 man. Inability to use his hands deftly, or otherwise than 
 awkwardly, is not only characteristic of many individuals in 
 the most highly civilised communities, but of whole races 
 of man savage or semi-savage. Thus Monteiro tells us, 
 speaking of the negroes of western tropical Africa, that 
 4 some of the actions of the blacks are exactly the same as 
 those performed by monkeys. In using their hands or 
 fingers to clean or polish a piece of brass-work, for instance, 
 the feeble and nerveless manner of holding 1 the bit of oiled 
 
 O 
 
 rag, and the whole action of the hand and arm is strikingly 
 like that of a monkey when it rubs its hands on the ground 
 when they are sticky or dirty. Their manner of sliding their 
 
 1 'Graphic,' January ", l?7t>. p. 123. 
 
416 USE OF NATUEAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 hands up and down on the edge of a door, or on a door-post, 
 or along the edges of a table whilst waiting or speaking, is 
 very monkeylike. And no black man, woman, or child ever 
 goes along a corridor or narrow passage without rubbing 
 both hands on the walls.' 
 
 Certain other animals use their fore paws or fore legs 
 for many of the same purposes and in many of the same 
 ways for and in which the Quadrumana and man apply their 
 hands and arms. Thus a certain Eskimo dog speedily imitated 
 civilised man's custom of shaking hands by offering its paw 
 (McGahan); and this shaking hands with man by holding 
 up its paw is one of the commonest tricks of his dog pets. 
 ' Nature ' mentions a mastiff that, as a caress or mark of 
 affection, put his paws round a favourite companion cat, and 
 on her death in the same way round her only surviving 
 kitten, both cat and kitten previously sleeping habitually in 
 his kennel, with his fore legs thus guarding them. 
 
 A large dog that had saved a small one from drowning 
 'cuffed it first with one paw and then with the other' 
 (Wood). A female St. Bernard dog offered its paw to man 
 in token of its sympathy with human distress a sort of 
 hand offering or shaking not at all uncommon both in cat 
 and dog. The same affectionate St. Bernard embraced 
 ' clasped ' a mistress in its forelegs the equivalents in it 
 of arms and died with its paws resting on or in the hand of 
 a much -loved master (Wood). Monteiro ' saw a dog eating 
 the grains off a green Indian-corn cob, which he was holding 
 down with his two front paws.' 
 
 The cat not unfrequently uses its paw to touch or tap its 
 master's shoulder when it desires to attract his notice 
 ( f Animal World '). A pet cat sitting at a carriage window, 
 whenever anything passing takes her fancy, ' puts her paw 
 on my chest,' says her mistress, ' and makes a pretty little 
 noise, as though ashing me if I had seen it also.' Another 
 laid her paw on the lips of a lady who had a distressing 
 cough every time she coughed, in evidence possibly of pity, 
 possibly in order to the physical suppression of the cough by 
 closure of the aperture by which alone it could find vent 
 (Wood). A third cat touched with her paw the lips of those 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 417 
 
 who whistled a tune, 'as if pleased with the sound' (Wood). 
 Cats 'cuff' each other or their young that is, they give 
 blows, and so punish or administer rebuke to some unruly 
 or troublesome kitten with their paws. They also warm 
 their paws before a fire, and use them for shading the face 
 either from the fire or the sun ('Animal World'). We are 
 told of a cat frequently patting the nose of a companion 
 horse. It is well known that our domestic cats are in the 
 habit of washing their faces by means of their paws, by 
 which means also they brush and clean their foreheads and 
 eyes. The cat uses its fore paw too in touching or testing 
 objects to ascertain, for instance, their hardness or other 
 qualities (' Percy Anecdotes '), or to measure the quantity or 
 discover the level of the fluids certain vessels may contain. 
 Thus a cat, ' when wishing to drink water from a jug,' uSed 
 its paw ' to ascertain if it was fall enough ' (' Animal World '). 
 It takes milk from a narrow milk-pot by inserting its paw, 
 curling it up for removal when saturated with milk, and then 
 licking it (Wood). In a Birmingham burglary case, heard 
 at the Warwick Assizes in March 1877, 'the prosecutor de- 
 posed that he was awoke by his cat patting his face, Puss 
 having discovered the burglars rummaging his bedroom.' l 
 
 The bear uses its fore legs and paws for the purposes of 
 embrace, either that of affection in the case of a mother and 
 her cubs, or of mutual recognition (Buffon), or in the hug of 
 struggle with an enemy, such as man, or some other ob- 
 noxious, and it may be inanimate, object. Gillmore mentions 
 a North American black bear that picked up a frightened and 
 fugitive sheep between his paws, placed it on the top of the 
 rails of a fence, and pushed it over, so as to assist its flight 
 a procedure which the observer himself describes as ' almost 
 incredible.' 
 
 Drummond mentions a lioness as giving her unruly cubs 
 a smart blow with her paw as a quietus. Kangaroos use 
 their fore legs and paws to hug the dog in fight (Baden 
 Powell). The tame hare uses its fore paws in patting or 
 clapping ('Percy Anecdotes'). And we are told of wild 
 hares 'patting each other in the face with their paws, as 
 
 1 Inverness Courier,' March 29, 1877. 
 VOL. I. E E 
 
418 USE OF NATUKAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 though indulging in a family sparring match ' (Wood). The 
 black and brown rat and the common or domestic mouse 
 lick their paws, and so wash their heads and faces as the cat 
 does (Wood). The hamster and common rat wash their 
 faces. Mice also embrace each other with their fore legs 
 and paws (Cassell). Eats eat like squirrels, ' sitting upon 
 their hind legs, and holding the fruit in their front paws ' 
 (Wood). The toad uses one of its fore feet to draw any 
 extraneous matter such as a blade of grass or a fragment 
 of moss out of its mouth (Jesse). The Mellivora, and pro- 
 bably other animals, use their paws to aid vision, by acting 
 as eye-shades, just as man does (Houzeau). 
 
 The dog, cat, and other animals, moreover, use their fore 
 legs and paws for purposes to which the Quadrumana and 
 man do not usually at least apply their hands and arms. 
 Thus the cat steals, by the insertion of its paw, bottled porter, 
 milk or cream, or helps herself to water or other fluids, from 
 vessels with long narrow mouths, inaccessible to its tongue. 
 A certain cat, when thirsty and unable to reach the water in 
 a jug by means of her tongue, dipped her paws in (Wood). 
 
 What may be considered in certain respects the equiva- 
 lents of fingers, hands, and arms in man, or of paws and fore 
 legs in other animals, subserve various useful, and some 
 singular, purposes. Thus there is a certain land-crab of 
 Samoa that climbs cocoa-nut trees, ' and pushes down a 
 brown nut that is nearly ripe, and consequently easily 
 detached from the stalk. It then descends, goes to the nut, 
 and with its strong claws tears off the fibrous husk, always 
 commencing at that end where the three eyeholes are 
 situated, just as a native would. When this operation is 
 completed it reascends the tree .... and holding the nut 
 by a bit of the fibre, which it leaves on for the purpose, it 
 lets it fall upon a rock or stone, and thus breaks it. When 
 there are no other means of breaking the nut it hammers 
 away with its heavy claws on one of the eyeholes until an 
 opening is made, large enough to insert its narrow pincers, 
 with which it scoops out the white food' (Boddam Whetham). 
 
 Hague speaks of certain Californian ants wringing their 
 pincers in despair, as man would do his hands. Soldiers 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 419 
 
 among white ants signal to the workers by strokes of their 
 pincers (Figuier). And ants in general use their antenna) 
 in 
 
 1. Examination of objects. 
 
 2. Communication of ideas, feelings, or desires (Figuier). 
 They are instruments of language. 
 
 3. Milking Aphides, in which the deftness or adroitness 
 of the ant, and also of the bee, has been commented on by 
 Moggridge. 
 
 The dugong of Ceylon clasps its young to its breast with 
 one flipper while swimming with the other (Tennent). 'I 
 once saw a whale, 5 says Dr. Eobert Brown, ' when the boats 
 were approaching it, take the young under one pectoral fin 
 and swim off by the aid of the other.' 
 
 Claws are used by some animals for certain of the pur- 
 poses to which man and the Quadrumana apply their nails. 
 In this way pea-hens are in the habit of combing out the 
 topknots of their sons. Romanes gives a case in which a 
 Brahma hen (foster mother) did the same to her foster son 
 (a peacock) ' she standing on a seat or other eminence of 
 suitable height, and he bending his head forwards with 
 evident satisfaction.' Parrots and many other birds hold 
 their food in their feet or claws for instance, certain New 
 Zealand birds mentioned by Dr. Buller. By means of their 
 claws, too, they hold on to their perch, and scratch up earth 
 in search of worms or otherwise. A pet bird of Bechstein's 
 got its food by pressing a lever with its foot. The procedure 
 was imitated by another uneducated bird suffering from 
 hunger. It lifted the lid of the food box with its claws as it 
 had seen the trained bird do. Dogs and cats use their claws 
 to scratch up earth in making caches of food, .to scratch at 
 doors so as to attract man's notice, to reach or grasp coveted 
 articles. 
 
 The feet especially the hind feet are used for many 
 purposes, both as implements and weapons. The horse 
 inflicts deadly injury with its hind hoofs, batters doors or 
 fences, assaults its enemies, or protects itself from their 
 assaults. But it also makes a more ingenious and less ob- 
 jectionable use of these formidable hoofs. Thus a mare 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 locked up in a coach-house repeatedly extricated herself by 
 drawing up the drop-bolt with her hind hoof ('Animal 
 World '). Sheep attacked by the breeze fly stamp by striking 
 their feet on the ground, as an expression of their excite- 
 ment (Figuier) . The tumble-dung beetle of North America 
 rolls its pellets of dung by pushing with its hind feet. A 
 certain trap- door spider of New Zealand holds down the 
 hinged door of its subterranean nest by means of its feet, so 
 as to prevent its being opened by an intruder or an enemy 
 (Gillies). 
 
 Various animals apply their tails to a number of useful 
 purposes. The cat, ant-eater, squirrel, jerboa, guinea-pig, 
 wolf, jackal, maruiozet, and other animals use their tails 
 partly as respirators or comforters (Lawson Tait), as retainers 
 of heat, just as women wear boas. 
 
 The yak uses its tail as a fly-flapper, whisk, or fan, and 
 the horse and many other animals in a similar way employ 
 their tails to protect themselves to a certain extent from 
 insect pests. Eats use their tails, as cats do their paws, in 
 extracting or abstracting jelly, oil, or cream from preserve 
 bottles or other vessels with necks too narrow to admit of 
 the passage of their whole body, as has been recently proved 
 by the experiments of Eomanes, and was long ago pointed 
 out by Jesse. An instance is given by Baird of a rat re- 
 paying the attention or affection bestowed upon it by a child 
 companion by the useful service of whisking flies from his 
 face by means of its tail. Miss Gordon Gumming describes 
 an old monkey in India giving a young one a swing on its 
 tail, just as man uses his foot with his infant. The macaco 
 and other monkeys play with their own tails as well as with 
 those of their fellows (Cassell), and there are probably few 
 persons who have not seen kittens amusing themselves in a 
 similar cheap and simple way. The marmozet (monkey) uses 
 its own tail as a covering for its body during sleep (Cassell) 
 in lieu of other forms of bed-clothes. The aides monkey uses 
 its tail in fishing (Houzeau), and the racoon does the same 
 in fishing for crabs (' Percy Anecdotes '). The rat uses its 
 tail in the guidance of the blind. Apes employ theirs in 
 suspension and progression (Houzeau). The great ant-eater 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 421 
 
 employs its tail as an umbrella against rain a circumstance 
 taken advantage of by the Indians, who rustle the forest 
 leaves in imitation of a shower, ( and whilst he is putting 
 up his umbrella kill him' (Wallace). 
 
 The beaks or bills of birds are used in a great variety of 
 ways. The tailor bird employs its bill as a needle, its thread 
 being the fibre of a tree bark, b}~ means of which needle and 
 thread it sews a series of leaves in an intricate fashion, so as 
 to form a waterproof cover for its nest (Baker). Hens comb 
 out the feathers of their chickens in this way, and Romanes 
 gives the case of a foster hen doing the same to the hair of a 
 brood of young ferrets consigned to her care. Various birds 
 carry their young in their beaks, as in the case of a landrail 
 mentioned in the ( Animal World.' A common wood pigeon 
 a ring dove tapped at a certain window till it was opened 
 (Jesse), and a swan tapped at a door c at a certain hour every 
 afternoon ' to intimate that it had come for its food supply 
 (Carpenter). Robins and other birds frequently thus tap at 
 windows or doors for admission, or to attract notice. The 
 woodpecker taps the bark of trees for other purposes, as well 
 as excavates, with its beak. The hen chases away stranger 
 chickens by blows of her beak. The parrot, too, gives blows 
 with its beak, and this organ is commonly used as a weapon 
 of offence or defence in combats between various bird indivi- 
 duals or species. A goldfinch tied with a string a weak 
 branch to a stronger one in her nest-building (Watson). A 
 performing cockatoo beat time with a drumstick held in its 
 bill (Buckland). Beaks are commonly used among birds as 
 instruments for picking or breaking up food, fruits, and 
 grains. Crows steal cocoa-nut oil from railway carriage 
 boxes by prizing open the spring lid with their beaks (Wood). 
 A raven, magpie, or jackdaw by the same means turns over 
 and over for examination as deftly as it could with a hand 
 any object that excites its curiosity. A raven untied knots 
 in string and undermined the bars of its cage, while it also 
 tested the strength or weakness of wire all in order to 
 escape from its cage (Wood). 
 
 Many birds feed their young or each other by passing 
 food from beak to beak. By means of their beaks they 
 
422 USE OF NATUKAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 clean their nests of excrement, free themselves from vermin, 
 preen their feathers, hoist themselves up wires or spars. 
 The chick in ovo uses its bill to break its shell and emanci- 
 pate itself. 
 
 The wings are used variously as fans, as by the hive bee 
 in ventilation of the hive, or in cooling itself (Watson) ; or 
 as shade or shelter, protecting the young from danger, or 
 from the sun in birds (White), and as weapons of offence or 
 defence in fighting with each other. A swan in Kew Gar- 
 dens knocked down a child by a blow with its wing, in 
 order that it might rob him of some confectionery ('Cham- 
 bers's Journal ') . 
 
 Besides being used in biting or tearing, in defence 
 or revenge, in food capture and breaking-up, the teeth 
 of various animals are sometimes employed for other pur- 
 poses. Horses use them occasionally in turning water 
 taps, working pump handles, opening gates or corn chests. 
 Dogs pull each other's ears in play or for specific ends, as 
 they do also woman's dress when they desire to attract her 
 attention. 
 
 By means of its teeth the dog sometimes tears off clothes 
 on fire from a child playfellow or a mistress, and it employs 
 the same instrument in lifting door latches, as the horse, 
 ass, and cat more frequently do (' Animal World'). A dog 
 that had soiled a floor with its mud-covered feet scraped off 
 the mud with its teeth (Houzeau). The horse uses its teeth 
 in lifting the crawling infant from its path, for freeing itself 
 or its fellow from vermin, or to relieve it from cutaneous 
 irritation, however arising, to demolish its crib in the excite- 
 ment of passion or disease, even for a certain kind of mutual 
 caress. The tusks of the elephant are employed for uprooting 
 trees, and with terrible effect in the destruction of the frail 
 dwellings of the Indian peasantry. 
 
 Certain curious uses are occasionally made of the mouth. 
 The monkey employs it for hiding food or stolen articles, and 
 the dog sometimes does the same. Berkeley mentions a lame 
 monkey using its cheek to carry nuts. The dog uses its 
 mouth in holding and carrying as well as concealing. Thus 
 it preserves lost coin for its master. Martin mentions a 
 
USE OF NATUEAL INSTKUMENTS. 423 
 
 poodle keeping a gold coin in its mouth for its master, and 
 Tytler gives instances of a dog carrying money as well as 
 food in its mouth when engaged in going messages for its 
 master. It is in their mouths, too, that so many roll-pur- 
 chasing dogs convey their coppers to the baker's. In one 
 instance, related to me by Dr. John Brown, a big dog offered 
 its open mouth as an asylum for a frightened bird, a live 
 canary, in danger of its life from a cat or other natural 
 enemy. In such cases the mouth and cavity of the cheeks 
 form a natural pouch. But there are certain other pouches 
 connected with cheeks, mouth, chin, throat, neck, thighs, 
 abdomen, or other parts of the body that are used in similar 
 ways for the storage of food or the stowage of young such 
 as those of the so-called 6 pouch rat,' pelican, and kangaroo. 
 And here, as in so many other cases, there is a close analogy 
 with the habits of certain savages (Houzeau). The dbg 
 sometimes has been known to recover a boat gone adrift, 
 towing it by a chain held or grasped in or by its mouth 
 (Tytler). 
 
 Norwegian ponies, as I have myself observed when tra- 
 velling by carriole in Norway, push open the gates that bar 
 the roads, a procedure that saves the skydskarls the boys 
 who sit behind the trouble of getting down constantly to 
 open these gates, to do which, however, is part of the duty 
 of the said post-boys. These ponies use their chests as a 
 pushing agent, and they produce the necessary impetus by 
 making a sort of leap and so dashing fearlessly against the 
 gates. 
 
 The head is used sometimes as man employs it as when 
 the domesticated chimpanzee carries water-pitchers on its 
 head (Houzeau). More frequently it is used for butting, 
 though this butting is not only, always, or necessarily em- 
 ployed in the fight ; for the elephant, for instance, butts his 
 forehead suddenly and with great force against the trunk of 
 the heglik tree (Balanites Egyptiaca), merely to cause its 
 coveted fruit to fall (Baker) . 
 
 Horns are applied to various purposes besides their fre- 
 quent use as dangerous weapons in fighting as among 
 stags or as means of inflicting injury on an adversary in 
 
424 USE OE NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 the case of the bull or wild boar. The domestic ox breaks 
 fences with its horns. A ball lifted a gate off its hinges by 
 means of its horns, employed as a hoist or lever ( 6 Animal 
 World'). The horns of the cow and ram are used some- 
 times in the extrication of lambs or ewes from positions of 
 peril in one case by applying them in tearing aside briars, 
 in another by employing them as a lever (Macaulay). 
 
 The effective use of a bodily organ in many different 
 ways as an instrument, implement, tool, or weapon is illus- 
 trated by the applications to practical purposes made by the 
 elephant of its proboscis (or trunk). It can perform the most 
 delicate operations, such as picking up a pin, and the 
 coarsest, such as grasping and lifting a log of teak or throw- 
 ing down some forest tree. By means of it the animal can 
 gently grasp the child that strays before it on the high-road, 
 or can seize it by the clothes and place it carefully out of 
 danger, or it can squeeze its enemy man to death. It 
 employs it in making a salaam, in presenting a gift, in 
 clearing the way of movable obstacles, in breaking off tree 
 branches for use as whisks, in plucking fruit, in stripping 
 bamboos of their foliage, in ringing shop bells (Buckland), 
 in holding and in blowing wind instruments as I have 
 myself seen in playing the organ, in using planks thrown 
 to it by man to help it to extricate itself from a quicksand 
 (Wood), even in embracing its fellows. Of a military ele- 
 phant that had been separated two years from its regiment 
 we are told that, on the return of the regiment, c it was 
 quite affecting to see with what kindly recognition he em- 
 braced any of his (human) companions, placing his trunk 
 tenderly on their neck and shoulders ('Chambers's Journal'). 
 Very commonly animals use their natural tools or weapons 
 conjointly, the one to assist the other. Thus the horse in the 
 fight uses both its teeth and hoofs. The elephant, in destroy- 
 ing its cage or the peasant's hut, employs both proboscis and 
 tusks. In killing man it may further use its ponderous feet, 
 or bring the whole weight of its huge body to bear in crush- 
 ing him to death. Claws and teeth are used conjointly by 
 many or all of the Carnivora in destroying and devouring 
 their prey. The black bear of North America uses both 
 
USE OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 425 
 
 paws and teeth in breaking nut-laden branches from trees 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 Unaided, however, by other means many animals could 
 not accomplish the objects they have in view their own 
 protection, maintenance, or comfort did they not, in addi- 
 tion to the various parts or organs of their own bodies, 
 make use of various extrinsic objects mostly movables, to 
 which they have so easy access. For various purposes they 
 make appropriate use of 
 
 1. Stones, pieces of rock, or other hard substances, fixed 
 or movable for instance, as missiles, or as anvils or wedges. 
 
 2. Pieces of stick or wood, broken from trees or found on 
 the ground in forests, and used as clubs or cudgels, as 
 levers, or as means of reaching objects out of range. 
 
 3. Nuts or other fruits of various kinds as missiles. 
 
 4. Leaves of different kinds, or leafy branches as whisks, 
 flappers, fans, sunshades, punkahs, brushes or switches ; or 
 in the construction of various forms of shelter. 
 
 Stones or movable bits of rock are frequently used, in 
 the first place, as missiles or projectiles, and this sometimes 
 by most unlikely animals. Thus the Rev. Dr. van Lennep, 
 the well-known American missionary in Palestine, tells 
 us of a bear of the Anti-Taurus that, being attacked by 
 shepherds and their dogs, ' retired, flinging stones at his 
 pursuers with such an accurate aim and force that severe 
 wounds were inflicted on them.' 
 
 The Polar bear, again, rolls down with corresponding 
 effect huge pieces of rock from the summits of cliffs on the 
 walrus reclining unsuspectingly at their base (Watson and 
 Hall). Various monkeys and apes use stones as projectiles 
 in the same way that boys employ them if they happen to be 
 more accessible than the fruits with which from their high 
 tree fastnesses they so frequently pelt forest travellers in 
 tropical countries. Barbary apes pelt man or each other 
 with fruits (Cassell). Lawson describes himself as pelted 
 with wallah nuts and excrement by monkeys in New Guinea. 
 Portions of the branches of trees are also frequently used by 
 monkeys to pelt enemies or intruders. The orang when 
 pursued throws or flings branches, sticks, and heavy fruits 
 
426 USE OF NATUEAL INSTEUMENTS. 
 
 from trees at its pursuers (Biichner, Pierquin), or it makes 
 use of everything that is movable and manageable. 
 
 Just as various animals especially the quadrumana 
 may be said to arm themselves with stones, they arm themselves 
 even in a more human fashion with sticks. They not only 
 wield them as staves, clubs, or cudgels, but first fashion 
 them of suitable size, form, and weight by stripping their 
 foliage or otherwise. The stick, indeed, is the primary 
 weapon alike of man and the quadrumana. The gorilla uses 
 a stick as a club both in attack and defence. By this means 
 it gives blows to the proboscis of the elephant (Owen). The 
 orang brandishes a stick as a weapon (Pierquin). The 
 chimpanzee arms itself with a club (Cassell). Baboons and 
 other apes defend themselves with sticks as cudgels (Biichner; 
 Cassell). The sacred ape of India carries and 'stacks arms' 
 in the form of sticks in a particular place (Houzeau). 
 
 Sticks, however, are used for many other purposes. The 
 elephant in Burniah makes a bamboo rod by stripping a 
 bamboo stem of its leaves, and wields it in its proboscis so as 
 to knock down baskets of paddy placed by the Karens thirty 
 feet high on trees man's object being that these food stores 
 should be beyond the reach or range of the animal's unaided 
 trunk. 1 The gorilla" uses a stick as a staff to support itself 
 in walking (Owen). Certain monkeys or apes use sticks as 
 levers (Darwin). The rat leads its blind parent or compa- 
 nion by means of a piece of stick held between its teeth 
 (Watson). The chimpanzee fashions and uses its own 
 drumsticks and drum (Houzeau). 
 
 Just as the stick is the primary weapon of savage man 
 and the anthropoid ape, a stone is the first instrument of 
 industry used by man- in the bruising or crushing of nuts 
 or grain. For similar purposes, and in similar ways, stones 
 are used by a variety of other animals. In some cases the 
 stone is taken in the paw and employed to break hard nuts 
 against some other hard substance. Thus apes take stones 
 in their hands to break nuts against walls or nails (Darwin). 
 The sacred monkey in this way also uses stones for pounding 
 serpent -fangs. The howling monkey uses stones to smash 
 
 1 ' Graphic,' August 19, 1876, p. 175. 
 
USE OF NATUKAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 oyster-shells (Dampier). In the commoner case of birds7" 
 shell-fish are either dropped from a height on stones or rocks 
 or, held in their beaks or bills, they are dashed violently 
 against stones. 
 
 Various thrushes, especially, are in the habit of smashing 
 snail-shells on or against stones. In our own country it is 
 a habit of the common thrush to do so by grasping the 
 snail-shell in its bill and bringing it down with force on a 
 stone usually some particular or favourite stone, round 
 which may be found a whole heap of shell debris a minia- 
 ture 'kitchen inidden' ('Animal World'). The mavis breaks 
 the shell of Helix nemoralis 'by reiterated strokes against some 
 stone. ... It is not uncommon to find a great quantity of 
 fragments of shells together, as if brought to one particular 
 stone for that purpose ' (Montagu). There are, in fact, some- 
 times small ' shell- mounds ' about these favourite ' anvils,' 
 as Atkinson calls them. The sacred kingfisher of Australia 
 kills small snakes by ' beating their heads against a stone or 
 other hard substance ' (Jesse) . The caama (asse or swift fox) 
 of Southern Africa is said to break the eggs of the ostrich 
 by rolling them with its paws ' forcibly against a stone or 
 other hard substance.' Boddarn Whetham mentions a large 
 land-crab of Samoa that, after having removed the husk of 
 the cocoa-nut, carries the nut to the top of a tree, and lets it 
 fall upon a rock or stone, so as to break it. 
 
 Stones are also used as wedges by apes (Watson). Thus 
 they 'push stones between the open valves of the mussel- 
 shell to prevent their closing' (Buchner). Certain birds em- 
 ploy stones for their weight as keep-fasts for instance, in 
 the bowers of bower birds (Nichols). And certain spiders 
 use fragments of gravel to steady their webs. 
 
 The elephant breaks off leafy branches for the purpose 
 of using them variously as (1) fans or punkahs ; (2) whisks, 
 to brush or ward off flies or other insect plagues ; (3) sun- 
 shades (Watson). 
 
 Certain of the anthropoid apes make a kind of tente 
 d'abri, a rude sort of hut, of the branches and leaves of 
 trees a dwelling quite comparable with the shelters con- 
 structed for themselves by the various primitive people who 
 
428 USE OF NATUKAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 had, or have, advanced a stage or two beyond the prehistoric 
 troglodytes or cave-dwellers. 
 
 Many animals show their sense of the value of, or neces- 
 sity for, their natural tools or weapons by keeping them in 
 good working order sharpening them in the majority of 
 cases. The Felince generally whet or sharpen their claws ; 
 the bear sharpens both teeth and claws ; the boar whets its 
 tusks; for this purpose, probably, the cat defaces leather- 
 bound books in libraries, and the tiger is fond of scratching 
 the bark of trees, especially the Indian fig. Hence, too, the 
 propensity of the stag to rub his antlers against trees in 
 summer, to clear them of their skin and to polish them. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 NOT a few animals use, and in some cases or in certain 
 respects in the same way as man himself does, various 
 instruments fashioned by him. Thus they know the use, 
 and in some cases apply to their own purposes their know- 
 ledge of such use, of 
 
 1. Money or coin. 
 
 2. Doors and gates, with their latches or handles, bolts 
 and knockers. 
 
 3. Boxes and their lids. 
 
 4. Instruments of punishment or restraint, such as the 
 whip or collar. 
 
 5. Fire-arms or other weapons. 
 
 6. Ropes and chains. 
 
 7. Table utensils, such as cutlery, crockery, and glass 
 ware. 
 
 8. Household furniture. 
 
 9. Windlasses, spits, pumps, wheels, bells, turnip-slicers, 
 forge bellows, paddles, pestles and mortars, hammers and 
 nails. 
 
 10. Bed and body clothes or coverings. 
 
 11. Artificial nests or dwellings of all kinds. 
 
 12. Baskets and sacks. 
 
 13. Musical instruments, such as the organ, cymbal, 
 drum. 
 
 14. Games, such as cricket, cards, dominoes, swings. 
 
 15. Torches or lanterns. 
 
 16. Canes, sticks, or staffs in walking. 
 
 The use of man's [coins by the dog in the purchase of 
 
430 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 eatables for itself or its master is a subject of the highest 
 interest from several points of view, illustrating as it does 
 not only 
 
 1. The purchase of rolls at a baker's by tendering a 
 copper held in the mouth, involving a knowledge of the 
 practice, if not of the principle, of exchange or barter ; but 
 also 
 
 2. The earning and accumulation or saving of money, with 
 its storage for the future needs either of its master or itself. 
 
 3. A knowledge of coins and their relative value, including 
 the getting of change. 
 
 4. Bargain-malting with man. 
 
 5. Selection of a particular shop and dealer. 
 
 6. Perception and resentment of deception or dishonesty, 
 or attempts thereat, real or assumed. 
 
 7. The use of credit and the running up of accounts. 
 
 In the town near which" I reside there are at least two 
 large dogs whose peculiarities are well known to many of 
 the inhabitants, and especially to school children, which dogs 
 are habitually sent by their masters merchants in the town 
 to purchase bread for themselves. Each carries a penny 
 in its mouth, and each trots off, whenever a penny is given 
 to it, to a certain baker's shop. There they rear themselves 
 on their hind legs, place their fore paws well on the counter, 
 and thus firmly supporting themselves they drop their penny 
 on the counter, receiving a roll in return. This they carry 
 back in their mouths in one case intact, the dog not eating 
 its allowance till the bread being broken up and offered, it 
 understands it to be for its own use, and devours the roll- 
 fragments. One of these so-called ' performances ' I wit- 
 nessed and conducted for myself for experimental purposes. 
 But such incidents are merely types of others of common 
 occurrence. 
 
 Much less common, but more suggestive, incidents are 
 the following : A certain terrier, now dead ' Captain ' 
 long well known in Eothesay, publicly begged money from 
 suitable persons, showing great discrimination in the se- 
 lection of the persons to whom he made his appeal. When 
 he had an excess of funds more than he required to buy his 
 
USE OF MAN'? INSTRUMENTS. 431 
 
 modicum of bread at the baker's he hid his money in the 
 office of his master (who was, and is still, harbour master), 
 or sometimes about the quay, in which latter case his hoards 
 were frequently found and appropriated by needy and greedy 
 quay porters or street arabs. He carried on this profitable 
 business of begging on his own account till his teeth were 
 quite worn down by the incessant friction of the coins he 
 had caught up and carried ('Animal World'). 
 
 A certain Newfoundland dog, when offered a coin, e if not 
 at the moment hungry,' would ' hide it under his mat,' thus 
 gradually accumulating a fund of coppers, ' from which he 
 abstracted a penny or halfpenny at a time, according to the 
 state of his appetite. He knew perfectly well the difference 
 between the coins and their relative value, and that he was 
 entitled to receive two biscuits for the larger sum and only 
 one for the halfpenny.' Sometimes c he only wanted a single 
 biscuit .... and wished for the change out of his penny. 
 Now and then he took a fancy for a French roll by way of 
 variety. ... If you gave him a sixpence he would receive 
 the change, and then allow you to take it out of his mouth, 
 satisfied with his two biscuits ' (Macaulay). 
 
 A retriever, c in consequence of being repeatedly tricked 
 .... never lets the penny out of his reach until the 
 roll is laid down.' Another dog ' quite knew the right- 
 sized bun, and used to keep his paw on the penny until he 
 got it.' A third dog having once been deceived by a baker, 
 went ever afterwards to a rival establishment on the other 
 side of the street, always, however, calling first at the 
 deceiver's shop to let him see the coin and custom he was 
 losing (Wood). Instances have been given also of dogs 
 selecting particular coins and stealing them ; saving money 
 for specific ends ; buying rolls or meat on credit ; running 
 up accounts with a butcher or baker (Watson). But it is 
 desirable that the details of some of these incidents should 
 be re-observed, verified, and analysed. 
 
 Beggars' dogs regularly earn or make money for the sub- 
 sistence of themselves and their masters. They sit in begging 
 attitude ; their looks are eloquently those of appeal ; they 
 receive coins in tin jugs tied round their necks ; and they 
 
432 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 take good care of the money collected. And all this they do 
 sometimes when quite alone, without supervision or direction, 
 while their master is helplessly bedridden in a garret lodging 
 in some far-distant city street. 
 
 The dog does not always buy bread for itself only and 
 carry it in its mouth. A certain Newfoundland dog acted 
 merely as a messenger, carrying a basket with money, and 
 bringing back in it a quantity of rolls, that were safely de- 
 posited in the kitchen for man's use (Macaulay). 
 
 The dog is not the only animal that buys bread ; nor is 
 bread, in some shape or other, the only article of food pur- 
 chased with money by the lower animals ; and barter among 
 the lower animals is not confined to the exchange of coin 
 for bread ; neither are the mouth or teeth the only means 
 used in the conveyance of coins or their quid pro quo. 
 Berkeley tells us of a monkey that exchanged with a boy 
 some nuts she had for his apples. A coaita monkey bought 
 wine, carrying it in a pot, and refused to give up the money 
 unless the desired article were first supplied (Cassell). Here 
 the hands or fingers no doubt were employed, as man's are, 
 in carrying both the money and the pot. The elephant, too, 
 sometimes begs for money and spends it, buying for itself 
 coveted articles of food, just as the dog does (Buckland). 
 Here the proboscis is probably the organ of conveyance. 
 
 Many animals contrive to open man's doors and gates, 
 using sometimes one organ, sometimes another two animals, 
 perhaps of different species, co-operating for the given end 
 the one lifting a latch or turning a handle, the other pushing 
 the door or gate open. 
 
 A certain 'Peter,' a large, handsome torn cat belonging to 
 a near relation of my own, was in the habit of lifting with 
 its paws at least three different door-latches. One was the 
 latch of a hot-plate connected with the kitchen fire, a 
 chamber which he entered for the heat's sake, and in which 
 he would warm himself for hours at a time. Another 
 was that of a cellar door, in which a companion dog was 
 sometimes confined on account of its dirty habits in the 
 house. Whenever Peter heard the dog whine from its 
 prison he set it free by lifting the door latch. 
 
USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 433 
 
 Door latches or handles are lifted or turned by cats in 
 different ways. In some cases the paws are directly made 
 use of to turn the handle, the two fore paws being required 
 to do what man does with one hand. In other cases the 
 animal makes a spring at the latch, holds on to it by means 
 of one or both paws, and lifts it by the suspended weight 
 of its body. In such a case it not unfrequently happens 
 that another cat, or more probably a dog, co-operates with 
 it by pushing open the door as soon as the latch is lifted. 
 In other cases, again, of a rarer kind however, the cat holds 
 on with one paw and raises the latch with the other. 
 
 A certain cat 6 opened a kitchen door by jumping up and 
 hanging on to the handle of the latch' (Wood). Another 'used 
 to let herself into different rooms by jumping up and hanging 
 on to the latch of the door' ('Animal World '). A third 
 opens a door by springing at and hanging by one foot to 
 the door-handle, raising the latch with the other paw. c The 
 latch being lifted, she descends and pushes open the door ; ' 
 and this was done so frequently that the animal became 
 most troublesome to the servants (Jesse). In a fourth case 
 a dog rapped at a door ; a cat sprang up and struck the 
 latch so as to lift it, while the dog pushed the door open, 
 and so gained the desired entrance (Wood). 
 
 Where it is found impossible to manipulate a latch or 
 door-handle, both the dog and cat sometimes make use of 
 door knockers and bells in order to gain admittance. Thus 
 a certain cat ' used to knock at the door when she wanted to 
 come in, and would endeavour to turn the handle by taking 
 it between her paws ' (Wood). The cat in such cases gets 
 at the knocker just as she gets at the latch, but more easily, 
 making a spring at the knocker so as to lift it suddenly and 
 forcibly with one of her paws. The use of door knockers by 
 the dog is mentioned by Watson. But cats and dogs are 
 not the only animals that use door knockers, nor are paws 
 the only organs or instruments used in lifting or striking 
 them. Wood tells us of a horse that lifted a knocker with 
 its nose in order to get its morning meal. 
 
 Nor are cats the only animals that can open doors or 
 gates. Certain of the Quadrumana for instance the 
 
 VOL. I. F F 
 
434 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 orang and chimpanzee open doors in the same way that 
 man does, even using a ~key, as in the case of a certain 
 chimpanzee (Houzeau). One orang-utan opened a padlock, 
 using a stick as a key, or more properly a lever (Houzeau), 
 and others open other kinds of locks, including those of doors 
 (Pierquin). A certain retriever had a knack of forcing 
 shutters and opening doors, so as to effect his escape when 
 imprisoned. A horse was troublesome from its ability to 
 open its stable door. A cow ' was in the habit of lifting the 
 latch with her horn, and then pushing the gate open ; ' 
 while other cows opened a byre door by ' inserting the tip 
 of a horn into the finger hole, lifting the latch, and then 
 drawing the door towards them ; * so that we have, even in 
 the same species, sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing, as 
 circumstances require. Even an ass was sagacious enough 
 to open every gate about a house (Wood). In some cases 
 the 'trap-doors' of spiders' nests in the South of Europe 
 6 have a handle or flap attached .... for more convenient 
 use of the spider ' (Moggridge), probably in holding them 
 down against entrants; for beetles lift up or open such 
 hinged doors, and so gain access to the nests of a New 
 Zealand species (Gillies). 
 
 While, however, it is far from uncommon for cats, dogs, 
 horses, ponies, donkeys, or cows to open the doors of houses, 
 rooms, stables, or byres, or the gates of gardens, paddocks, 
 or poultry yards, it is not at all common for them to shut 
 them. But this is sometimes done when the animal has a 
 sufficient motive. Usually its object is simply to gain access 
 or egress. But occasionally an astute animal thinks it 
 desirable or necessary to barricade out of a tempting pad- 
 dock a hated rival, or to conceal the evidences of its trans- 
 gression of its master's rules ; or it may be that it shuts it 
 because it knows the door or gate is usually, and should be, 
 shut when not in use. Thus a gentleman, who has been a 
 great traveller and a keen observer of the habits of wild 
 and domestic animals, and is now a proprietor-farmer in one 
 of the western islands of Scotland, told me of a pony of his 
 own that both opens and shuts field-gates by means of its 
 teeth or otherwise, the shutting or closing being a com- 
 
USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 435 
 
 paratively rare, while the opening of them is a common, 
 occurrence. It shuts gates, for instance, against other ani- 
 mals that are not its favourites, and especially against a 
 particular horse which it dislikes and kicks, as well as bar- 
 ricades out of good pastures. It closes them also after 
 itself, to prevent the discovery of its delinquency in going 
 from a permitted pasture into a forbidden one. 
 
 Monkeys, too, in theft, shut as well as open locks and 
 doors. They turn the key in a door, so as to make it fast, 
 when they wish to prevent intrusion upon, or interference 
 with, their depredations. Shutting of doors is mentioned 
 also as occurring in the dog (Watson). 
 
 Many of the Quadrumana that have been tamed or 
 domesticated by man that have become his household pets, 
 and even members of his household use, and in the same 
 way that their masters do 
 
 1. Table utensils including plates, cups, and saucers ; 
 knives, forks, and spoons; glasses and tumblers, decanters 
 and jugs ; toothpicks and serviettes. 
 
 2. Household furniture such, as chairs and tables, beds 
 and bedsteads. 
 
 3. Man's clothing, both body and bed, including finery or 
 ornament in dress, and uniform. 
 
 Various of the anthropoid and other apes sit at table with 
 man and partake of his meals, behaving frequently with 
 admirable propriety, the result partly of imitation of man's 
 habits, partly of man's tuition. They eat and drink in the 
 same way that man does, employing their fingers and hands 
 in holding glasses or cups, forks or knives, in the same 
 way, and using, moreover, the same articles of food, and 
 the same beverages. 
 
 The orang-utan wipes its lips or mouth after eating, 
 using a serviette; it employs a toothpick as it sees its 
 master do ; it makes appropriate use of a teapot, cups, 
 saucers, and plates, knives, forks, and spoons ; among other 
 table civilities or courtesies it touches glasses with its neigh- 
 bour ; it draws corks, pours out wine or other fluids from 
 bottles, and drinks from glasses. Moreover, it makes a bed 
 and arranges bedding ; it employs a chair not only for sitting 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 USE OF MAN'S INSTEUMENTS. 
 
 on at table, but as a mount to get at anything out of its or- 
 dinary reach (Houzeau, Pierquin, Cassell). An orang-utan 
 that used glass vessels for drinking from never broke them, 
 but 'put them carefully aside after using ' (Biichner). 
 
 The chimpanzee behaves in a similar way when a member 
 of man's household, using chairs, serviettes, glasses, cups 
 and saucers, spoons and forks, making beds, sweeping the 
 house, and assisting the cook in carrying water (Houzeau). 
 
 Not a few animals have a knowledge of the use or effect of 
 various of man's weapons, and this knowledge inspires them 
 with a salutary dread that in its turn leads them to keep 
 beyond their range. Thus a dread of the gun is characteristic 
 of the crow, rook, and raven in our own country, where sad 
 experience has taught them too many practical lessons of its 
 dangerous power (Watson). To such an extent is this fear 
 carried, acting on their imagination, that the very sight of 
 a gun which may be empty or of anything resembling a 
 gun or a man with a gun, keeps these wary birds at least 
 out of rifle-range of man. 
 
 But certain animals can, and do, turn man's weapons, 
 and successfully sometimes, against himself. Thus Drum- 
 mond describes a baboon that was wounded by a Kaffir's 
 spear as snatching the weapon from its own body and trying 
 to stab him with it, as well as plucking one that had missed 
 its mark and stuck in a tree and throwing it back at him, 
 ' though it came crossways, and not point first, as a spear 
 ought to.' Schweinfurth, too, tells us that chimpanzees 
 in Central Africa, when driven to bay by the Mam-niam 
 hunters, armed with spears, wrest these spears from their 
 human pursuers, against whom they 'make good use of 
 them.' The orang has been taught even to use man's fire- 
 arms (Watson). 
 
 The horse, ass, pig, and perhaps some other animals, 
 help themselves to water occasionally by working pumps or 
 pump-handles. A pony has been known to turn on and 
 shut off a water tap with its teeth, letting on and stop- 
 ping the flow of water, satiating its thirst, and then pre- 
 venting waste ('Animal World'). This shutting the tap is, 
 like shutting gates or doors, the result of unusual care or 
 
USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 437 
 
 thoughtfulness, the commoner procedure in all cases being 
 to leave them whether taps, gates, or doors open. Wood 
 tells us of a horse that was in the habit of working a pump 
 for his own behoof. He 'took the handle in his teeth, 
 worked it up and down, and when the water was in full flow 
 placed his mouth under the spout to drink.' An old pig did 
 something of the same kind in order to get at a supply of 
 whey, taking hold of the pump-handle by its mouth (' Animal 
 World 5 ). 
 
 Other animals work other instruments in a similar way. 
 Thus a cow was in the habit of ' turning the handle of a 
 turnip-slicer when the hopper had any turnips in it,' and 
 then fed on the slices that dropped out (Jesse). Certain 
 performing elephants ( play the organ ' simply by regularly 
 turning its handle. Certain dogs were once used to turn 
 spits in kitchens, and were known, from the nature of 
 their special training or breeding, as ' turnspits.' A hair- 
 dresser's dog turned a wheel that moved a revolving hair- 
 brush the dog and its wheel being stationed in a room 
 above the perfumer's operating chamber, the animal acting 
 at the sound of a bell rung by its master ('Animal World'). 
 A tame chimpanzee on shipboard took its place among the 
 sailors in working the capstan (Houzeau). The titi monkey 
 can use man's paddles in rowing canoes, keeping time or 
 'stroke' (Cassell). The dog and other animals have been 
 taught to blow the forge bellows, or otherwise to assist the 
 blacksmith. 
 
 Certain of the Quadrumana various dogs and cats and 
 other animals use ropes or their equivalents in a consider- 
 able variety of ways. Perhaps the commonest illustration of 
 their use is fte^-pulling, while the most important is the 
 conveyance of ropes ashore or on shipboard during ship- 
 wreck. Bell pulling or ringing is a common trick or feat 
 of the dog or cat one that it teaches itself, or acquires 
 for itself, for its own ends. These ends include not only 
 the common one of gaining admission to this or that house 
 or room, but also the commendable one of keeping servants 
 on the alert (Watson), or of communicating information to 
 them, as wel as the nefarious one of deceiving servants in 
 
438 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 order to plunder them distracting their attention, and 
 meanwhile, for example, stealing from the dinner trays they 
 may have set down, or the dinner tables they may have left 
 unguarded, in their haste and unsuspiciousness. A lodge- 
 keeper has trained his poodle to ring a given bell by pulling 
 a rope whenever a carriage comes in sight, whereby its 
 master is warned in due time to have the gate opened 
 (< Animal World 5 ). 
 
 Moreover, the cat and the dog in various ways answer 
 or attend to man's bells or bell-ringing : they know what 
 they signal, and act accordingly the dinner signal or bell 
 being naturally that which meets with promptest attention 
 and excites liveliest interest. But not second to it in many 
 cases is the door bell and the ring that announces, or is 
 supposed to announce, the home-coming from business or 
 a journey, from church or shopping, of some much-loved 
 master or mistress. 
 
 A dog, swimming to a ship, had a rope with a noosed end 
 thrown to it by friendly sailors. The sagacious animal first 
 got its fore paws, then its head and chest, and lastly its 
 body, fairly into the noose, and was thus hoisted safely on 
 board. But in carrying ropes to or from vessels at sea, in 
 cases of shipwreck or otherwise, the dog usually tows the 
 rope by means of its mouth holding it firmly between its 
 teeth. On board ship the tame chimpanzee can handle 
 ropes like a sailor (Houzeau). 
 
 Berkeley gives an amusing instance of the use of hammer 
 and nails by a monkey. In the absence of its master it got 
 access to his amateur workshop, and used a hammer and 
 nails, on which it laid hold, in the way it had seen its 
 master use them. c He (the monkey) nailed everything on. 
 the long table and about the room together, without refer- 
 ence to colour, sort, or size, and grinned his satisfaction 
 when he saw his kind master taken by surprise.' 
 
 Certain generalisations in connection with the use by the 
 lower animals of tools or weapons are here desirable. 
 
 In the first place, these animals are given to select that 
 instrument which is at once most accessible, nearest at 
 hand, and most suitable for their purpose. Of other animals 
 
USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 439 
 
 it may quite as truly be said as of man, ' Necessitate quodlibet 
 ielum utile est' (In necessity whatever avails is a useful 
 weapon). 
 
 If, therefore, instruments fashioned by man present them- 
 selves, and are quite as serviceable as, or more suitable 
 than, the natural implements they would otherwise employ, 
 they substitute the artificial for the natural. Thus thrushes, 
 that usually break snail-shells against pet stones selected by 
 themselves, sometimes employ the ironwork of garden seats 
 (' Science Gossip ') . 
 
 In this case, as in many others, we have also the conjoint 
 use of the natural and artificial instrument ; for the thrush 
 uses its beak to hold the shell which it dashes against the 
 hard iron. The dog seizes the trailing bridle of the runaway 
 horse or pony in or by its teeth, and so stops its flight. Dogs 
 or other animals that are taught to blow bellows must use 
 both their own mouths, teeth, paws, or hands, and man's 
 instrument. 
 
 Whether, moreover, their instruments are natural or 
 artificial, or partly the one, partly the other, man's imple- 
 ments being worked by means of animal hands, paws, teeth, 
 mouths, or other natural organs, other animals, like man, 
 may be said to make the most of such instruments, to employ 
 them to the best effect. 
 
CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 USE OP CLOTHING AND SH.ELTEE. 
 
 ONE of the mistakes committed by those who are perpetually 
 endeavouring to differentiate man from other animals is to 
 assert that man is the only animal that wears clothing or 
 dress ; the fact being, as is, or ought to be, well known, that 
 many savage races live habitually in a state of absolute 
 nudity, whereas and this circumstance is less likely to be 
 familiar certain of the lower animals either construct rude 
 clothing for themselves or make use of that provided by 
 man. No clothing is worn by the Andaman Islanders 
 (Owen). I have myself seen large bodies of Egyptian fel- 
 lahs in a state of absolute nudity labouring on public works 
 along the line of the Alexandria and Cairo Eailway. Naked- 
 ness, the non-use of clothes, also characterises the wolf 
 children of India, as well as other forms of brute, beast or 
 wild children. Of an Indian wolf-child Gerhardt tells us, 
 ' He never kept on any clothing ; ' and of another, * Clothes 
 he would never wear, but tore them up into fine shreds/ 
 And, lastly, even in civilised life nudity is a common propen- 
 sity in the human idiot and lunatic, as well as in various 
 other conditions of disease, such as fevers. 
 
 On the other hand, ' A friend of mine,' says a corre- 
 spondent of ' Nature,' ' had a tame baboon which .... 
 wrapped itself in a sheepskin like a Kaffir.' Another baboon 
 used leaves or mats as a covering for its head and body 
 (Nichols). Monkeys exposed to cold use wraps besides 
 'cuddling' each other for mutual warmth (Cassell). The 
 young soko c covers herself with a mat to sleep,' according 
 to Livingstone. Others of the anthropoid apes wear man's 
 
USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTER. 441 
 
 clothes, in the same way that man does ; and not only so, 
 but they frequently show a pride or vanity in their clothes, 
 dress, or finery, as savages so often do. Thus a female 
 orang at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, wears a surtout, and 
 6 prudishly draws it down over her feet on the approach of 
 strangers.' She ' sleeps in a bed, with sheets and blankets, 
 putting her hands under the covering or up the sleeves of 
 her night dress to keep them from the cold.' l 
 
 Dr. Yvan, who was attached to the French expedition to 
 China in the year 1843, tells us that c a certain Borneo orang 
 clothed himself as soon as ever he could lay hold of any piece 
 of stuff for the purpose.' Lady Verney mentions an orang 
 on shipboard that put on a flannel shawl every morning as 
 it became cold, crossing it tidily over its chest, in imitation 
 of an Indian Governor-General's wife who was on board. 
 Another orang made her own bed, using blankets and 
 pillows (Cassell). And fondness for dress or toilette, even 
 for perfumery, the result, no doubt, here again, of imitation, 
 has been noticed in the same animal by other authors 
 (Pierquin). The chimpanzee, when tame, also sometimes 
 wears clothes, dresses himself in part at least, and exhibits 
 the same kind of pride in his dress that many savages do. 
 Many domestic or tame monkeys or apes also dress, or 
 allow themselves to be dressed, in man's habiliments, as 
 must be familiar to all who have seen the monkey pets or 
 assistants of organ grinders in London and other large cities. 
 Reaumur describes the larva of a fly as dressing itself with 
 the skins of Aphides, or in place thereof with silk or paper. 
 Kirby and Spence describe certain bees as clothiers. 
 
 Many animals prepare their own natural beds, and some 
 use natural bed-clothes or wraps, while others avail them- 
 selves of the beds and bedding provided by man. Orangs 
 prepare beds of boughs and leaves between or under trees. 
 They generally lie on their back or side, resting the head on 
 their hands. In cold, windy, and rainy nights they cover 
 themselves with branches or leaves, and hide themselves under 
 them (Biichner and Nichols). Wallace refers to the orang 
 preparing itself a sleeping-place for the night. Dr. Abel, 
 
 1 ' Graphic,' March 6, 1875. 
 
442 USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTER. 
 
 in Java, had a young one ' that used to prepare himself a 
 proper bed every evening with boughs and leaves .... 
 Afterwards, on the voyage home, ... he used to make him- 
 self a bed with sail-cloths, and rolled himself up therein . . . . 
 If canvas was not to be had he would take the sailors' 
 shirts and clothes which were hung up to dry. Vosmaer 
 had an orang that exhibited the same cleverness in ar- 
 ranging his bed.' Of another on board ship it is recorded, 
 ' He never came on deck without bringing his woollen 
 blanket and wrapping himself in it. His bed he accepted 
 gladly, although he had never known such a thing pre- 
 viously,' and before sleeping in it he himself made it up 
 properly (Biichner). A writer in the ' Fancier's Gazette ' 
 describes his dog, after fighting a match, going home and 
 betaking himself forthwith to his master's bed, in which he 
 was found between the sheets, with his head on the pillow. 
 'He had made down the bed for himself and turned in, and 
 the black mud and blood from his coat had soaked through 
 both sheets and feathers.' 
 
 What has been called the clothing instinct, then, cannot 
 be said to be confined to man ; for not only is it frequently 
 absent in him, but it is occasionally present in some other ani- 
 mals that use dress or clothing, shelter or protection for the 
 body by day and night, either of a natural or artificial kind, 
 including ornament or finery, the decoration of the person 
 (Houzeau). In their trappings and insignia of rank, or of 
 the rank of their riders, such animals as the horse and ele- 
 phant even show a love of finery or dress, and it cannot be 
 said that either the love or the use of dress arises in all 
 cases from imitation of man and his customs or costumes. 
 
 Another error of those who contend for man's supremacy 
 over all other animals is to describe him as the only animal 
 that constructs for himself, in the form of dwellings of some 
 kind, a permanent and proper shelter from the vicissitudes 
 of the weather ; for, in the first place, there are, or have 
 been, many savage races who either constructed or con- 
 struct no dwellings of any kind, or whose huts or hovels 
 cannot compare architecturally with the nests or other 
 habitations of many of the lower animals. Certain pre- 
 
USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTER. 443 
 
 historic peoples, some ancient savage races, such as the 
 Caribs, and also some existing savages, made or make use of 
 the natural shelter afforded by rocks, caves, forests, or trees. 
 The Australian aborigines and other races, semi-civilised as 
 well as primitive, have no fixed dwelling-place, are true 
 nomads ; and their tents or huts, when they have any, are 
 of a temporary and trivial character. 
 
 The South African Bushmen live 6 in holes in the earth, 
 dug out with their hands ' (Buchner). According to the 
 missionary Sicherer they 'live in holes dug in the earth 
 .... thatched with reeds so badly put together that the 
 rain pours through. Here they lie close, like pigs in a 
 stye. They have neither huts nor sheds.' Their houses, 
 according to the Eev. Dr. Moffatt, are mere holes in the 
 earth, lined with grass, covered with tree branches. The huts 
 of many Central African savages resemble externally the 
 ant-hills of Termites (Adanson). There are no dwellings, or 
 no fixed ones, among the Dokos. The natives of the 
 Philippine Islands and Borneo sleep under trees, or on trees, 
 or in caves. The ape men of India also live in trees. The 
 Apache Indians sleep in hollows of the ground (Buchner). 
 Where constructed abodes occur in primitive or savage man 
 they resemble those of many animals in the equal absence in 
 their construction of calculation, science, and art (Houzeau). 
 The Veddas of Ceylon, according to Hartshorne, live in 
 forests without dwellings, or they shelter themselves in caves 
 or hollow tree-trunks, or roost on trees. Dwellings are 
 most primitive in the Andaman Islands (Owen). The 
 Bukones ' roost ' in trees on a platform of sticks, as do also 
 certain of the anthropoid apes. These human dwellings are 
 nests rather than huts, though covered with a cone-shaped 
 roof, also of sticks, thatched with grass (Lady Yerney). 
 
 The wild people the jungle dwarfs of the Western 
 Ghats in the Tinnivelly district of India have no fixed dwell- 
 ings or dwelling-places. They ' sleep in any convenient spot, 
 generally between two rocks, or in caves near which they 
 happen to be benighted ' (Bond) . These wild folk of the hill 
 jungles of the Madras Presidency are in reality modern 
 troglodytes or cave-dwellers, the representatives of those 
 
444 USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTEK. 
 
 prehistoric men whose remains possess so much interest for 
 anthropologists. The beast men and wolf children of India 
 and Europe resemble savage races on the one hand, and 
 many wild animals on the other, in their non-possession of 
 other shelter than that which is afforded by caves and 
 forests. Not only have they no proper dwelling, but there 
 is incapacity for constructing artificial shelter. The wolf 
 children of India inhabit caves and forests, just as do 
 the wolves with whom they associate and by whom it is 
 currently believed they are, in some instances at least, 
 brought up. c At the Lucknow madhouse,' says Gerhardt, 
 6 there was an elderly fellow .... who had been dug out 
 of a wolves' den by an European doctor.' 
 
 Even in civilised Scotland of the present day we have a 
 race of cave-dwellers in Caithness-shire, whose mental 
 characteristics have been described by Dr. Arthur Mitchell. 
 And in the large cities of England there are hosts of waifs 
 and strays of society of gutter men and children of tramps 
 of all kinds, who sleep under railway arches or in other 
 equivalents of caves. In Scripture times, too, man dwelt fre- 
 quently under trees, stones, or rocks, or in caves. 
 
 If the nature of man's dwelling is to be regarded as any 
 reflex of his degree of mental development, much cannot be 
 said for the present mental status, the constructive skill, of 
 the hut builders and dwellers of our own Scottish and 
 Irish highlands and islands. The hovels of the Hebridean 
 Islanders, for instance, are no advance on those of many 
 savages, and are not equal, mutatis mutandis, to the nests of 
 many birds. Thus, when compared with them, the bowers 
 of the bower bird appear at a decided advantage (Nichols). 
 
 On the other hand, the chimpanzee constructs a dwelling 
 or hut albeit there are certain defects of construction in 
 the roof (Du Chaillu). The gorilla also build huts tentes 
 a I'abri (Cassell). Wallace mentions the orang as making 
 in trees, with boughs, what he calls ' a leafy hut, that quite 
 concealed him from our view.' Cameron is said to have 
 seen, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, monkeys that 
 6 build a new house every day.' 
 
 Again, the beaver weaves a protection against cold in 
 
USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTER 445 
 
 the form of a round or dome-shaped, conjoint or compound, 
 dwelling, resembling in its structure the basket-making of 
 man, and the wattle huts of savages or settlers. The round 
 form of the beaver's hut appears to be a natural or primi- 
 tive shape of the dwelling both in man and other animals. 
 It is illustrated alike in the hut of the savage, the nest of 
 the bird, and the cell of the bee (Houzeau). 
 
 Moreover, various animals show their appreciation of 
 xlr-lter from wind and rain, from shower or sunshine, by 
 availing themselves of the protection of man's houses, sheds, 
 walls, hedges, or fences, as well as of the natural cover of 
 forests or trees, rocks or stones, hill-sides or stream-banks. 
 
 And, lastly, they recognise the necessity for shelter in the 
 case of man ; and here their generosity, unselfishness, disin- 
 terestedness, or self-sacrifice becomes manifested, as it is in 
 so many other circumstances. The elephant, horse, and 
 other large animals either offer the shelter afforded by their 
 own bodies to their masters shelter not merely against ex- 
 cessive heat or cold, but not unfrequently against the cruelty 
 of fellow-man or they afford it, whether or not man seeks 
 it, if they see its desirability on his behalf. The Arab horse, 
 for instance, in the sun-scorched plains of the East, offers 
 the shelter of its body against the powerful sun-rays, while 
 runaway or drunken sepoys have found an asylum under the 
 bellies of friendly elephants. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PKEPARATION OP POOD. 
 
 AMONG the many epithets that have been bestowed on man 
 to distinguish him from all other animals, he has been 
 described as pre-eminently a cooking animal the only 
 animal who cooks or prepares his food prior to using it. 
 The futility or fallacy of such a distinction, however, is 
 proved by the fact that, on the one hand, there are whole 
 races of man that, ignorant of the production of fire, have 
 and take no means of preparing their food ; while, on the 
 other, there are certain animals, equally unable themselves 
 to produce fire, that yet use various means of preparing 
 food, or have the sense to adopt the results of man's cookery. 
 
 In the first place, then, there are many savage races of 
 man who use flesh and fruits in their raw state, sometimes 
 even in a condition of disgusting putridity. Not only so, 
 but they devour living animals, or flesh cut from living 
 animals. Moreover, they tear flesh food with their teeth, 
 after the manner of the Carnivora. 
 
 The animal food on which such savages subsist includes 
 
 1. Wild animals, both of the larger and smaller sort, 
 including serpents and lizards, mice and other ' vermin.' 
 
 2. Fish. 
 
 3. Molluscs, such as snails, and various marine shell- 
 fish, such as cockles, oysters, and mussels. 
 
 4. Various worms and insects or their grubs, including 
 ants and lice. 
 
 5. Various animal products such as wild honey, milk, 
 marrow, fat, or oil. 
 
 The vegetable food which affords a means of subsistence, 
 
PREPABATION OF FOOD. 447 
 
 with or without animal food, includes wild plants, roots, 
 fruits, and berries. 
 
 But the appetite of savage man is not confined to animal 
 or vegetable food, nor to both in various combinations. He 
 also eats dirt, clay or mud, as well as matters infinitely more 
 offensive. He may be said, indeed, to eat anything, to be 
 omnivorous (Houzeau). The subject, however, of morbid 
 appetite in him, as in other animals, is so extensive as to 
 require separate treatment. 
 
 Many human savage races live, as other animals do, by 
 hunting and fishing, by grubbing up roots, or gathering 
 fruits. Some of them eat lice, as monkeys do (Houzeau), 
 6 Until the arrival of Europeans the Australians knew nothing 
 about cooking or boiling food' (Biichner). Carrion-eating 
 is common among the Zulus (Colenso). The Bushmen of 
 Southern Africa live partly upon * small birds, which they 
 swallow unplucked.' Lizards are eaten raw by the Digger 
 Indians, ' with no other preparation than pulling out the 
 tails ; ' and they also eat ' dead horses, till nothing is left but 
 the bones, 5 as well as other forms of putrid or mouldy meat. 
 Part of the food of the Apache Indians consists of stolen 
 horses and asses. c The beasts are not slaughtered, but torn 
 asunder.' There is no cooking of any kind among the 
 Dokos and Mincopies, the food being eaten raw (Biichner). 
 
 The Hamram Arab in Abyssinia, as was long since 
 pointed out by Bruce, and as has recently been confirmed by 
 Baker, cuts and eats steaks from live oxen. The Veddas of 
 Ceylon, according to Hartshorne, live on wild honey, lizards, 
 and the flesh of monkeys, deer, and boars. The wild men of 
 the Tinnivelly ghats, too, c feed chiefly upon roots and 
 honey.' * 
 
 Wild men and beast children including, for instance, the 
 wolf children of India usually show these theroid propensi- 
 ties in regard to food-capture and use even in a more marked 
 degree or form. They tear and eat raw flesh, gather and 
 gnaw bones like dogs, catch and swallow flies, bite the heads 
 off live fowls, lap water with their tongues. Of one of them 
 Gerhardt says, f He drank like a dog, and liked a bone and 
 
 1 Academy,' May 1875. 
 
448 PKEPAEATION OF FOOD. 
 
 raw meat better than anything else. . . . His civilisation 
 has progressed so far that he likes raw meat less, though he 
 will still pick up bones and sharpen his teeth on them.' Of 
 others he remarks, ' Before they eat or taste food they smell 
 it, and when the} 7 don't like the smell they throw it away.' 
 A boy found in company with a female wolf and her cubs 
 6 rejected cooked meat with disgust, but delighted in raw 
 flesh and bones, putting them out on the ground under his 
 paws like a dog,' according to Colonel Sleeman. Of the 
 same boy Professor Max Miiller says, somewhat contradic- 
 torily of the above assertion as to cooked meat, ' The wolf 
 child could devour anything, but preferred raw meat. He 
 even ate half a lamb without any effort.' Even ' a quilt 
 stuffed with cotton, given to him in cold weather, was torn by 
 him and partly swallowed ' a kind of indiscriminate appe- 
 tite and depraved taste that is frequently paralleled among 
 the human insane in British and other lunatic asylums. 
 Another wolf child ' would eat nothing but raw flesh.' 
 
 Similar bestial, feral, or animal appetites are likewise to 
 be met with in the human idiot and lunatic, as well as in 
 criminals, and in others of the degraded classes of civilised 
 human society. An idiot described by Professor Cesare 
 Lombroso ' smells food before eating,' as a dog would. I 
 have myself had not a few patients who lived in great mea- 
 sure on grass, or the leaves of various trees or shrubs, or 
 who would eat all manner of garbage or any kind of indi- 
 gestible metallic substance. Dr. Browne, too, gives many 
 instances of the use by the insane of raw flesh, of half-dead 
 leeches, and of living kittens, rats, mice, frogs, beetles, worms, 
 spiders, and caterpillars. But all such cases belong to the 
 important category of morbid appetite in man, and cannot be 
 discussed or described here. 
 
 Even among men who are neither idiotic, insane, 
 criminal, nor illiterate, who represent, on the other hand, the 
 highest intelligence and refinement of the age in the 
 armies of the foremost nations of the world the carnivorous 
 thirst for blood during war or battle, may be regarded as an 
 illustration of the difficulty of concealing or overcoming 
 man's natural bestial appetites. But we need not go far afield, 
 
PREPABATION OF FOOD. 449 
 
 nor to the exceptional conditions of war, for instances of the 
 same thing. The nose-biting of the Hanley dog-fighters of 
 Staffordshire, and of their representatives in other English 
 counties or cities, shows how little civilisation has yet done 
 to humanise certain heast or brute men in our very midst. 
 
 On the other hand, there are certain animals that, 
 though they do not cook food that is, prepare it directly 
 or indirectly by means of fire nevertheless subject it to 
 some rough sort of preparation prior to using it. Thus the 
 American procyon washes its food ; the elephant frees from 
 insects and dust the branches it purposes to eat; the 
 sacred monkeys of India destroy the fangs of venomous 
 snakes before eating them (Houzeau) ; the common seal 
 holds its food (e.g. a ballan wrasse a fish) in its fore paws, 
 carefully denuding it of its skin before devouring it (Mcln- 
 tosh). 
 
 Again, there are many animals that make free use of 
 foods cooked by man, while a few assist him in the art of 
 cooking, including the tendance of ovens, the turning of 
 spits, and the regulation of fires. Thus a Borneo orang, 
 according to Buffon, ate meat and fish, boiled and roasted. 
 
 Among the animals that imitate man in the use of boiled, 
 
 O ' 
 
 broiled, baked, or roasted meats or other foods, and of hot 
 drinks, are the dog, lori, chimpanzee, and bear. Sometimes 
 they acquire a partiality or preference for cooked foods, and 
 they use them even when hot from the oven or fire, or while 
 in the oven, on the fire, or ' on the boil.' 
 
 Thus the bear has been known to snatch and eat directly 
 from a fire meat that was, or was being, cooked, distribut- 
 ing portions to her cubs (Houzeau). Some of the anthropoid 
 apes, moreover, use the same prepared food or drink in the 
 same way as man. Thus the siamang waits for the cooling 
 of his tea or coffee more probably a lesson taught by expe- 
 rience than the simple result of imitation. The orang also 
 uses tea, sugar, and milk in proper proportions, adds the 
 milk and sugar herself, and drinks the tea as her master 
 does, allowing it to cool sufficiently (Cassell). 
 
 Young salmon are systematically fed on fried liver or 
 steak, powdered, at the Stormontfield breeding ponds, on 
 
 VOL. I. G G 
 
450 PKEPAEATION OF FOOD. 
 
 the Tay, near Perth, as they were also in the New Zealand 
 acclimatisation experiments between 1867 and 1872. 
 
 The anthropoid apes both light or make up and tend 
 fires, and they cook food thereon or thereby just as man does 
 in short, exactly imitating all his operations. Thus on ship- 
 board they ( light a fire and cook food thereon. . . . De 
 Grandpre tells us of a chimpanzee that heated the oven, 
 let no coals fall, and summoned the baker when the oven 
 was heated ' (Biichner). 
 
CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 FACULTY OP NUMERATION. 
 
 AMONG the many marks of low intelligence, or of stupidity, in 
 savage man that have struck travellers, has been their defec- 
 tive knowledge of number, their want of arithmetical power 
 (Wallace). Indeed, in a sense it may be said that certain 
 savages have no proper arithmetical knowledge, power of 
 mental arithmetic or of arithmetical calculation of any kind. 
 They can scarcely be said to possess either the ' science of 
 numbers ' or the fc art of reckoning by numbers*, 3 unless in a 
 very limited sense and in a very rudimentary degree. Thus 
 the Veddas of Ceylon are described by Hart shorn e as ' quite 
 
 unable to count They cannot count even by the aid 
 
 of their fingers, having no conception of number.' l 
 
 Among the Amazon Indians there are no words for num- 
 bers, and there is a similar want of arithmetical power 
 ignorance of arithmetic, the most limited ideas of numbers 
 among the Eskimo and the Australian blacks (Houzeau;. 
 Even at the present day many savage tribes of Brazil and 
 Australia cannot count beyond two or four. ' They have not 
 carried their numerals beyond three or four, and can only in- 
 dicate higher numbers by gestures. Oldfield even describes 
 a tribe who count no further than the number two, and de- 
 signate all beyond by a word signifying ' many.' ' A mem- 
 ber of this tribe, after several vain attempts by enumerating 
 the names of the individuals to give an idea of the number 
 of men killed in a certain native battle, ' ended by raising one 
 hand three times in succession, by which he wished it to 
 be understood that the number amounted to fifteen.' The 
 1 Scotsman ' and < Daily Telegraph,' August 30, 1875. 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 FACULTY OF NUMEBATION. 
 
 aborigines of New Caledonia f can with difficulty count the 
 lowest numbers.' So that counting-, arithmetic, or an arith- 
 metical sense ideas or notions of number are certainly 
 not innate in man (Buchner). The faculty of calculating 
 numbers is gradually developed in him, like so many other of 
 his acquirements, by education or cultivation. 
 
 Certain of the lower animals possess a power of counting 
 or calculating numbers comparable, at least, with that which 
 characterises the savage races of men above specified. Thus, 
 in Scotland, the shepherd's dog must estimate exactly the 
 number of sheep under his charge. One is mentioned, for 
 instance, that, during the process of sheep-washing, brought 
 to the washing troughs, and without instruction, a series of 
 detachments of ten sheep at a time, running off for a fresh 
 detachment whenever he saw three only left in the pen 
 ('Land and Water'). 
 
 In North Wales ' a shepherd will order one of his dogs to 
 fetch three sheep out of a flock on a hill some distance away, 
 and the dog will faithfully drive the required number ' to its 
 master a circumstance, it is added, e commonplace enough 
 to sheep-breeders.' l The collie, sent to collect a flock or 
 flocks from many square miles of hill pasture, must know 
 their number when he brings all together without a single 
 omission ; and a knowledge of the number of sheep in a 
 flock must have been possessed also by certain sheep-steal- 
 ing 'dogs ( f Percy Anecdotes'). Again, the sporting dog 
 notices correctly the number of birds that drop to the rifle of 
 its master (Nichols). Thus Mr. Berkeley's ' Wolf ' went 
 back, unbidden, at the end of a day's sport for a wounded 
 pheasant shot in an early part of the day. Dogs also count 
 correctly the number of railway stations that have been 
 passed, or of the stoppages that have been made, in a given 
 journey (Nichols). The performing dog Minos, that was 
 exhibited in London in 1875, was said to display 'thorough 
 efficiency in the first four rules of arithmetic addition, sub- 
 traction, multiplication, and division.' 
 
 ( A mouse from whom nine young ones had been taken 
 came nine times to fetch them back one by one, and then no 
 more, although she had not been able to look into the cap in 
 1 Graphic,' December 5, 1874, p. 538. 
 
FACULTY OF NUMERATION. 453 
 
 which they were imprisoned. The magpie can count to four, 
 but no further. If four hunters hide themselves before her 
 eyes, and three of them go away, she knows that one is 
 still there, and is on her guard. But if .... there are five 
 .... and four go away, she tliinks that all are gone, and 
 becomes careless ' (Biichner). Such assertions, however, require 
 confirmation. Meanwhile they furnish useful hints for man's 
 experiments. Bees destroy excess of eggs laid by the queen 
 (Figuier). Apes attack a solitary man, or one or two men 
 together, but do not venture to approach a large party 
 (Munzinger) ; and there are probably many other animals 
 that, in war or otherwise, correctly estimate the numerical 
 force or strength of the adversary, and act accordingly. 
 
 Instances of calculation of numbers have been given in 
 the carrion crow or other crows (' Percy Anecdotes ') . Hou- 
 zeau, Leroy, Combe, Vimont, and other authors think it 
 indubitable that the horse and mule, as well as the dog, 
 crow, and magpie, or other animals, possess notions or 
 appreciation of number up to a certain point limited, but 
 still decided. Watson speaks and I doubt not correctly 
 of the dog and other animals being puzzled, or having puz- 
 zles, in their mental arithmetic. 
 
 Wallace comments on the difficulty of proof in the various 
 experiments that have been made to determine the point 
 whether animals can estimate numbers. There can be no 
 doubt that further experiment is desirable, in so far as it 
 cannot be said that the nature and extent of the knowledge 
 of numbers possessed by various animals are yet thoroughly 
 understood, or have been satisfactorily demonstrated. There 
 may be a perception of number in the case of dogs that can 
 distinguish playing cards (Low). The proper management 
 of sheep by the collie apparently implies a knowledge of 
 numbers (Watson). There is probably some estimate of 
 numbers, and of their united power, in the deer at bay in 
 presence of a pack of hounds (Low). Dogs that travel by 
 railway, and get out at the proper stations, probably count 
 the number of previous stoppages, though no doubt they may 
 also, or rather, have been guided by their observation of the 
 persons or things to be met with at a particular station, and 
 not at certain others. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 THAT many animals possess a wonderfully correct knowledge 
 of time and its flight, and that they act appropriately upon 
 that knowledge, cannot be doubted. What is the nature of 
 their knowledge, or how acquired, is not so apparent. Some 
 authors speak of their ability to count, reckon, measure, or 
 calculate time, or its intervals or lapse (Watson, Broderip, 
 Jesse, Low, Combe). Dr. Carpenter, for instance, speaks of 
 f that remarkable power of measuring time which many ani- 
 mals certainly possess ; ' but whether they really do so can- 
 not, perhaps, at present be determined. Many animals, 
 however, have 
 
 1. Stated or fixed times for work, play, or meals (White). 
 
 2. Our domestic animals have regular hours for going to 
 bed, getting up, or going for water (Houzeau) . 
 
 3. Milch cows have their fixed hours for their midday 
 milking and their evening rest, and they know when they 
 may expect escape from their byres in the morning. 
 
 4. Many birds, dogs, cats, and other animals know to a 
 minute almost man's meal hours. 
 
 5. Many dogs distinguish Sunday from all other days in 
 the week, as well as holidays, market days, fair days, from 
 the other days of a month or season. 
 
 The knowledge of time manifested in these different cases, 
 and by a great variety of animals, obviously differs much in 
 its character. Authors have variously and vaguely spoken, 
 for instance, of animals possessing 
 
 1. A knowledge or recognition of the progress or passage 
 of time, a consciousness of its lapse. 
 
POWEK OF CALCULATION. 455 
 
 2. A power of measurement of intervals of minutes, 
 hours, days, or weeks. 
 
 3. A keen observation of hours, days, and seasons ; of the 
 progress of the sun, of the sequence of light and darkness. 
 
 4. Notions or ideas of time or duration. 
 
 5. Precision in marking time. 
 
 6. Distinction of time by observation and inference 
 (Watson). 
 
 7. Appieciation of such natural phenomena as dawn, noon, 
 and sunset. 
 
 8. Observation of man's movements and of the circum- 
 stances or things that mark certain hours of the day and 
 days of the week in short, of concomitant phenomena. 
 
 9. A sense of periodicity, which gives rise to punctuality 
 or regularity. 
 
 10. Knowledge of the succession of events, the possession 
 of what phrenologists call the faculty of eventuality. 
 
 Some of these explanations or suggestions are satisfactory 
 in certain cases, others are plausible, while others again are 
 problematical and destitute of any sort of proper proof. On 
 the whole, it must be confessed that our knowledge of the 
 various modes by which animals acquaint themselves with 
 hours and days is far from being complete or satisfactory. 
 Hence it offers an excellent and interesting field for experi- 
 mental enquiry. 
 
 We are, however, in possession of a large body of facts 
 showing that animals have a certain knowledge of time, and 
 it is desirable that illustrations should be given of the various 
 kinds of their time-knowledge with the modes in which they 
 display it. Nor is it irrelevant, in the present state of our 
 information on the subject, to consider some of the suggested 
 explanations that offer themselves, or that have been offered. 
 One of the commonest kinds of time-knowledge exhibited 
 by the lower animals the kind which most strikes man is 
 that which relates to the hours of the day, especially to man's 
 meal hours. Various tame, or even sometimes wild, animals 
 conie to be fed at the meal hours of a family, and they make 
 no mistake as to these hours. I have several times noticed 
 this myself in the case, for instance, of the common sparrow, 
 
456 POWEE OF CALCULATION. 
 
 blackbirds, and starlings, the pensioners of a certain Lady 
 Bountiful in one of the western suburbs of Edinburgh. 
 
 These birds came for years, and still come, all the year 
 round, to be fed at a certain time eight o'clock in the morn- 
 ing their meal consisting of bread-crumbs from the break- 
 fast table. They hover on neighbouring trees and bushes, in 
 the garden of the house, about the proper hour, and wait 
 patiently till they see or hear a certain window opened and 
 their bountiful provider appears with a plateful of bread- 
 crumbs prepared for being thrown out. Then they alight 
 on the grass, and are as ready for their work as a crowd of 
 city boys would be to scramble for a handful of coppers cast 
 among them. After picking up the fragments the birds dis- 
 perse, not to reappear, at least in a body, till next morning. 
 How or why they come to congregate in the proper place 
 at the proper time I am not prepared to explain. They may 
 be guided simply by observation of the signs that indicate 
 the approach of breakfast the opening of shutters, the 
 movement of servants, the sounds of breakfast trays and 
 crockery, and the law of association of ideas, which is as 
 operative in them as in man, probably connects these phe- 
 nomena of morning life in the household with that which 
 invariably forms a part of the phenomena though a subse- 
 quent part their own breakfast. There is unquestionably 
 both observation and inference in their action when a cer- 
 tain window is opened and a certain lady appears at it with 
 her bread-platter. 
 
 A correspondent of ' Science Gossip ' says of a tame 
 sparrow, ' With the time of the meals it is perfectly ac- 
 quainted, and does not fail at breakfast, dinner, and tea to 
 announce its presence by knocking with its beak at the 
 window until it is opened for its entry.' Dr. Carpenter is 
 responsible for a story about certain sparrows that frequented 
 a young ladies' boarding school at Bristol, and that knew 
 twelve o'clock on week days the hour and days on which 
 the girls ate their luncheon in the play- ground, the dropped 
 crumbs from which luncheon became the food of the birds. 
 They gathered on the garden walls a little before twelve, and 
 waited till the playground was empty of girls, when their 
 
POWER OF CALCULATION. 457 
 
 own feast began. This incident contrasts with the other, 
 first mentioned, of the sparrows and other birds that were 
 candidates for the morning charity of a lady in Edinburgh. 
 In the latter case the pensioners, who were as regularly ex- 
 pected and provided for as various human pensioners by the 
 same benevolent heart, showed their confidence in her, their 
 absence of fear, by feeding in her presence. 
 
 Ducks, dogs, donkeys, and many other animals are simi- 
 larly regular or punctual in their attendance at man's dinner 
 hour. 
 
 Macaulay mentions a Newfoundland dog that visited a 
 baker every morning, save Sunday, as the clock struck eight. 
 One of the commonest tricks which the dog is taught is to 
 call (or awake) its master at a fixed hour in the morning. 
 
 The mules employed in loading and unloading vessels on 
 the quays of New Orleans know the duration of their work 
 the length of time, the number of hours, during which they 
 are called upon to labour neighing to their masters as a 
 signal when it is time to be unyoked (Houzeau). 
 
 A London barrister one of the staff of a well-known 
 provincial newspaper told me of a certain cat of his that 
 used to meet him regularly at a certain hour on a certain 
 road, on his way home from office. In such a case as this it 
 is difficult to resist the conclusion that it must have had some 
 means of reckoning time. Wild dogs in Peru meet at certain 
 hours, at certain places, for certain purposes (Pierquin) . The 
 tame orang has, or gets into, regular hours for going to bed 
 at night and rising therefrom in the morning (Houzeau). 
 Blind beggars' dogs visit church-doors at the proper hours 
 (Low). 
 
 It has been alleged by Houzeau- with what degree of 
 truth does not quite appear that certain hours are observed 
 by the cock in its crow, whether it be light or dark in other 
 words, that unnatural and artificial continuity of light or 
 darkness does not affect its periodicity of work and rest. 
 Statements, however, of an opposite kind have been made, 
 and are much more probably true. It has been abundantly 
 proved, indeed, that artificial light and darkness produce 
 certain curious results that are to be considered errors of 
 
458 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 instinct. Various birds can be easily deceived by artificial 
 reversal of the natural phenomena of light. 
 
 The duration of a master's sleep is estimated, and cor- 
 rectly, by certain sporting dogs and by some birds, such as 
 the hornbill ; and if he oversleep the usual time, they awake 
 him : thus the tame hornbill awakes its master for breakfast 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 Certain clever, trained dogs have been described as 
 having a knowledge of the hours on the watch or dock as 
 being able to indicate the hour by reading the dial of either 
 or both (Watson). But there is obviousl}-' no necessary con- 
 nection between such a feat and that calculation of time- 
 whatever be its nature by which so many of the operations 
 of domestic animals are regulated. 
 
 There is at present no evidence to show whether the dog 
 or other animals can count in any way, or otherwise distin- 
 guish, the different hours struck by a clock, which would 
 involve the faculty of numeration. 
 
 Without rigidly observing certain hours, there are various 
 animals that do certain things in the morning, at noon, and 
 in the evening, at dawn or sunrise, and at sunset or the 
 approach of night. Wherever dairy cows go to and from pas- 
 ture in summer, they may be observed gathering themselves 
 spontaneously at sundown at or near the gate of their pad- 
 dock, waiting to be let out in order to go to their byres for 
 the night. I have seen this over and over again myself in- 
 deed, sometimes daily during the summer months. 
 
 Equally noticeable and notorious is the noon exodus of 
 dairy cows from a certain town common in my own neigh- 
 bourhood. The animals do not require to be collected or 
 called ; they collect themselves at the proper time and find 
 their own way home. In both these cases of noon and 
 sunset migrations the animals may be guided by the light 
 or heat proceeding from, or by the position of, the sun- 
 when there is a visible sun to guide them. But this expla- 
 nation scarcely suffices, considering that (1) the habit is a 
 daily one, not determined by or depending upon sunshine ; 
 (2) in so murky, changeable, pluvious a climate as that of 
 Scotland brilliant sunshine is not a common phenomenon 
 
POWEE OF CALCULATION. 459 
 
 even during summer ; while (3) there are other possible ex 
 plaiiations in the observance, for instance, of circumstances 
 that mark the proper times for going to or returning from 
 grass. 
 
 A hedgehog on board ship crept into its box ' at dawn 
 and came out at dusk ' (Mrs. Mackellar)* Here there 
 seemed to be a direct connection between its behaviour and 
 daylight. Houzeau mentions a hen that, with her chickens, 
 crossed a stream twice a day morning and evening to 
 reach a certain feeding ground. 
 
 Periodicity of action, and the estimation of time, are not 
 confined, however, to the observance of certain hours, or of 
 morning, noon, and evening, or of given days in the week. Of 
 a certain foxhound Baker writes, c I am convinced that he 
 knew the date of a track from its appearance ' that he could 
 determine its age. The ladajac reaps its grain and dries its 
 grain stores at the proper time (Houzeau). Butchers', bakers', 
 and newsmongers' dogs and horses pay periodical visits to 
 the residences of their masters' customers, without direction 
 (Watson). 
 
 Many dogs especially have been described as knowing 
 the days of the week. But such cases almost invariably 
 resolve themselves into a distinction of Sunday from other 
 week-days, and occasionally of Saturday as a precursor of 
 Sunday. That these days are regarded as the first, 
 or sixth or seventh of each week there is no ground 
 for believing ; but the dog has no difficulty in recog- 
 nising Sunday at least as a holiday, marked by certain 
 things that man does and does not do. It is keenly 
 observant of the cessation from ordinary work, of the house- 
 hold hush of the Day of Rest, of the church-going and 
 all it implies such as its having to keep the house. To it 
 the day is what it is to so many children a pre-eminently 
 dull day in Scotland, where it does not get its usual walk or 
 run, and does not, unless in pastoral districts as explained 
 in another chapter accompany its master. 
 
 A dog belonging to a certain grocer in Edinburgh 
 accompanies him regularly in his week-day walks, but never 
 attempts to go out with him on Sundays. The church bells, 
 
460 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 the not going to shop, its master's change of dress, the 
 later hours of rising and breakfast, the greater quiet of 
 house and streets, all guide it probably in distinguishing 
 the Sabbath from other days of the week. The raven in 
 Shetland does more harm on Sunday than on other days, 
 because the human inhabitants are regular church-goers, 
 and the birds know that almost nobody is left behind to 
 hinder their depredations (Saxby). 
 
 Kooks and crows show similar fearlessness, security, or 
 boldness on Sundays (Watson). Macaulay mentions a dog 
 that visited a baker every morning save Sunday ; on that day 
 it never made the attempt ; and Dr. Carpenter tells us of 
 sparrows that made a similar omission in their otherwise 
 daily visits to the playground of a Bristol boarding school, 
 the pupils of which had early lunch indoors on Sundays. In 
 both cases the obvious cause of the omission was the same 
 the knowledge that on Sundays nothing was to be had to 
 repay a visit, the baker's shop being closed in the one case 
 and there being no bread-crumbs in the playground in the 
 other. 
 
 The dog is liable to commit error as to particular days 
 of the same kind that man makes under the same cir- 
 cumstances. Thus it commits a very pardonable mistake 
 when it confounds fast days in Scotland with Sundays 
 (Watson), inasmuch as children, and even adult men, are con- 
 stantly doing the same. 
 
 Several instances have been recorded of dogs secreting 
 themselves on Saturday, so as to avoid being tied up on Sun- 
 day ; and in such cases they may arrive at their knowledge 
 of Saturday from their observation of the same kinds of signs 
 that mark off Sunday from other days in the week. Satur- 
 day, in this country at least, is usually a half-holiday, 
 marked by cessation from ordinary work and by engage- 
 ment in various forms of recreation or of preparation for the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter mentions a dog keeping out of the way 
 on the days once a fortnight on which it was accustomed 
 to be washed an operation it specially disliked. Here again 
 it may have learned the washing days not by counting every 
 
POWEK OF CALCULATION. 461 
 
 fourteen tli day, but simply by observing the earliest prepa- 
 rations for its bath. Its periodicity of action may have been 
 determined simply by periodicity of action in its master or 
 mistress. 
 
 Dogs distinguish certain other days of a season such as 
 Christmas, assize or cattle-killing days, hunting days (ap- 
 pointed for the c meets' of hounds), and in general all holi- 
 days or other days marked by unusual events by any depar- 
 ture from the routine of daily life. In all these cases they 
 probably observe man's preparations for the business or 
 sports of the day, more especially perhaps his change of dress. 
 They readily distinguish Sunday clothes from a hunting cos- 
 tume, and both from the ordinary working day habiliments : 
 they quite understand the object of such changes of dress, 
 and their association of ideas enables them to connect even- 
 ing in-door full dress with balls or parties, or the scarlet coat 
 and top-boots with the hunt, as well as with the fact that, 
 when dressed in a particular way, and when going to a par- 
 ticular place, they may, or must not accompany their masters. 
 Their behaviour is in accordance with their logical inferences 
 from observation : they exhibit indifference or sulkiness in 
 one case, joy, friskiness, vivacity in the other. 
 
 The power of the dog, horse, mule, donkey, elephant and 
 other animals to count or reckon, in some way, intervals of 
 time, and the exactness of their reckoning are illustrated 
 in many other ways : for instance, by their punctuality and 
 regularity in betaking themselves to, and relieving each other 
 from, duty in taking turn and turn about at work. 
 
 In various ways, certain animals show that they can 
 correctly calculate or estimate space or distance, including 
 height. The horse, for instance, in the steeple chase or 
 hurdle race, calculates hurriedly the height of the fence he is 
 about to leap ; the dog does the same when he is invited to 
 jump through a hoop for a bit of bread ; the lion and other 
 predatory carnivora estimate both height and distance in 
 their contemplated spring upon their prey. Certain fish are 
 called shooting or archer fish from their precision of aim in 
 bringing down flies on the wing, by squirting at them drops 
 of water, the nicest calculation of the intervening space, as 
 
462 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 well as of the size of their prey, being involved. They learn 
 by experience to make due allowance for the refraction of 
 light by water ; to use their natural weapon, the syringe, in 
 the operation of squirting ; and to employ water as an effec- 
 tive kind of shot, missile or projectile (Houzeau). But the 
 archer-fish, in the precision of its aim, makes allowance, not 
 only for the refraction of light and for distance: not only 
 for the size, but also for the movements of its victims 
 (Baird), while the dog and other animals make proper al- 
 lowance for wind and water currents. The elephant makes 
 a similar use of his trunk as a syringe or hydropult, and of 
 water as a projectile : while it also estimates distance and 
 size in the occasional punishment of his human tormentors. 
 Both in the archer-fish and the elephant, calculation of dis- 
 tance amounts to, or involves, an estimation of the range of 
 projectiles, as well as of the force necessary for the projec- 
 tion of missiles. 
 
 Many animals learn by experience the average or maxi- 
 mum range of man's projectiles or explosives, of his firearms 
 and their contents, especially : and they have or acquire the 
 sense to keep for their own safety beyond range. They cal- 
 culate this range with great nicety in certain cases. Thus 
 the dog in a farrier's smithy will be found sometimes just far 
 enough from the forge or furnace to be beyond danger from 
 fire sparks, but yet sufficiently near to get the full benefit of 
 the grateful heat. The crow and other birds dread man 
 within rifle range, if he carries a rifle ; but are perfectly un- 
 concerned if they keep and feel themselves beyond bullet 
 reach. 
 
 A calculation of range is implied in various devices of the 
 fox, or other animals, for bringing their prey within captur- 
 ing reach. There is correct judgment of distance in the 
 feints of a partridge ; as well as of time in relation to space 
 in the journeys of Texan cattle to their watering ground. 
 They time their setting out according to the distance they 
 have to travel (Houzeau). 
 
 There is even a nicer calculation of time and space in the 
 robbery of the fish hawk by the eagle (' Percy Anecdotes'). 
 In the Arctic bear, which kills the walrus by rolling down 
 
POWER OF CALCULATION. 463 
 
 upon it rocks or stones (Hall), there is estimation of height 
 or distance, as well as curve, and perhaps impetus or momen- 
 tum. Walruses themselves 'notice exactly the direction 
 and distance of their enemy (man), and emerge at the spot to 
 meet and destroy him ' (Koldewey) ; that is, they observe his 
 exact topographical position, and calculate how far they must 
 swim under the ice, so as to reach him. 
 
 Certain animals, also, form their own estimates of weight, 
 resistance, impetus or momentum, and size. The elephant 
 must calculate weight or resistance in judging of the degree 
 of strength it must put forth to move a timber log or other 
 heavy object : for in all such cases there is a due adjustment of 
 an animal's force, strength or power, to the physical cha- 
 racter of the object to be pushed, lifted, carried, or piled. 
 The ant probably makes a similar calculation when, meeting 
 with a large, heavy, dead beetle, it calls in the aid of its 
 fellows to roll, carry, or push it to the nest. The same ani- 
 mal shows its knowledge of dimension, of length and breadth, 
 of the smallest diameter of an object in the conveyance of 
 booty, or in the dismembering of prey (Houzeau, Watson). 
 
 Horses, mules and camels measure or estimate the size, 
 as well as weight, of their loads, so as to judge of the 
 possibility of their passing through forest openings, gates, 
 or doors, or of their own ability to bear them with com- 
 fort. 
 
 Tame working elephants are in Ceylon employed in a 
 considerable variety of engineering works. In arranging 
 timber, for instance, the animal balances the logs in its 
 mouth, steadying them with its trunk, places them in ex- 
 actly parallel rows, or in superposition, rolls or pushes 
 them with its head or foot, checks any undue c way ' or 
 momentum by its trunk, expresses dissatisfaction at any 
 irregularity, and readjusts until the desired position is at- 
 tained, and all unaided or undirected (Baker). Such opera- 
 tions necessarily involve not only great variety, but great 
 nicety of calculations. It balances water pipes, lays and fits 
 them into each other (Watson) ; it applies its strength at 
 the proper time and in the proper place ('Animal World '). 
 It reaches coin, when it is tethered, by blowing at a certain 
 
464 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 angle, so as to produce a recoil of its blast which brings the 
 coin within reach of its trunk. 
 
 By their combined efforts at mechanical labour, more- 
 over, ants act upon the principle of union or aggregate 
 strength (Watson). 
 
 The use of counterpoise is seen occasionally in spiders, 
 for instance when they suspend from one angle of a web a 
 small fragment of stone, to keep it on the proper stretch. 
 Thus a correspondent of * Nature' describes one as having 
 suspended to its web a fragment of gravel as a movable 
 weight, to counteract the effect of gusts of wind. The rose- 
 leaf-cutter bee fixes pieces of rose-leaf to her cell, t solely by 
 calculating upon the natural spring of the leaf, and so ad- 
 apts the pieces that the middle one always overlies a join in 
 the others ' (Milton). 
 
 Dogs at least calculate and make allowance for the 
 rapidity and strength of currents of rivers and tides. Thus 
 Wood describes a miller's dog that, to save a drowning small 
 one, ran by the side of a certain river till it ' got well below 
 the drowning dog : ' then it sprang into the river and swam 
 across : * and so exactly had he calculated the rapidity of the 
 river, and his own speed, that he intercepted the little dog 
 .... and brought it safely to land.' 
 
 The old mare or cow forms very shrewd estimates of 
 weakness in, discovers the weak points of, a fence that debars 
 access to tempting fodder (Macaulay). The dog and other 
 animals form estimates both of their own strength in relation 
 to size of body, and that of their fellows, so as to judge, 
 for instance, how far they can cope with them as rivals or 
 enemies. Hence they acquire a consciousness of great supe- 
 riority of size and strength, which probably leads the large 
 powerful dog to decline fighting with a small weak one, a 
 phenomenon usually attributed to a display of magnanimity. 
 They become aware when they have met their ' match;' 
 when honorable and equal combat may be the result. And 
 in other cases, they are convinced of the futility of effort, of 
 the inadequateness of their strength. 
 
 The horse and other animals of burden compare their 
 own strength, or physical agility, with the size, weight or 
 
POWER OF CALCULATION. 465 
 
 height of objects they are called upon to surmount or carry. 
 Hence the horse refuses an impracticable fence, recognising 
 its impracticability : it does not attempt what is beyond its 
 power, what is obviously dangerous. Its reluctance, in such 
 a case, may, or may not, be overcome by the will and stimuli 
 of the rider, the whip, the spur, the taunt ; or by the force 
 of imitation, the example of other horses and riders. The 
 animal's own better judgment may be made to give way to 
 the temper and insistance of its master. But if, and when 
 this takes place, it is too frequently proved by the issue that 
 the horse has been the more sensible animal, indeed, the 
 only sensible animal, of the two : though unfortunately it is 
 also the more likely to suffer for its rider's stupidity than 
 the rider himself. The camel, too, shows unwillingness to 
 travel with a load which it considers too large or heavy. 
 
 But the dog at least is capable of estimating not only 
 the physical, but the mental or moral qualities, both in his 
 fellows, and in man. It is frequently an admirable reader, 
 or interpreter, of human character: it forms a wonderfully 
 correct judgment of man's strong and weak points ; in other 
 words, it rapidly discovers those weak points in regard to 
 which it feels itself to be, for the moment at least, man's 
 superior. In particular it recognises, and it must be added, 
 it sometimes takes undue advantage of, such human quali- 
 ties as timidity or hesitancy, ignorance or inexperience ; just 
 as it does of man's drunkenness, awkwardness, incautious- 
 ness. 
 
 Nor does the horse, in some cases, form a less accurate 
 estimate of certain features at least of man's character. In 
 their own fellows, in their leaders or chiefs, or in their prey 
 or enemies, dogs, tigers and other animals, appreciate such 
 qualities as courage, sagacity, presence of mind and fertility 
 in resource. 
 
 There is the same liability to imperfection, or error, in 
 the calculations of other animals as in those of man. Thus 
 errors in the calculation of distance occur frequently in the 
 leap of the predatory carnivora on their prey. 
 
 The Indian cheetah, when it makes a premature dash at 
 the antelope, and so misses it, ' sneaks ashamed and crest- 
 
 VOL. I. H H 
 
466 POWER OF CALCULATION. 
 
 fallen to the nearest bush or nullah, and snarls with sullen 
 and bitter rage, when the attendant approaches to recap- 
 ture and blindfold him.' l 
 
 Birds of prey often ' miss their mark ' in a similar way. 
 Thus a merlin, in pursuit of a sand-piper, missed its quarry, 
 and c the merlin by the force and impetus of its flight plunged, 
 head over ears, into the sea, whence, with draggled plumage 
 and brine-blinded eyes, it arose with difficulty,' its intended 
 victim of course escaping (Stewart). The supposed uner- 
 ringness of aim of the shooting-fish of Java is as great a 
 mistake, on man's part, as is his belief in the ' unerring ' de- 
 velopment of animal instinct in so many other directions. 
 Though the archer-fish generally brings down its prey, it 
 does not do so always or necessarily. ' If this fails .... 
 he repeats his circuit of observation, pauses, again apparently 
 to measure his distance, and then discharges at the fly once 
 more.' He uniformly surveys his prey first, swimming about 
 so as to examine its exact position. 2 
 
 A Skye terrier sitting at an open window on the third 
 storey of a house, in one of the streets of Edinburgh, saw its 
 master pass on the street below. Its master very foolishly 
 beckoned to it ; the poor animal, literally not looking before 
 it leaped, taking no time properly to calculate height or 
 distance, acting impulsively, rashly, thoughtlessly, without 
 reflection, jumped downwards, with sufficient force to clear a 
 sunk area in front of the house, but only to impale itself on 
 the railings that fenced in the said area from the street. 3 A 
 due consideration of the nature of the feat it was about to 
 perform would probably have prevented any attempt being 
 made. 
 
 There is miscalculation of the power of successful defiance, 
 an utter disregard or ignorance of their relative strength, 
 in the bravado of small and weak, before large and powerful 
 animals, even where the smaller and less powerful animal 
 
 1 < Daily Telegraph,' November 19, 1875, describing the Indian Sports of 
 the Prince of Wales. 
 
 2 North British Daily Mail,' December 8, 1875. 
 8 Scotsman,' May 31, 1875. 
 
POWER OF CALCULATION. 467 
 
 possesses the attribute of courage ; in the case, for instance, 
 of the dog braving the tiger (Watson). 
 
 In age and disease, mental and bodily, there is frequently 
 a loss of the usual power of measuring distance or height, or 
 of estimating an animal's own strength, or other ability, 
 physical or mental : the consequence of which is self-injury 
 in various forms and to various degrees. 
 
 H H 2 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 THERE is a striking resemblance' between courtship and 
 marriage in the lower animals and in man; almost every 
 phenomenon in the latter has its exact counterpart in the 
 former. Mating or pairing in other animals, and the pre- 
 liminary operations including the peculiarities of what is 
 variously spoken of as the ' season of love/ or the breeding 
 season furnish illustrations of the most important kind of 
 certain of the mental and moral qualities of the lower ani- 
 mals. These features in their mental or moral character 
 include more especially 
 
 1. Preference or choice in the selection of mates by the 
 nubile females. 
 
 This, again, involves 
 
 a-. Deliberation the consideration of the qualifica- 
 tions of candidates. 
 
 b. Testing comparative qualifications by a sort of 
 
 competitive examination ; sometimes 
 
 c. Decision ; or, on the other hand 
 
 d. Indecision, vacillation, or hesitancy not know- 
 
 ing her own mind in the female. 
 
 e. Change of mind or fickleness. 
 /. Caprice or whimsicalness. 
 
 g. The development of singular, perhaps unac- 
 countable, likes and dislikes. 
 h. Fastidiousness. 
 
 2. The paying and accepting or refusal of addresses or 
 attentions by and from the male. 
 
 3. The deliberate display to the greatest advantage 
 
COUETSHIP AND MAliRIAGE. 469 
 
 of personal charms by the male, which involves on his 
 part 
 
 a. The study of effect. 
 
 b. Intention, with a definite end in view. 
 
 c. Effort to please including gallantry. 
 
 d. Knowledge of the value of 
 
 1. Beauty of form, colour, or song 
 
 2. Physical strength and courage. 
 
 e. Rivalry or competition, with its attendant pas- 
 
 sions jealousy, anger, pugnacity, and their 
 
 results. 
 /. The eagerness or ardour of sexual love, which is 
 
 apt to become excessive or morbid. 
 g. The exhibition of antics and foolery of various 
 
 kinds. 
 h. Love of admiration and approbation including 
 
 vanity and dandyism. 
 
 i. The estimation or calculation of advantages. 
 On the part of the female : 
 j. Appreciation of 
 
 1. Physical and mental excellence ; and of 
 
 2. The desire to please. 
 And on the part of both sexes coquetry. 
 
 4. The holding of ceremonies and assemblies involving 
 fixation of time and place. 
 
 5. The modes of expressing affection or endearment 
 especially by mutual embrace or kissing. 
 
 6. The dominance of a master passion and its results 
 including infatuation or fascination, as well as other changes 
 of character or disposition, temporary or permanent. 
 
 7. Constancy and inconstancy in love and the conjugal 
 relationship including the formation, keeping, and rupture 
 of engagements, profligacy, prostitution, seduction and 
 desertion. 
 
 8. Conjugal happiness and unhappiness, with their 
 causes. 
 
 9. Occasional assumption by the female of male pre- 
 rogatives. 
 
 The most noteworthy point in connection with the 
 
470 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 mating or pairing of the lower animals is the choice of a 
 mate so frequently made for instance, among birds by the 
 female. This choice is determined in some cases, just as in 
 woman, by caprice; it is impossible to give any rational 
 explanation of the preference made. But in a much larger 
 proportion of cases than in woman the selection made is, or 
 appears to be, determined by reasons that are not only in- 
 telligible but commendable. These reasons include, for 
 instance 
 
 1. The personal beauty of the male the gorgeousness of 
 his plumage more especially. 
 
 2. The charms of his song. 
 
 3. His physical strength and, associated with it, his 
 courage, his ability to protect and provide for his mate. 
 
 4. Other physical characters such as size, form, and 
 colour peculiarities. 
 
 5. His sagacity and experience, or other mental or moral 
 qualities or acquisitions. 
 
 The female frequently exercises the utmost deliberation 
 involving perhaps caution in her choice of a mate. She 
 reviews the personal advantages of her male suitors. The 
 female bird obviously looks, in the first place, for a congenial 
 helpmate and protector a male whom she can at once 
 admire, trust, and respect ; and it were well if womankind 
 were always as judicious in their principle of selection, where 
 any principle is at all adopted. No doubt in certain cases 
 and senses the choice of the female animal may be said to 
 be determined by a consideration for her personal comfort 
 or interest in other words, by selfishness. Nevertheless, 
 whether or not the principle of selection be considered a 
 selfish one, its beneficence cannot be doubted : the results of 
 such selections are, on the whole, good. It may happen, 
 however, as in woman, that the excellences, whether mental 
 or physical, which the female animal sees in her suitor, are 
 apparent rather than real; that she deceives herself, and 
 perhaps, like her human sisters, 'marries in haste and 
 repents at leisure.' This is only tantamount, however, to 
 saying that the frequent and serious errors of animals, as of 
 man, extend to matters amatory and matrimonial. 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 471 
 
 The preferences displayed in courtship are more frequently 
 or more generally exhibited by the female than the male 
 animal (Darwin). The common cock, however, chooses 
 young hens ; he shows the same sort of natural preference 
 that man so usually does for fresh, youthful attractions. On 
 the other hand, the partiality of the cock pheasant is for 
 old hens (Darwin) ; so that in the amatory and matrimonial 
 affairs of other animals, as in those of man, most fortunately 
 no doubt, de gustibus nil disputandum. 
 
 But deliberate choice or selection is by no means con- 
 fined to love affairs. It is constantly shown, and in a great 
 variety of ways, by the lower animals quite as much at 
 least by the males as the females. Thus it is shown in the 
 following important particulars : 
 
 1. The preference of duty to revenge, to pleasure, to 
 personal ease or gratification in other words, of the right 
 to the wrong ; or, on the contrary of 
 
 2. The expedient or politic whether or not it is also 
 wrong to the right ; of selfish considerations to self-sacri- 
 ficing benevolence. 
 
 8. Preference of immediate and certain death by suicide 
 to the probability of prolonged life and torture ; or of death 
 to the desertion of their young by mothers ; or in many other 
 cases 
 
 4. Choice of the lesser of two evils or dangers. 
 
 5. Partiality for human society shown by so many 
 birds and other animals. 
 
 6. Likings or dislikes for or to particular animals, 
 persons, places, things, sounds, and colours including 
 favouritism as to companions or playfellows, masters or 
 mistresses, nesting or building places, and the materials of 
 construction ; especially the 
 
 7. Predilections shown by so many animals for particular 
 foods or articles thereof for instance, for those used by man, 
 including cooked foods and intoxicating beverages. 
 
 8. Preference of liberty or freedom to captivity or con- 
 finement ; but, on the other hand, a singular deliberate 
 
 9. Selection of captivity and its advantages in preference 
 to a wild life with its risks. 
 
472 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 10. Selection of proper articles by dogs or other animals 
 that act as man's messengers or servants, or that perform on 
 the theatrical stage. 
 
 11. Choice of the best means for the accomplishment of 
 a purpose. 
 
 Choice, however decided it is when made, may not be 
 made at once. As in man, wary, experienced animals feel 
 or know that there are many things to be calmly considered 
 before their mind is made up to any given line of action. 
 They estimate, calculate, or weigh risk or danger ; balance 
 disadvantages and advantages against each other ; ' count the 
 cost ' of a proposed procedure, anticipating the results de- 
 ducing consequences from their causes. They exercise or 
 manifest comparison and reflection. In so simple a matter 
 as the selection of one of several roads the dog, for instance, 
 makes unconscious use of a syllogism (Houzeau). 
 
 On the other hand, there are unfortunate animals, as 
 there are unlucky men, that cannot make up their minds or 
 come to a decision ; that cannot show a rational preference, 
 or a preference of any kind, even in matters seriously involv- 
 ing their own personal interests. In such cases indecision, 
 the incapability of making a distinct choice between two 
 courses of action or things, or between action and inaction, is 
 apt to be as fatal to the animal as to the man. Belt, for 
 instance, gives the case of a mule crossing a ravine : * When 
 'it came near to a place where it could escape the deep mud 
 by going over a stony part, it would slacken its pace and 
 look first at the mud and then at the stones, evidently 
 balancing in its mind which was the least evil. Sometimes 
 .... it would be so undecided which side was the best 
 that, making towards one, it would look towards the other, 
 and end by getting into the worst of the mud. It was just 
 like many men, who cannot decide which of two courses to 
 take, and end by a middle one, which is worse than either.' 
 The typical and familiar ass between its two bundles of hay 
 graphically represents both the state of mind and the action 
 or inaction of such vacillating mules and men alike. 
 
 Preferences, even of what appear to be of a singular and 
 unnatural kind, are determined sometimes in all probability 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 473 
 
 by motives that are intelligible and rational. Thus there are 
 many animals that, having tested for themselves the relative 
 advantages and disadvantages of freedom and captivity, 
 deliberately submit themselves to the latter. No doubt they 
 usually do so in the pleasant form of mere domesticity, which 
 allows frequently considerable freedom of action. Wild 
 animals that have been made captive and subsequently 
 released have voluntarily returned to what were virtually 
 their former prisons and prison-life, having probably learned 
 by ample experience how hard was the struggle for life in 
 freedom, the natural state, with its worries, exposure, and 
 want, and how pleasant the protected arti6cial life, with its 
 abundant feeding, secure protection from dreaded enemies, 
 and absence of all care. 
 
 The choice of a minor rather than of a major evil is also 
 quite intelligible and rational. There are many birds and 
 other animals that regard man as an enemy, and under 
 ordinary circumstances avoid him as such ; who nevertheless 
 fearlessly seek his protection when a more relentless enemy 
 appears a more immediate or certain danger threatens. 
 Thus various small birds pursued by hawks fly precipitately 
 into man's or woman's very bosom. Belt mentions a cock- 
 roach which, fleeing from him, encountered a spider, when 
 6 back it would double, facing all the danger from me rather 
 than advance nearer to its natural enemy.' There can be no 
 difficulty in understanding, moreover, the occasional decided 
 preference shown for man's society over that of their own 
 species by dogs and various birds. Man can, and does, give 
 them what their own species cannot, while, generally speak- 
 ing, access to their own species, when desired, is at the same 
 time not prevented. He furnishes at once shelter, protec- 
 tion, food, and companionship, perhaps he reciprocates their 
 affection, gives them that for which they long sympathy 
 and love. 
 
 On the other hand, preferences that are utterly unac- 
 countable on any rational ground, and that yet can scarcely 
 be denominated capricious, are illustrated by the common 
 cases of dogs attaching themselves to masters who are cruel 
 to them, and maintaining their allegiance after a long course 
 
474 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 of neglect or ill-usage. Inexplicable attractions are not 
 however more common than inexplicable repulsions or anti- 
 pathies a subject that falls to be considered in the chapter 
 on ' Individuality.' 
 
 It is quite relevant to, or in connection with, the sub- 
 ject of courtship and marriage to refer to some of these 
 demonstrations of affection or attachment which in the lower 
 animals are humanlike in their character. The most im- 
 portant are the kiss, embrace, and caress. 
 
 The operation of kissing, or some equivalent process, 
 has been described as practised by a considerable number 
 of animals including, in the first place, various quadru- 
 mana, such as the chimpanzee, orang, and various baboons ; 
 the dog and cat, horse, cattle, sea-bear ; cockatoo and other 
 birds. In some cases the operation would appear to consist 
 simply of the fond rubbing together or touching of mouths, 
 lips, noses, or beaks, and in no case is there, so far as I am 
 aware, exactly the same kind of smacking of the lips that 
 occurs in man. The significance of the process, whatever 
 be its nature, which is necessarily determined by the struc- 
 ture of the animal, is the same as in man ; that is to say, 
 that, while usually an expression of endearment, it may also 
 be one of simple salutation or greeting. 
 
 The sea-bear of the London Zoological Gardens used to 
 try to kiss its keeper, the French sailor Lecomte ; and I have 
 myself seen a horse do the same in a circus or hippodrome. 
 In both cases it was attempted at the command of their 
 masters, and by the touching of noses or lips. Wood de- 
 scribes a cat kissing a dog ; f she greeted him with a kiss ; 
 literally, they touched lips and noses.' And there can be 
 no doubt about the dog offering its caresses, in the form of 
 lip or nose-touching, as well as tongue-licking or touching, 
 to man. Berkeley speaks of a greyhound ' covering him 
 with kisses.' A cockatoo is described, on the other hand, 
 as soliciting by word and action a kiss from a long-absent 
 mistress (Wood) . The amicable rubbing of noses by cattle, 
 donkeys, or horses over or on different sides of a hedge or 
 fence is a familiar spectacle in country districts. Horses 
 express familiarity with each other by mutual rubbing of 
 noses (Nichols). 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 47 O. 
 
 If it should be objected that their rubbing of noses has a 
 very remote resemblance to human osculation, we have only 
 to remind the reader that among certain savage races of man 
 the rubbing together of noses is the mode of greeting uni- 
 formly adopted, obviously taking the place of the kisses that 
 are so common in various civilised people, such as pre-emi- 
 nently the Germans and French. 
 
 This appears to be the proper place also to take some 
 note of cesthetic perception in the lower animals of their 
 taste for the beautiful, of their appreciation of harmony, 
 whether in form, colour, or tone a subject on which no 
 man has written so much or so well as Charles Darwin. 
 First, then, it has to be remarked, as regards man, that 
 
 1. The aesthetic sense is by no means common. It is 
 indeed frequently wanting (Nichols) ; while, where it is pre- 
 sent in certain savage races, it is frequently inferior in its 
 character to that which occurs, for instance, in many birds. 
 
 2. There is no uniform standard or criterion of taste, 
 differing as it does in different races, peoples, and countries, 
 and as it has done at different epochs of human history or 
 in different stages of civilisation. Hence it is that what is 
 by one people, or at one time by the same race, considered 
 beautiful or tasteful is regarded by or at another as quite 
 the reverse. 
 
 It does not follow, therefore, that the lower animals 
 have the same ideas of the beautiful that civilised or savage 
 man has. But that their conceptions, frequently at least, 
 coincide with those of man is proved by their admiration of 
 such magnificent plumage as that of the peacock's tail when 
 expanded. In other cases there is an admiration of the same 
 forms, patterns, or colours as by man (Darwin). Esthetic 
 taste in the lower animals includes a love of 
 
 1. Novelty. 
 
 2. Variety. 
 
 3. Fashion. 
 
 4. Ornament or finery. 
 
 And it is exhibited in various forms of 
 
 1. Artistic skill for instance, in the decorative arts, as 
 well as in the 
 
476 COUETSHIP AND MAEEIAGE. 
 
 2. Display to the best effect of graces of person includ- 
 ing the colour of plumage. 
 
 In birds, as in man, it would appear to be the female that 
 most frequently and decidedly manifests a partiality for finery 
 and fashion, for self-decoration (Houzeau), for the orna- 
 mentation of love-bowers, or other places of rendezvous, or 
 of nests (Gould). Even among humble bees there are ar- 
 tists with a taste for the ornamental (Figuier). Sir John 
 Lubbock refers to the obvious ' evidences that the beauty of 
 flowers is useful in consequence of its attracting insects.' 
 
 Certain birds cultivate beauty of person, just as man, or 
 more commonly woman, does ; and some mammals do the 
 same polishing their fur, for instance, as birds preen their 
 feathers. Moreover, taste for the beautiful is improved by 
 being exercised or cultivated in birds as in man. 
 
 Various birds and other animals not only a/ppreciate 
 beauty in each other, but they are conscious of the existence 
 and of the value of their own personal beauty. They take a 
 pride in it, displaying this pride in a variety of ways ; and so 
 far as concerns courtship and marriage, they make use of it 
 as a means of charming or attracting the opposite sex. Their 
 pride is obviously associated with, if it do not arise, from, 
 their love of admiration and their capacity of inspiring admi- 
 ration. Nor is it at all necessary that this admiration should 
 proceed from other individuals of the species to which an 
 animal belongs. The peacock, according to Wood, ' seems 
 to be just as proud of the admiration bestowed by human 
 beings as of that offered by his own kind. 5 
 
 The turkey, in his nuptial plumage, ' surveys himself 
 with ludicrous complacency.' The whidah (or widow) bird 
 is also ' wonderfully proud of his beautiful tail ' (Wood) . 
 The bird of paradise makes his morning toilet very care- 
 fully, cleansing his plumage, and ( seeming proud of its 
 heavenly beauty, and in raptures of delight with its own 
 most enchanting self.' One of them inspected the state of 
 its plumage above and below, ( as proud as a lady in her full 
 ball dress .... looking archly at the spectators, as if ready 
 to receive all the admiration that it considers its elegant 
 form and display of plumage demand' (Bennett). Here, 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 477 
 
 says Wood, is 'pride in personal appearance developed as 
 strongly as it could be in any human being. Moreover, the 
 bird could sufficiently enter into the feelings of the specta- 
 tors to understand that they were admiring its beauty, and 
 to exult in the admiration.' 
 
 Associated with vanity there is sometimes a great sus- 
 ceptibility io flattery in many parrots and cockatoos, that at 
 once, when asked by man, expand their wings so as to show 
 off their beauty and size ( 6 Chambers's Journal ') . Self- 
 conceit is occasionally such as to lead to sad self-deception, 
 to delusion, and even to fatal disappointments as, for in- 
 stance, when animals believe their personal charms to be 
 irresistible. 
 
 The necessity for the presence of spectators and for 
 admiration on their part is as obvious frequently in the 
 love or other exhibitions of various birds or other animals 
 as in man or woman. In the case of courtship there is an 
 ulterior object in view, but in other cases there is none or 
 at least none intelligible or apparent beyond the admira- 
 tion called forth, and the homage thereby paid to self-esteem. 
 Chillingham .bulls perform their duels before cow spectators, 
 just as human rivals figure at a tourney (Aylmer). The 
 mandrill, drill, and other baboons or monkeys display their, 
 coloured nates, and if this display be ' made before two 
 observers, they turn to him who seems to pay the most 
 attention ' (Yon Fischer). They require admiration as much 
 as does the girl-child who shows off her last new frock or 
 doll. There is a necessity for the appreciation of effort the 
 trouble bestowed on which is regarded as thrown away if 
 the effort itself be not duly observed, or, if observed, not 
 duly appreciated. 
 
 Many animals solicit, and some of them demand attention 
 or recognition from man; and though this is not always with a 
 view to his admiration of themselves, or their offspring, or the 
 doings of either, the procedure very often appears to have 
 such admiration as its immediate or ulterior object. Certain 
 birds and other animals even enforce attentions from each 
 other for instance, females from males. The canary does 
 so imperiously and effectually with her beak ; and it is pro- 
 
478 COUETSHIP AND MAKKIAGE. 
 
 bably to this sort of operation by female birds, jealous of, or 
 longing for, masculine attention, that we owe the phrase so 
 commonly applied to certain human husbands, of being ( hen- 
 pecked. 5 So necessary are respect or attention from man to 
 certain irritable, jealous house pets, or menagerie captives 
 such as the felinse that dangerous fury is apt to be excited 
 in them by his simple indifference. 
 
 Many birds and other animals take every pains to ensure 
 success in the display of their charms before the other sex, or 
 in efforts of whatever nature. They have a keen enjoyment 
 of triumph, and they celebrate victory, whatever be its 
 nature, in a variety of ways. There is the sense of triumph, 
 the air of triumph, the strut of triumph. But, on the 
 other hand, there is corresponding soreness or disappoint- 
 ment at non-success ; and failure, according to its nature, 
 may even beget melancholia, abstinence, marasmus and 
 death. 
 
 The efforts of a male suitor to please or charm the female 
 to whom he pays court are not always received favourably. 
 On the contrary, his amatory attentions may be received 
 with disdain, anger, violence, or other forms of repulse ; and 
 unfortunately, one of these forms of c rejected addresses ' is 
 cannibalism the devouring by the female of her lover. Thus 
 we are told that the ' female spider is, in many of the species, 
 much larger than the male. And a very remarkable danger 
 attends the amatory approaches of the latter as, if they are 
 not favourably received, he is not uncommonly killed and 
 eaten on the spot' [ c Chambers's Encyclopaedia ']. ' Disap- 
 pointed affection ' is probably as common in other animals as 
 in man, ' jiltings ' by the fickle fair quite as frequent. 
 
 In some cases the refusal of the attentions of the male 
 by the female may be altogether, or in some measure, his 
 fault. Thus young males are apt, as in man, to be forward, 
 officious, troublesome, impatient, over eager, unduly amorous ; 
 and this eagerness may even be morbid in its excess or 
 nature, leading to persecution of, and danger to, the female 
 selected for their attentions. 
 
 In such cases it is not surprising that such addresses 
 should be avoided, repulsed or punished. But in other cases 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 479 
 
 there seems to be nothing lacking on the part of the male, 
 whose qualifications as a suitor, and whose mode of paying 
 his court, exhibit nothing that can reasonably be objected to. 
 Nevertheless, the female c will not when she may ; ' and her 
 declinature can only be ascribed to caprice to some causeless 
 antipathy to the suitor, or to some equally unaccountable pre- 
 ference for an indifferent, non- competing stranger. 
 
 Hence it happens that, in other animals as in man, the 
 course of ' true love ' does not always run smoothly. There 
 is no accounting for the love vagaries of the female, who 
 sometimes pays the penalty of old-maidism for her capricious 
 rejection of eligible offers of mates. For the same reason 
 the caprice of the female bachelorhood is sometimes com- 
 pulsorily inflicted on the male. As in man, bachelorhood and 
 old-maidism may arise from unattractiveness in either sex, 
 from incapacity in the one to charm the other. 
 
 The delays and vagaries of love frequently arise from 
 fastidiousness on the part of the female. There is difficulty, 
 perhaps impossibility, in pleasing her ; and this may not be 
 confined to lovers or mates, but may extend to food, home, 
 associates, master, and ' things in general.' This fastidious- 
 ness has been specially noticed in the bitch (Walsh) ; but in 
 her and other female animals it is frequently, at least, to be 
 regarded as morbid. As a cause of love-delays or errors, 
 it is, however, intelligible. But caprice often defies all 
 attempts to understand or account for it. And it is far from 
 being confined to love affairs, extending also, as it does, to 
 nesting places for instance, in the martin (White) to 
 friendship, and to many other of the ordinary affairs of life. 
 Whether or not it is more common, it has certainly been, like 
 fastidiousness, much more commonly noted, in the female 
 than the male ; and the presumption is that in the one case, 
 as in the other, it is to be regarded as a morbid peculiarity of 
 the female. 
 
 But celibacy, neither in female nor male, is always thus 
 compulsory or fortuitous. It would appear, in some cases at 
 least, to be voluntary and deliberate in the case, for in- 
 stance, where obstacles arise to the gratification of a special 
 choice. 
 
480 COUETSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 The duration of courtship in birds is liable to the same 
 variations as in man. It may be short or prolonged, rapid 
 or dilatory ; there may be ' love at first sight,' leading to or 
 ripening speedily into matrimony ; or the female may be ' ill 
 to please and hesitant in making up her mind ' more pro- 
 bably as to the merits of rival candidates for the favours of 
 love than as to marriage itself. The rapidity of the process 
 of wooing is most marked in the re-marriage of widows; 
 perhaps, also, of widowers, though in their case the pheno- 
 menon certainly has not been so frequently noticed. The 
 widow, however, manages, in a marvellously short space of 
 time, to make known 6 to all whom it may concern,' or per- 
 haps to some favoured male, the fact that she is once more 
 in the matrimonial market, again ready to become the prize 
 of gallantry, valour, symmetry or song, as the case may be. 
 There is sometimes the same unbecoming unceremoniousness, 
 the same ( hot haste ' after a bereavement, that attends occa- 
 sionally, or leads to, the second nuptials of those who ought 
 to be, according to etiquette, ' inconsolable ' or ' disconsolate ' 
 young widows among mankind. 
 
 Under whatever circumstances the marriage tie is con- 
 tracted, its obligations are not always held sacredj any more 
 than in man. Among birds especially there are ' gay ' males 
 or females that boast of their success in gallantry or solicita- 
 tion. There are profligates and prostitutes ; illicit as well as 
 legitimate amours ; conjugal infidelity and desertion ; seduc- 
 tions and elopements ; marital quarrels of all kinds ; and not 
 unfrequently the summary punishment of marital offences. 
 But, on the other hand, the affection of the lover or the mate 
 is frequently marked by the utmost delicacy, sincerity and 
 constancy for instance, in the warbler and dove. 
 
 As in man, it is usually the male who courts and the 
 female who is courted. She is passive, except in the import- 
 ant matter of choosing or accepting a mate ; while he has all 
 the fatigue, anxiety, and danger of the love antics or dances, 
 and of the fights, which so frequently characterise animal 
 courtship. There are exceptional cases, however, in which, 
 just again as in mankind, the female not only takes the 
 initiative, but plays the whole game. Tor instance, court- 
 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 481 
 
 ship of the males by the females occurs in the cassowary 
 (Darwin). Where she plays the part of the male through- 
 out, she exhibits all the worst of his passions, such as 
 rivalry, jealousy, and ferocity. This rivalry and jealousy 
 lead to frequent battles for the possession of the male 
 just as is more commonly the case among males for the 
 capture of the female. The struggles of these Amazon rivals 
 are sometimes characterised by the same mercilessness that 
 is exhibited when the furious male is the combatant ; and 
 the ferocity displayed is occasionally such that death is the 
 result in the unsuccessful. 
 
 By no means unfrequently the females take the first step 
 in love-making by their solicitation, by the various wiles 
 they practise on impressionable males, which are the same 
 in character as those so familiar in their human sisters, and 
 the object of which wiles is the same in both cases the 
 attraction of the attentions of the males. 
 
 VOL. I. II 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FOSTER PARENTAGE. 
 
 THE phenomena of foster-parentage offer many interesting 
 illustrations of the mental and moral aptitudes or qualities of 
 the lower animals. The adoption of the young, not only of 
 the same species, but of other species and genera of the most 
 diverse structure and habits, is common under certain cir- 
 cumstances. The most common of these circumstances is 
 the non-gratification of the imperious maternal instinct the 
 same cause that leads so many spinsters of certain age to con- 
 sole their idleness with pet dogs, cats or birds, or so many 
 childless couples to adopt children in order to gratify their 
 parental longings and inherit their wealth. It is, therefore, 
 usually the female that becomes a foster-parent, and takes 
 home to her affections, and to her board, the young of her 
 neighbours, and failing them, or otherwise by singularity of 
 preference, the offspring of other species or genera. There 
 are many instances of hens hatching ducks' eggs and bring- 
 ing up broods of ducklings, of geese tending ducklings, of 
 cats nursing each other's kittens, and of a whole host of 
 other birds hatching the eggs of the cuckoo. But much more 
 interesting are such cases as the following : 
 
 1. Cats and bitches suckling each other's whelps 
 (Houzeau) . 
 
 2. Cats suckling or bringing up young squirrels, dog- 
 pups, chickens, rats, and leverets or young hares all their 
 natural prey or enemies (White). 
 
 3. Bitches suckling young pigs, kittens, or panther-cubs 
 (Jesse and Jardine). 
 
 4. Hens rearing kittens, of which an instance has been 
 
FOSTEE PARENTAGE. 483 
 
 given me by a relative, or other birds sitting on dog- 
 pups. 
 
 And still more remarkable is the occasional suckling of 
 individuals of more than one species at the same time by the 
 same mother, as in the case of a cat that tried to suckle 
 chickens along with her own kittens. 
 
 The most common cause or motive that leads to the 
 adoption of the young of other animals is the loss of a 
 mother's own young, and the felt necessity of gratifying her 
 bereaved maternal instinct. So strong, so urgent, so irresis- 
 tible even, is this necessity, that it leads occasionally to the 
 abduction, or theft, of the young of other animals. No doubt 
 the result is usually beneficent, so far as concerns the up- 
 bringing of the abducted young, seeing that the self- consti- 
 tuted foster-mother lavishes on them all the care she would 
 have bestowed on her own. Nevertheless, there is a selfish 
 disregard of the feelings of the other and true mother, who 
 is bereaved by such an abduction. 
 
 Sterility the want of offspring operates in the same 
 way as bereavement or loss of young. The female of ma- 
 ture age, whose longings for progeny have not been gratified 
 in the natural way, takes the only means that remain to 
 her of so far satisfying her paramount desire to have some 
 of her own species on whom to lavish her overflowing af- 
 fection. 
 
 This sort of what may be called vicarious maternity, this 
 assumption of the duties of a mother, is not always confined 
 to the female. There are occasional exceptional cases in 
 which the male takes a female's place in the hatching and 
 up-bringing of young, whether its own or those of other 
 species or genera. Thus we are told of a male turkey hatch- 
 ing duck's eggs. 
 
 Generally speaking, the adoption of foster-young is 
 voluntary; the foster-mother is self -elected. But in some 
 cases the bringing up of the young of other species or genera 
 is involuntary or non-voluntary ; or at least there is no spon- 
 taneous selection, either of the maternal office, or of the 
 objects of affection ; for instance, where young are deserted, 
 orphaned and cast upon the care of sometimes an unwitting 
 
 i i 2 
 
484 FOSTER PARENTAGE. 
 
 foster-mother, as by the cuckoo or where orphaned, lost or 
 deserted young seek the good offices of some other mother 
 than their own. 
 
 There are several other circumstances under which foster- 
 mothers act as such unwittingly, ignorantly, exhibiting therein 
 grave errors of the maternal instinct. Thus certain birds sit 
 on ' dummies,' on stones or other inanimate objects, on the 
 eggs or even the young of other species all substituted 
 experimentally by man for their own eggs or young, without 
 their ever detecting the deception. Not uniformly, however, 
 do they betray such ignorance and error. Romanes mentions 
 a Spanish hen that, disappointed in the gratification of her 
 maternal instincts by being placed upon c dummies,' after 
 losing patience at the absence of the expected result, 'turned 
 foster-mother to all the Spanish chickens in the yard,' of all 
 ages, but only to those, be it observed in this case, of her own 
 breed Brahma and Hamburg chickens not being adopted 
 with the others. 
 
 In the case of a cat recently confined, two young squirrels 
 were artificially substituted for two kittens that were killed : 
 the cat did not notice her loss that is to say, at first. For 
 sooner or later in such cases the development of the natural 
 instincts of the foster-young climbing trees and eating nuts 
 in the case of young squirrels taking to the water in the 
 case of ducklings, gives rise to unbounded astonishment and 
 alarm in the foster-mother. When a hen sees the ducklings 
 hatched by herself taking to a horse pond, she gives no un- 
 certain signs of her surprise, concern, dread of, or at, their 
 by her supposed singular behaviour ; and she feels sadly 
 puzzled and annoyed at her inability to follow them upon 
 their natural element. Foster-mothers, therefore, may and 
 do undertake duties of the nature of which they are ignorant, 
 and for the results of which they are unprepared. 
 
 The Ettrick Shepherd tells us that a mother sheep, de- 
 prived of her own young, will take to suck the lambs of 
 another mother if clad in the skin of one of her own dead 
 lambs. ' She accepts and nourishes it as her own ever after ' 
 not detecting the imposture. But what is more curious, 
 for some days at first, the deceived mother e shows far more 
 
FOSTER PARENTAGE. 485 
 
 fondness by bleating and caressing over this one than she did 
 formerly over the one that was really her own.' 
 
 In some cases the foster-mother devotes her whole atten- 
 tion to her foster-young, if the latter are of the same age 
 and of the same species. In other cases the foster-mother 
 has young of her own, in which case the adoption of the 
 young of other individuals, species or genera, is usually the 
 result of compassion and over-flowing motherly love, not 
 of an ungratified maternal instinct. In such cases, cats and 
 other animals make no invidious distinction of the adopted 
 strangers ; the orphaned or deserted offspring rank pari 
 passu with her own in the affections of the foster-mother. 
 
 As a general rule, foster-parentage, the assumption of 
 a mother's duties, the adoption of young, whether orphaned 
 or deserted or not, developes all the finer traits of the 
 maternal character constancy and intensity of affection, 
 unremitting attention, lavish generosity, touching tenderness, 
 self-sacrificing devotion. Foster-parents sometimes die, sac- 
 rifice themselves, in the discharge of their self-imposed duties, 
 e.g. the lark (Buffon). Low tells us of the tenderness of a 
 bereaved bitch to her foster-young. The female elephant 
 allows herself to be suckled by other youngsters than her 
 own, an illustration of maternal generosity (Houzeau) ; and 
 the same is done sometimes by the dog and cat. 
 
 But, on the other hand, a selfish, rigid, and jealous exclu- 
 siveness may be exhibited, as when a cow repulses the calf 
 of another cow. 
 
 Instances of indifference or cruelty are commonest, in 
 other animals as in man, on the part of stepmothers and, 
 unfortunately also of fathers at the instance of stepmothers. 
 Thus Watson mentions the ill-feeling of a turkey step- 
 mother to her adopted young, and the resultant merciless 
 treatment the father becoming indifferent or unnatural in 
 his affection, perhaps under his second spouse's malign influ- 
 ence. A common form of a stepmother's unfair treatment 
 of her adopted young is her selfish exclusion from her affec- 
 tions and attentions of all offspring not her own. It may be, 
 Watson suggests, parental affection that leads the widower 
 swallow to provide a stepmother for his brood ; and we know 
 
486 FOSTER PARENTAGE. 
 
 that this is usually the assigned motive, under similar cir- 
 cumstances, in man. But unfortunately neither in men, nor 
 among other animals, does the experiment usually prove 
 fortunate, so far as concerns the happiness or comfort of the 
 first young family. 
 
 It happens, occasionally, that more than one foster-parent 
 or mother takes a fancy to a young brood, under which 
 circumstances quarrels for exclusive possession of the envied 
 treasures might be expected to occur, and probably do occa- 
 sionally occur. But on the other hand, and on the contrary, 
 these competing foster-parents find it to be equally their 
 interest and pleasure to co-operate in tending a group of 
 young, adopted by both. Wood tells us that a widowed goose, 
 ' without encumbrances, 3 took a fancy to a brood of ducklings 
 that had previously been adopted by a hen. A mutual 
 arrangement was arrived at whereby the hen tended the 
 brood on land, and the goose on water. But the hen does 
 not seem to have been contented with this division of labour 
 and love, and a further arrangement was entered into whereby 
 both foster-mothers could follow their darlings on water as 
 well as on land. The plan adopted in regard to the water 
 was that the hen should sit on the goose's back while she 
 swam about after and among the ducklings. This Wood 
 expressly describes as * a fact,' and not ' a solitary event,' for 
 it continued to be repeated day after day, till the ducklings 
 were old enough not to require the care of either self- 
 appointed guardian. 
 
 Some animals such as young cuckoos regularly stand 
 in need of the services of foster-parents in their up-bringing ; 
 they are brought up, if at all, by mothers of some other species 
 or genus (Baird). In their case there is a systematic baby- 
 nursing by some other bird. The mother-cuckoo 'boards 
 out' its nurslings; she transfers the maternal duty of rearing 
 her young to some willing or unwilling stranger foster- 
 mother ; she shirks and escapes from what appears to be a 
 troublesome, though natural, duty ; and all this has its 
 parallel or counterpart in the behaviour of too many ladies 
 of fashion in America, Trance and England, who devolve 
 upon others some of the perhaps irksome duties of their own 
 maternity. 
 
FOSTER PARENTAGE. 487 
 
 But there are other and more legitimate or commendable 
 forms of boarding out the young by certain animals. Thus the 
 effect of the experience of kind treatment of its kittens by a 
 human mistress has led a cat in a subsequent confinement to 
 quarter one kitten after another on this human foster-mother, 
 to leave them as foundlings at her hearth ; a kind of deser- 
 tion of offspring, dictated by no want of natural affection, 
 but apparently by the same kind of policy that leads so many 
 poor human parents to agree to the adoption and up-bring- 
 ing of one or more of their loved young by some wealthy 
 and childless, but kindly, widow or couple. A cat of feeble 
 nursing power carried her kitten to another feline mother, 
 who at once, for friendship's sake, or from a liberal maternal 
 love, accepted the new and additional duties imposed upon 
 her (Wynter). 
 
 One of the most interesting forms of foster-parentage is 
 the tender nursing of human children by the elephant (Wat- 
 son), horse, and dog. Such nursing shows that there is no 
 necessary impossibility or improbability in human children 
 becoming sometimes foster-young to beasts such as wolves 
 in the so-called 'Wolf-children' of India, for instance, 
 being really tended, as story reports, by forest wolves. 
 
 Just as there is so frequently a transfer of maternal love 
 to the young of another individual or species, so there is a 
 much more natural and intelligible, an easy and rapid, trans- 
 fer of filial affection and attachment on the part of foster- 
 young to their foster-mother. There is a very natural and 
 intelligible reciprocity of affection : the young that are so 
 lovingly catered for, fostered and cherished, respond to all 
 this care and attention as they would have done to that of 
 their own mothers, provided these mothers had displayed a 
 natural kind or degree of maternal solicitude. 
 
 But there are other results in the foster-young that are 
 of even greater interest and importance, to wit the acquisi- 
 tion of liabits alien to the species or genus of the habits of the 
 foster-parents an acquisition begotten either by mere imita- 
 tion and association, by special training, or by both. The 
 same thing happens when an animal from birth is brought up 
 exclusively with companions of a different species or genus. 
 
FALLIBILITY. 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 LIABILITY TO ERROR. 
 
 ONE of the commonest popular attributes of that comprehen- 
 sive faculty in the lower animals, which, when contrasted 
 with human reason, is generally described as instinct:, that 
 quality of instinct, which is perpetually brought into greatest 
 and admiring prominence by writers, especially of the theo- 
 logical or pietistic class, on the marvels of the animal eco- 
 nomy, is the unerringness, infallibility, perfection of instinct. 
 But it is a fact utterly fatal to such a view of the infallibility 
 of animal instinct that the lower animals make mistakes ; 
 they exhibit errors both of omission and commission, of the 
 same kind, under the same sort of circumstances, as nume- 
 rous and varied in their character, as man himself does, or 
 as those of man are that is to say, they are such as 
 man commits, or would commit, under similar circumstances. 
 So infinite indeed, both in number and variety, are the 
 proofs of the fallibility of what is absurdly, restrictively called 
 instinct in the lower animals, that it is impossible, in the 
 present work, to do much more than merely catalogue and 
 comment upon a few illustrations. 
 
 Among errors may perhaps be regarded the non- 
 variation of instinct with circumstances, the want of 
 adaptability to external or surrounding conditions, that 
 characterises certain animals, such as beavers and monkeys 
 in artificial confinement. 
 
LIABILITY TO ERROR. 489 
 
 The mistakes of other animals, as of man, are mostly 
 attributable to 
 
 1. Thoughtlessness, ignorance, or inexperience, as these 
 are embodied in youth ; or they belong to the category of 
 
 2. Errors of judgment, discrimination, or discretion, in 
 maturity ; or, they arise from 
 
 3. Natural stupidity, or the various forms or degrees of 
 mental defect or derangement. 
 
 These errors may be classified in various ways, arranged 
 in various natural groups. Thus in reference to the kinds of 
 error, which are also causes thereof, we may consider sepa- 
 rately and specially errors of 
 
 1. Observation: such as identity or resemblance. 
 
 2. Way-finding. 
 
 8. Calculation of distance, size, height, time, position, 
 motion. 
 
 4. Imitation and mimicry. 
 
 5. Weather-knowledge. 
 
 6. Curiosity, or inquisitiveness. 
 
 7. Attention. 
 
 8. Interpretation, inference, or conclusion. 
 
 9. Covetousness, or acquisitiveness. 
 
 10. Imagination. 
 
 11. The senses: vision, smell, hearing. 
 
 12. Keflection. 
 
 13. Caution, haste, eagerness, impatience. 
 
 14. Impulse and impulsiveness. 
 
 15. Temptation. 
 
 16. Providence and forethought. 
 
 17. Prudence and policy. 
 
 18. Confidence. 
 
 19. Memory. 
 
 20. Affection or attachment. 
 
 21. Fidelity and obedience. 
 
 22. Self-sacrifice and generosity. 
 
 23. Selfishness and self-preservation. 
 
 24. Gratitude and respect. 
 
 25. Habit and discipline. 
 
 26. Will and self-control. 
 
490 LIABILITY TO EEEOE. 
 
 27. Instinct. 
 
 28. Panic, fright and fear. 
 
 29. Combativeness and temper : obstinacy. 
 
 30. Bivalry and jealousy. 
 
 31. Destructiveness. 
 
 32. Perseverance, pertinacity, importunity. 
 
 33. Supposition and causality. 
 
 34. Suspicion. 
 
 35. Delusion. 
 
 36. Dreaming and sleep. 
 
 37. Wildness. 
 
 38. Civilisation, or domesticity. 
 
 39. Language, knowledge of words and their significa- 
 
 tion. 
 
 40. Feeding and appetite. 
 
 41. Intoxication. 
 
 42. Sexual passion or lust. 
 
 43. Pairing. 
 
 44. Pregnancy and parturition. 
 
 45. Incubation. 
 
 46. Cleanliness. 
 
 47. Construction, and constructiveness or ingenuity : as 
 
 regards material, form, locality. 
 
 48. Domicile or shelter. 
 
 The mistakes of animals may also be divided into those 
 characteristic of youth, maturity, and age; or into those 
 which affect species, such as the bee, or dog ; or into those 
 which are 
 
 1. Natural, excusable or pardonable, as the fruit of igno- 
 rance ; and those that are 
 
 2. Inexcusable and punishable, sins against knowledge 
 of the nature, in other words, of crime ; or into those that 
 are 
 
 3. Capable of ready explanation as to their obvious cau- 
 sation ; and those that are 
 
 4. Unaccountable, incapable at present of satisfactory 
 explanation ; or into 
 
 5. Errors of health and disease, mental and bodily, in- 
 cluding all the stages of debility. 
 
LIABILITY TO ERROR. 491 
 
 There are certain disadvantages, as well as advantages, 
 from arranging the errors of the lower animals under such 
 heads as have just been given. And indeed, the disadvan- 
 tages so preponderate over the advantages, that it is prefer- 
 able not to fetter ourselves by, or to, any given classification, 
 because it will soon appear obvious that any one animal, 
 such as the bee, or dog, may commit errors referable to a 
 great many categories or classes; while any given error may 
 involve observation, judgment, reflection, memory, and a 
 number of other mental qualities. Moreover, there are whole 
 groups of mistakes that cannot as yet, or at present, be 
 properly explained, though they may become quite capable 
 of explanation when the errors of the lower animals have 
 attracted the kind and degree of study that they deserve. 
 
 Not only, however, do animals make mistakes innumer- 
 able; but they themselves discover, or detect and rectify, 
 their own mistakes, while they notice equally those of other 
 animals, and of man himself. There is, in the first place, 
 a consciousness, recognition, or perception of error, which 
 frequently leads to an avowal or confession of it in the form 
 of shame, chagrin, or self-blame. This sense of error is often 
 followed by efforts at rectification, by obvious and earnest 
 desire to make amends, or atonement. There may be at- 
 first but a suspicion of error, which begets expressions of 
 anxiety and distrust, and leads to investigation, inquiry, or 
 examination, testing or experiment ; and the latter process, 
 which may be very cautious, careful and thorough, usually 
 leads to conviction, either of error, or of freedom from it. As 
 in man, this correction of first errors is the result, usually, 
 either of: 
 
 1. The use of other senses than the one originally at 
 fault ; 
 
 2. The acquisition of experience; or 
 
 3. The application of judgment, involving reflection, 
 comparison, the sense of the relation of cause and effect, and 
 other mental qualities assignable to the domain of reason. 
 
 The parrot, and other birds, make t false notes ' in song ; 
 but they immediately recognise their blunders and correct 
 them ( ' Percy Anecdotes ' ) . Dray horses and mules fre- 
 
492 LIABILITY TO ERROR. 
 
 quently damage their loads at first ; but, gradually profiting 
 by experience, they correct their early errors of simple 
 inexperience (Houzeau). Chickens arrest themselves in the 
 very act of error and avert it (Spalding). Colonel O'Kelly's 
 famous parrot, if it mistook, in beating time, a note in music, 
 * would revert to the bar where the mistake was made and 
 correct itself.' Similarly, the parrot corrects its own errors 
 in speech. There is a speedy discovery of error in ants that 
 have mistaken seeds for larvse, or beads for seed (Moggridge). 
 
 The recognition and rectification of error in the dog in- 
 cludes the discovery of its own, and of its master's blunders 
 in the game of dominoes (Watson) : and even the correction 
 of its own mistakes in grammar or orthography, composi- 
 tion or spelling, by the trained transposition of painted or 
 figured words, or letters. Its consciousness of error, moreover, 
 is frequently expressed by what may literally, as well as 
 figuratively, be called its shamefacedness : its sense of blun- 
 der often developes a keen feeling of self-accusation, which 
 leads to its retirement from its accustomed haunts especially 
 from man's observation. 
 
 In other animals, as in man, the discovery of error may 
 be too late to admit of its rectification, as in the case of 
 Mrs. MacKellar's fox-terrier, that surreptitiously dropped 
 fish back into the water as fast as they were caught by his 
 mistress, and apparently discovered his error only when no 
 more fish were caught. 1 
 
 Even the most sagacious animals are sometimes led, by 
 their unsuspiciousness or inexperience of man's treachery 
 or trickery, into error at first sight, as in the case of menagerie 
 elephants at first mistaking stones for nuts. But the dis- 
 covery of the deception is speedy, and the results of that 
 discovery sometimes serious to the perpetrator of the cruel 
 practical joke. The musk-ox commits an error in the inter- 
 pretation of sound when it fails to distinguish a rifle report 
 from thunder. It shows, however, a speedy perception of 
 its mistake, correcting it by the application of other senses 
 or sensations of sight and scent (Richardson) . 
 
 It does not, by any means, follow that where error is re- 
 
 1 North British Advertiser,' January 23, 1875. 
 
LIABILITY TO ERROR. 493 
 
 cognised it is avowed and amended ; on the contrary, in 
 highly sensitive animals such as the dog the fear of 
 human ridicule, the dread of detection by a master or 
 mistress and of punishment following detection, lead to 
 various efforts at the concealment of error, from at least 
 human eyes. 
 
 Thus a terrier that had worried a toy (imitation) cat, 
 ' finding we were laughing at his discomfiture,' tried to 
 make believe that ' it had only been a sham fight from the 
 beginning,' thereby 'evidently wishing to hide his mistake:' 
 an action that was 'very human,' as c it behaved just as a 
 clever child might be expected to do, when it had been de- 
 ceived, and was afraid of ridicule' (Wood). 
 
 It has been already stated that animals are ready to 
 detect the blunders of their fellows the old, for instance, to 
 notice the faults of the young ; and one result of this is, that 
 those which have the power punish the generally younger 
 individuals, or smaller and feebler animals, that commit 
 these mistakes. 
 
 Thus ants not only detect, but punish for mistakes. Other 
 animals, like man, have, moreover, to pay the natural penalty 
 of their mistakes : experience a knowledge of the means of 
 avoiding, or of correcting error has to be purchased some- 
 times at heavy cost. The recognition of errors in offspring, 
 and the consequent chastisement of the young, for their faults 
 of omission or commission, are more fully treated of in the 
 chapters on ' Law and Punishment,' and on ' Education ; ' 
 while the question of responsibility to, and punishment by, 
 man, is discussed in those on ' Moral Eesponsibility ' and on 
 ' Crime and Criminality.' 
 
 The mental means by which the discovery of error is 
 made are obviously the same in the lower animals, and in 
 savage or civilized men. Mistakes can be detected and cor- 
 rected only by the use of reason. When it is defective or 
 deranged, there is an incapacity for discovering, and con- 
 sequently for amending, error; seeing that, where it is not 
 perceived, or found out, error cannot be rectified. Hence 
 many animals exhibit a peculiar liability to error without 
 being at all aware of its commission, without having any 
 
494 LIABILITY TO ERROR. 
 
 conception of its nature, and without, therefore, any effort 
 at self-extrication, or at remedy. They are perpetually 
 blundering without being conscious they are so doing ; they 
 are not led by experience to the correction of their mistakes. 
 Such animals are the subjects either of a congenital stupidity 
 of mental defect, or of disorder of the mental powers 
 subsequent to birth. 
 
 On the other hand, just as there are individuals pecu- 
 liarly stupid in the detection and remedy of blunders, there 
 are others that are peculiarly clever, or intelligent. These 
 clever individuals displaj r a singular freedom from the com- 
 mission of mistakes, as well as a marked quickness in their 
 discovery, and ingenuity in their rectification, when com- 
 mitted. In other words, they seldom blunder, but when 
 they do so, they seldom fail speedily to detect and correct 
 their error. 
 
 The recognition of man's errors may be supposed to imply 
 a higher degree of intelligence than the detection of their 
 own mistakes, or those of their fellows. Such recognition 
 includes a detection of various impostures or deceptions 
 practised on other animals by man : a subject more fully 
 alluded to in the chapters on 'Deception 5 and 'Practical 
 Jokes.' Learned ' dogs, that play dominoes with him, ex- 
 press, by their gaze, their recognition of, and surprise at, 
 man's errors in the game, when he makes any (Watson). 
 
 The causes of error in the lower animals may be either : 
 
 1. Obvious ; or 
 
 2. Discoverable only on close inquiry, or adequate re- 
 search ; or they 
 
 3. Are not at present discoverable or demonstrable at 
 all. 
 
 They may also be either real, or merely apparent : and 
 investigation may be necessary to discriminate between the 
 apparent and real. And further, they may be simple or 
 complex, and trivial or inadequate, disproportionate to the 
 result, or vice versa. 
 
 The triviality of the causes of error is sometimes very 
 remarkable. This is illustrated by certain mistakes regard- 
 ing identity of person : as when a dog does not know its 
 
LIABILITY TO ERROR. 495 
 
 own naked master, who has gone to bathe, leaving his 
 clothes in his dog's guardianship. Some very ludicrous 
 incidents have occurred from this kind of stupidity and 
 fidelity : when a dog refuses to permit the bather's clothes to 
 be touched by their own proprietor, not recognising him in 
 puris natumlibus. Here change of dress or what is equi- 
 valent absence of his master's usual garb, is the simple and 
 obvious cause of the dog's mistake. Something analogous 
 occurs in the case of newly shorn, or washed sheep, which 
 are not at first, or readily, recognised by each other, so that 
 there is always, for a time, great confusion of personal iden- 
 tities among sheep, after their clipping or dipping (White). 
 On the other hand, some fatal accidents to man have occurred 
 from this combination of stupidity and fidelity in the dog. 
 Simple haste in not taking time to make sure of their iden- 
 tity leads the dog to attack, with equal fury and determi- 
 nation, supposed or imaginary, and real strangers or 
 enemies (Pierquin). 
 
 ' There is no more horrible, and at the same time, authen- 
 tic dog-story, than that of the huntsman, who, hearing a 
 tremendous yelping in the kennel one night, went down in 
 his shirt, with his double thong in his hand, to quell the 
 disturbance. But the hounds did not recognise their master 
 without his scarlet coat, and they literally ate the huntsman 
 up.' 1 
 
 Various birds break their eggs, or destroy their nests 
 when either have been simply meddled with (Houzeau). 
 The mere soiling of the young is a cause of dislike to them 
 on the part of the mother guinea pig (Cassell) an error 
 surely of over- cleanliness. 
 
 The following are illustrations of errors, the causes of 
 which are at present problematical. We can only make 
 guesses at them. 
 
 1. Salmon killing themselves in myriads, by leaping on 
 dry land jumping c out of the frying pan into the fire.' 
 Probably they are pursued, in such cases, by some formidable 
 and relentless enemy. 
 
 1 Daily Telegraph,' October 7, 1874. 
 
496 LIABILITY TO ERKOK. 
 
 2. The dog that rolls itself in putrid carcases only at- 
 tracts flies to torment it (Houzeau). 
 
 3. Lemmings drowning themselves in vast numbers. 
 
 4. Midges, butterflies, or other insects immolating them- 
 selves in flame. 
 
 5. And a host of other cases, some of which are enume- 
 rated in the chapter that treats of ' Unsolved Problems in 
 Comparative Psychology.' 
 
 The errors of animals are constantly taken advantage of, 
 on the one hand by each other, and on the other, by man. 
 In particular, these mistakes are of great practical impor- 
 tance to man in the capture of animals, for his various 
 purposes. Mistaken confidence in man is fatal to many 
 birds and other animals. The whole system of decoy , as used 
 by man in the capture of animals, is based on their liability 
 to error. The song bird, in listening to, and following 
 man's ' calls ;' the wild duck, or elephant, that allows itself 
 to be lured by the trained decoy ; the emu, that is deceived 
 by the Australian black, who imitates its appearance and gait ; 
 the fish that fails to distinguish the real from the artificial 
 fly, or that is fascinated by the glare of some artificial light 
 commit errors of observation, attention, or reflection, 
 or all three errors that subserve man's purpose in their 
 capture. 
 
 Monkeys that are trapped or captured by means of mon- 
 key-pots the seed vessels, or fruit, of a large Brazilian forest 
 tree sacrifice their liberty or life to their errors of over- 
 eagerness, want of reflection, greed or stupidity (Buckland, 
 Hooker). This occurs only, however, or mainly, in the 
 young and inexperienced. When tempted with cocoa-nut 
 shells filled with rice, the unwary animals insert their paws, 
 fill them with the rice, and not having the sense to extricate 
 their hands by simply emptying and straightening them, or 
 resolved not to part with their booty, which they hold in 
 the fastest grip, literally and figuratively they are obliged to 
 drag about the heavy, cumbersome, full nuts, which become 
 impediments of so serious a kind to progression, that the 
 easy capture of the greedy, stupid animals is the result. 
 
 The natives of the Fiji, and other South-Sea Islands, 
 
LIABILITY TO ERROR 497 
 
 when they desire to catch land crabs that climb cocoa-nut 
 trees, to bite off the nut, in order that they may feed upon it 
 when it falls to the ground tie a wisp of grass round the 
 trunk of the tree at a great height from the ground. On his 
 way down the tree, after effecting his object, the unwary 
 crab ' as he feels the wisp of grass, imagines he has reached 
 the ground, lets go his hold, and falls to the bottom,' when 
 he becomes the prey of the ingenious natives (C. F. Wood) . 
 
 In many other ways, mistakes are frequently serious, 
 dangerous, or fatal, either to the animals themselves, that 
 commit these mistakes, to their fellows, or to man. In- 
 juries to themselves, or to each other, include 
 
 1. The self-immolation of midges or moths in flame. 
 
 2. The accidental self-destruction of birds, that dash 
 hurriedly, unexpectedly, and with great violence against 
 glass, or telegraph wires. 
 
 3. Death from exhaustion, or inanition, or both, in deer, 
 oxen, and other horned animals from the interlacing of 
 their horns in fight. The poor animals become inextricably 
 fastened to each other, so that they can neither eat nor 
 drink, can do nothing, in short, but slowly die of starvation. 
 The dead bodies have been found, with the horns still en- 
 tangled ; or the living (or rather dying) animals have been 
 seen, standing helplessly, face to face with each other and 
 with death having given up all struggle, in exhaustion or 
 despair emaciated and famished to the last degree, but yet 
 unable, from the peculiarity of their position, to lay them- 
 selves down in their weariness even to die. 
 
 Injuries to man, on the other hand, include, for instance, 
 the accidents arising from shying, or bolting, in carriage 
 or riding horses. 
 
 VOL. i. K K 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 COMMISSION OF EEEOR. 
 
 AMONG the most frequently quoted examples of c unerring 
 instinct,' guiding actions or operations superior to those 
 which result from human reason, is the cell-ma"king of the 
 lee that ' busy bee ' of which Dr. Watts sings, and which 
 has for ages been held forth to admiration by writers of the 
 theological and moralising school. It is, however, one of 
 man's numerous errors to suppose that the bee constructs 
 its cell or its comb with ' unerring wisdom.' In point of 
 fact it frequently makes mistakes, constructing cells of im- 
 proper size or thickness of wall, so that the comb totters or 
 falls at its weakest point. The error, however, is usually 
 recognised; the weak points are supported by buttresses, 
 and in any further constructive operations a similar error is 
 avoided by the same animals that committed the mistake, 
 which animals, in other words, have profited by their expe- 
 rience and exhibited reason. There is, therefore, occasional 
 faulty construction of the honey-comb in the direction of 
 weakness and overloading. Waste of material, or the im- 
 proper use of material, or the selection of unsuitable mate- 
 rial, for constructive operations is not confined to bees. It 
 is shown, for instance, by certain birds and other animals. 
 Irregularities in the cells of bees are not, however, neces- 
 sarily errors or imperfections : they may be the result of 
 calculation, and therefore of intention (Huber). 
 
 Bees commit many other kinds of error. Thus Alphonse 
 Karr asserts that bees will not alight on the bee orchis, 
 * believing it to be occupied by a fly,' one of the results of 
 vegetable mimicry. And other insects seem to commit the 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 499 
 
 same mistake ; for we are told that this bee orchis (Ophrys 
 apifera) is singular, in so far as it * is one of the few plants 
 of its order that appears to be perpetually self-fertilised, 
 never being visited by insects ' (Brown) . Erasmus Darwin 
 seems to point to something similar in the case of the South 
 American cypripedium, another orchid, which resembles a 
 spider. In a similar way bees are deceived by painted repre- 
 sentations of flowers (Millais), as well as by the artificial 
 flowers of milliners. They knock their heads against glass, 
 the physical shock producing unconsciousness (Watson) 
 the result of not discriminating between an open and closed 
 window, the presence or absence of glass. Many birds do 
 the same thing, and suffer the same kind of accidents in 
 their case frequently fatal. 
 
 The humble bee lays eggs sometimes only to be devoured, 
 and it brings up ignorantly the larvse of intruders. This 
 is a non-recognition by them of parasites or usurpers, leading 
 to their giving a friendly reception to impudent, self-invited 
 guests that foist themselves or their progeny into the nests 
 of other species or genera, just as the cuckoo does with her 
 eggs. The queen bee commits various errors of hurry, haste, 
 or precipitancy, but they are rectified by her attendants 
 (Figuier). 
 
 The bee and other animals are liable to deception in the 
 same way, if not to the same extent, that man is by supposed 
 premonitions, or by semblances, of storms. That is to say, 
 they commit errors of meteorological prescience. Especially 
 is its foreknowledge of, and provision against, rain liable 
 to be faulty in the bee, which dislikes wet, and avoids it 
 where possible. Some worker hive bees having deprived 
 themselves of a queen, and no royal larvse being in process 
 of development to replace her, ' tried to obtain a queen by 
 treating drone (male) larvse in the usual manner, of course 
 without effect ' (Carpenter). The queen bee sometimes makes 
 the fatal mistake, too, of laying her eggs at random (Huber). 
 Lubbock gives numerous instances of bees, as well as wasps 
 and ants, losing their way. He showed experimentally how 
 apt they are to lose their way even in short distances, and 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 COMMISSION OF ERKOE. 
 
 how they require training to find it. They require to learn 
 their way, just as a child or a man does. 
 
 The bee is not the only insect liable to error, and we 
 hear so much of the uniformity of instinct in the whole class 
 of the insecta that it is desirable here to call attention to 
 other common instances of the mistakes committed by wasps, 
 butterflies, beetles, and other insect-genera or species. 
 
 The wasp sometimes hatches her eggs at improper sea- 
 sons too early or too late for the development of the young 
 (Houzeau). 
 
 The meat or flesh fly allows its sense of smell to be de- 
 ceived when it lays its eggs on stapelia hirsuta, the so- 
 called '.carrion-flower,' instead of on carrion, the result 
 being necessarily fatal to the maggots (Houzeau, ( Animal 
 World '). The same fly, says Pouchet, sometimes mistakes 
 men drunk-asleep for dead bodies, and deposits her ' blows ' 
 on them. Other species of stapelia, which are Cape plants, 
 smell so like carrion that flesh-flies deposit their ova in their 
 flowers, the maggots when hatched being starved, of course, 
 for want of suitable food. 
 
 Linnaeus and Pouchet, again, tell us of the so-called fly- 
 catcher (plant) the arum muscivorum the flower of which 
 has also the odour of putrefied meat, a smell that deceives 
 flies or other insects to the extent of leading them to de- 
 posit their eggs in the flower. The common domestic or 
 house fly sometimes deposits its ova in snuff, mistaking it 
 for poudrette, the result here also being that these ova perish 
 for lack of nourishment (Houzeau, Kirby and Spence). In- 
 sects make many other kinds of mistakes in regard to flowers. 
 Thus Sir John Lubbock remarks : ' Some flowers beguile 
 insects by holding out the expectation of honey, which does 
 not really exist.' 
 
 Certain wood-boring beetles dig what prove to be their 
 own graves (Wallace). Advantage is taken by man of the 
 temper, pugnacity, and pertinacity of the tiger-beetle to 
 capture it (Baird). 
 
 Foraging ants are deceived by the appearance of the leaf- 
 insect, so as not to notice it (Belt) an error apparently of 
 observation. The same ants in Nicaragua ran over and 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 501 
 
 about a certain kind of locust, which in its danger remained 
 immovable, and thereby deceived the ants, * without their 
 ever discovering there was food within reach.' Leaf-cutting 
 ants occasionally carry into their nests unsuitable leaves, 
 such as grass, but these leaves are rejected, thrown out again 
 by the more experienced, so that the error appears to be 
 one of youth and inexperience. They also commit mistakes 
 in road-making in unsuitable places for instance, across 
 tramways errors that lead to the death of large numbers of 
 them every time a waggon passes. But this is for a time 
 only, till they are taught by experience to avoid the danger, 
 while their own reflection and ingenuity, their fertility in 
 resource, enable them successfully to do so (Belt). Amazon 
 ants frequently carry off ' empty shells, carcases, and other 
 useless objects,' in their expeditions against brown ants 
 (Forel). A morbid, mistaken, or misplaced perseverance 
 or pertinacity leads to wholesale waste of life in certain ants 
 (Westwood), just as it does sometimes in individual bull- 
 dogs or terriers. 
 
 Gillies gives examples of incomplete or ' bungling work- 
 manship, and consequent weakness,' in the construction of 
 its nests by the trap-door spider of New Zealand. * What 
 shows,' says he, ' that this is something more than the un- 
 erring fatalism of what we are accustomed to call mere 
 instinct, is that instances are found of bad and blundered 
 work of various degrees of imperfection, and even of laziness 
 and neglect.' Thus his attention was occasionally drawn to 
 its nests by the 'prominent un sightliness ' of the heaps of 
 unused material accumulated for the purpose of disguise. 
 
 We are frequently called upon to marvel at the f unerring 
 instinct ' with which members of a certain breed of pigeons, 
 tossed into the air at a given point, distant so many hundred 
 miles from home, make their way to their own dove-cot or 
 master's house in a direct line, and within, a wonderfully 
 short space of time. But it has been abundantly shown by 
 Tegetmeier and other competent authorities that this faculty 
 of home-finding or homing in the carrier or courier pigeon is 
 the result of careful tuition by man ; that it is only exception- 
 ally intelligent birds which are successful in such flights ; that 
 
502 COMMISSION OF ERKOK. 
 
 the} 7 must use their keen powers of observation of natural 
 landmarks, and hence cannot fly by night or in mist or 
 storm ; and that mistakes are constantly being committed 
 by the animals while in process of training, and even after 
 their tuition has been accomplished. If man is not suffi- 
 ciently gradual in his lessons, if he gives the birds too long 
 flights at first, and especially if he has not been happy in 
 his selection of naturally intelligent animals, capable of re- 
 paying his efforts on their special education, they may fail 
 altogether ; so that on the occasion of every trial or compe- 
 tition flight, while certain animals reach the goal, certain 
 others do not a fact familiar to all persons experienced in 
 the pigeon-flying matches of Belgium or other countries. 
 
 Other animals take note, and make use of, landmarks, 
 and of those, moreover, that are set up by man, as well as of 
 those that are natural. Thus Belt tells us that certain 
 marks, purposely set up by himself in Nicaragua and in the 
 Amazons region of South America, for his own recognition 
 as a means of way-finding, were recognised by certain wasps. 
 They frequently as perhaps he did himself missed them ; 
 but they repeated their search till they were found. 
 
 Again, the stories told of dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, or 
 other animals finding their way home over sea and land, 
 through or across unknown districts or regions of both, are 
 not only infinite in number, but frequently apparently in- 
 credible in character. Nevertheless there can be no doubt 
 as to the authenticity, in all respects, of at least many of 
 these stories ; and this renders it probable that there is some 
 basis of fact in the remainder. But the incidents in question 
 relate to the successful exploits of exceptionally clever ani- 
 mals. We hear nothing of the failures of the majority 
 nothing, for instance, of the number of stray dogs that are 
 constantly wandering in the streets of our cities, and that 
 perish there from cold and hunger ; or of wandering sheep 
 and cattle that are incessantly perplexing the farmer, drover, 
 or shepherd. 
 
 Much is said of the wonderful, though rare, phenomena 
 of way-finding, nothing of the everyday occurrence of way- 
 losing. And yet there is nothing more common than for 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 503 
 
 dogs to lose their way even round the corner of a street from 
 their master's house defective observation and reflection 
 being here probably the cause while no one can have 
 brought up a pup to follow him about town or country 
 without having been subjected to the annoying experience 
 of having constantly to rectify its errors of youthful thought- 
 lessness, inattention or stupidity, including its loss both of 
 way and of master. 
 
 There is nothing surprising in way-losing in young ani- 
 mals. Young hounds lost in sporting make direct for home 
 across fields, but they are stopped by rivers, on the banks of 
 which they sit down and howl their disappointment or their 
 desire for assistance or direction. They have not the sense 
 acquired by experience to use bridges or boats as older ones 
 do (Berkeley). But even the cleverest adult dogs sometimes 
 fail in way-finding in towns : they betray a stupidity in this 
 direction that is remarkable in contrast with their high 
 intelligence in other respects, their failure being perhaps at- 
 tributable to mental confusion from the noise of the streets, 
 to the sameness of the architectural character of these streets 
 affording no distinctive landmark, to diffidence, timidity, or 
 fear (Cobbe). 
 
 During the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1871, the 
 street dogs lost their usual power of way-finding; they showed 
 hesitancy, uncertainty, or dubiety, and held mutual consulta- 
 tions under the exceptional and embarrassing circumstances 
 (Gautier). It is no anomaly that a dog will readily find its 
 way in the open country, and as readily lose it in a town 
 the reason perhaps being the number and diversity of dis- 
 tracting, alarming, or puzzling sights and sounds, the various 
 causes of mental bewilderment in cities. The dog, moreover, 
 frequently commits the error of not taking either the easiest 
 or shortest way, when it finds the way at all. 
 
 We have already seen that even the bee, whose bee-line 
 is synonymous with a supposed exactitude, unerringness, 
 directness, loses its way, as does the courier pigeon in its 
 ' races ' or matches. The swallow commits similar mistakes 
 (Watson) another animal whose migrations and other 
 operations are generally regarded as the result of faultless 
 
504 COMMISSION OF EKROK. 
 
 instinct. Wandering from home is a common expression or 
 result of disease mental or bodily in certain animals. Thus 
 wandering fits occur in the sturdy of sheep. 
 
 The migrations of animals are also supposed to be guided 
 by unerring instinct. But in the lemming they lead to the 
 deaths of thousands of animals, of whole armies of emigrants, 
 under circumstances which cannot at present be satisfactorily 
 explained ; while the migrations of fish appear to be marked 
 by occasional loss of way, just as happens frequently in the 
 case of migratory birds. In the latter the errors connected 
 with migration include the dashing against lighthouse 
 lanterns and telegraph wires, and shock or death from the 
 concussion. Too early or mild springs in northern climates 
 attract migratory birds, only to die of the later frosts. 
 
 The migratory instinct frequently leads to the commis- 
 sion of fatal errors as in the case of the smelt c sculls ' (or 
 shoals) of which ascend the North- American rivers and 
 streams in such numbers and with such impetuosity as to 
 cause death by the thousand from overcrowding (Adams). 
 The salmon both of North America and Britain make many 
 equally fatal mistakes of a similar kind in their too eager 
 rush up shallow waters, for instance. In caged migratory 
 birds, at the epoch of the spring or autumn migration, on 
 the other hand, the non-gratification of an imperious instinct 
 often leads to self-destruction, by frantic efforts at escape, 
 and death by exhaustion or self-mutilation. 
 
 Nest-building in birds is another of those operations that 
 are supposed to be uniform in each species, and determined 
 by an unvarying instinct. But the fact is that birds are con- 
 stantly making mistakes either as to the (1) material, (2) 
 site, or (3) mode of construction of their dwellings. Star- 
 lings, swallows, chimney swifts, and other birds that frequent 
 man's dwellings, often pay the penalty of nesting in chim- 
 neys in use, the object of the birds being apparently the 
 securing of warmth. Death by fire or suffocation is the 
 occasional result of the inflammable material of the nest 
 catching fire. But not only is there danger in such cases to 
 the poor animals themselves. Man himself may be seriously 
 incommoded, as happened to myself on one occasion, when. 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 505 
 
 under the circumstances above mentioned the firing of 
 their nests in my library chimney a couple of terribly 
 singed starlings came out of my fireplace one morning, amid 
 a volume of flame and soot that drove me from the room, 
 and destroyed all its furniture for the time. The bat com- 
 mits a similar mistake when it hybernates in chimneys 
 in use. 
 
 ' By reason of their nests being placed so near the water, 
 the eggs are continually swept away' by summer floods 
 in our rivers and lost, to the destruction of the breed, in 
 the case of the common gallinule or moor hen (Montagu). 
 A robin built its nest in a steam-hammer at Hawthorn's 
 engine works, Granton, near Edinburgh, in the very midst 
 of both heat and noise, and of danger to itself and young. 1 
 The same bird builds also in other odd, unsuitable places, 
 where the nest is quite accessible to man e.g., in man's 
 bedrooms ( e Animal World,' White). A fly-catcher built in 
 prickly bushes, and near a wasp's nest, so that in its flight 
 it was entangled in the prickles and stung to death by the 
 wasps (Belt). Watson mentions swallows building repeat- 
 edly in unsuitable localities, undeterred by their successive 
 failures, untaught by experience. The republican sparrow, 
 too, commits faults as to position, including height (Houzeau). 
 A correspondent of the ' Animal World ' tells us that she 
 saw a pair of swallows engaged in repeated and vain efforts, 
 extending over a whole fortnight, at making their nest f of 
 damp, partly decayed leaves and pieces of manure, neither 
 of which would adhere to the wall of the house.' They had 
 the sense, however, to use clay, and straws or grass, when- 
 ever after their many failures these articles or substances 
 were supplied in a proper state of moisture by their sympa- 
 thising lady observer. It is an error of a similar kind when 
 the beaver selects improper material for its dam (Adams), or 
 when a captive one constructs a dam under unsuitable cir- 
 cumstances in its master's study or parlour for instance, 
 where it is utterly useless (Cobbe, Adams). 
 
 Moreover, birds mistake their own nests, do not recog- 
 nise them sometimes an error that leads to obvious awk- 
 1 ' Scotsman,' June 19, 1875. 
 
506 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 wardness. Miss Buist tells us of cage birds, that several 
 mates * confined in a cage waste time, play with and spoil 
 each other's preparations, make mistakes as to which nest 
 belongs to them and which to a neighbour, and if they find 
 eggs where they fancy they left fledglings, or vice versa, 
 they unhesitatingly toss everything out, and march off in 
 high dudgeon to occupy another (nest) more to their taste, 
 no matter whether or not this be already engaged. ... Of 
 course frightful fights and endless breakages (of eggs) are 
 the result.' Here is indeed quite a characteristic ' comedy of 
 errors ' quite an instructive commentary on the unerring 
 instinct ideas of theologians. Among rooks also there are per- 
 petual fights and wholesale destruction of each other's nests 
 (White). 
 
 Field hares and birds sometimes get cut in two by 
 scythes, reaping hooks, or reaping machines, while sitting 
 on or with their young. In such a case the animals 
 may have been too much absorbed in their occupation, or 
 they may have been paralysed by fear, or the sense of danger 
 acting on the maternal instinct may have determined them 
 to stick by their young at whatever risk or cost. Mothers 
 sometimes interfere so much with their newly-born, tender 
 offspring as to kill them. They commit a blander of over- 
 fussiness connected with maternal affection. Thus the female 
 octopus kills her ova or young by the sheer stupidity of her 
 maternal solicitude, by the excessive and injudicious exhi- 
 bition of maternal love. She overlays them, and subjects 
 them to other risks of destruction (Lee). 
 
 Closely allied to the subject of nest-building is that of 
 incubation in birds, another of the operations believed to be 
 guided by infallible and inscrutable instinct. But birds 
 make perhaps more frequent and more marked certainly 
 more fatal mistakes in regard to the deposition and hatching 
 of their eggs than in regard even to the construction of 
 their nests. Their errors of incubation include, for in- 
 stance 
 
 1. Premature laying or hatching of eggs. 
 
 2. The selection of unsuitable places as well as times. 
 
 3. The sitting upon the eggs of other species or genera, 
 
COMMISSION OF EKKOR. 507 
 
 as well as upon * dummies ' inert, inanimate substances, 
 such as stones or imitation eggs. 
 
 Hancock tells us that birds f do not discriminate nicely 
 the colours or other characters of their eggs' a circum- 
 stance that points to deficient power of observation or 
 attention in this direction. Hence probably it is that we 
 hear of hens sitting on and hatching the eggs of other birds, 
 not noticing the difference until the young come forth. But 
 they also sit on, though they cannot hatch from, bodies that 
 bear but a faint resemblance to their own eggs, or to eggs 
 at all. 
 
 Thus we are told of a cochin-china fowl sitting for some 
 length of time on two empty physic bottles, and at last 
 requiring forcible removal l a marked instance of error or 
 perversion of the maternal instinct. If the male bird of 
 paradise is killed, c the female will continue to sit upon her 
 eggs until she is starved to death ' (Lawson). Hens may 
 easily be made to sit on ' dummies.' Eomanes mentions a 
 Spanish hen of his that did so for three days, * after which 
 time her patience became exhausted.' He also speaks of 
 a Brahma hen, that had hatched pea-fowl eggs, as deserting 
 6 her family at the time when it is natural for ordinary hens 
 to do so, and in consequence all the pea- chickens miserably 
 perished.' 
 
 He refers to a pea-hen that c sat very steadily on addled 
 eggs for a period of four months, and had then to be forced 
 off in order to save her life.' And he illustrates ( in what a 
 high degree hereditary instinct may be modified by peculiar 
 individual experiences,' by the case of an old Brahma hen 
 that ' for the enormous period of eighteen months remained 
 with her ever-growing chicken,' a foster pea-fowl placed 
 experimentally under her in the egg state ; and throughout 
 the whole of that time she continued to pay it unremitting 
 attention. ... So long as they remained together the 
 abnormal degree of pride which the mother showed in her 
 wonderful chicken was most ludicrous.' 
 
 A common result of premature hatching is the death of 
 
 1 Perthshire Constitutional,' November 9, 3874. 
 
508 COMMISSION OF EKROE. 
 
 the eggs, or of the young, from cold. Some birds deposit 
 their eggs in nests where the} r will not be hatched (Houzeau). 
 The quail and partridge c deposit their young, uncovered, on 
 the ground, and expose them to the rapacity of every carni- 
 vorous animal that passes' (Pouchet). What is much more 
 strange, though not so serious, hens ' sit ' without eggs at 
 all ; they strive apparently to hatch imaginary eggs fancy 
 they have veritable eggs under them (Gray), a singular form 
 of self-deception ; or they brood when the eggs are not 
 fecundated (Houzeau) ; or they drop their real eggs from 
 their perch so as to smash them by the fall (Gray), in other 
 words, they sometimes select the most unsuitable localities 
 for incubation. 
 
 Such errors of the maternal instinct are not confined to 
 birds : they occur in the care or up-bringing of the young 
 in all classes of the higher animals. Thus an old terrier 
 bitch, when jealous of her daughter having had pups, appro- 
 priated an india-rubber toy-dog ' exactly the size of a new- 
 born terrier puppy She retired to a dark closet in an 
 
 unoccupied room, made herself a bed, lay down and placed 
 the artificial puppy in the right position. . . . lavished end- 
 less caresses upon it, and evidently felt the sweetest thrill of 
 maternal delight when her licking elicited a squeak from the 
 mechanism inside, which speaks through a metallic hole in the 
 creature's stomach. She is inseparable from this bantling, 
 has rectified the injustice of Fate, and no longer hates her 
 daughter with destructive jealousy.' She c continued inse- 
 parable from her doll for three weeks, when, finding it 
 rather tedious to waste her affections on a thing that neither 
 grew nor showed any signs of intelligence, she relinquished 
 the india-rubber puppy to its rightful owners the children 
 of her master and is now contented to see her grandchildren 
 playing about her ' (' Animal World '). 
 
 Errors of the maternal instinct also include 
 
 1. The abduction of young by sterile females that have no 
 milk on which to bring them up (Pierquin). 
 
 2. The mother stork immolating herself with her young 
 a useless act of self- sacrifice (Houzeau). 
 
 3. Cannibalism of the young by the puerperal mother a 
 
COMMISSION OF EBROE. 509 
 
 subject again alluded to under the heads of ( Murder' and 
 'Mental Derangement.' 
 
 Another of man's many delusions in regard to the ' in- 
 stinct' of the lower animals is, that it leads them unerringly 
 to ihefood most suitable for them, and causes them to reject 
 what is unsuitable or poisonous. The truth is, however, that 
 animals frequently make mistakes in food-selection. Darwin 
 points this out as regards 
 
 1. Emigrant domestic animals; and 
 
 2. Caterpillars, in which death results from the refusal 
 of their natural food. 
 
 The young sheep requires the tuition of its mother in 
 regard to the choice of its food. Unaided, it displays a 
 non-recognition of that which is or would be poisonous ; the 
 lamb has a non-discriminating appetite ; there is want of 
 discrimination between the noxious and the wholesome the 
 result simply of ignorance and inexperience. Camels ' have 
 been known to take white stones in their mouths, mistaking 
 them for lumps of salt ' (Prejevalsky). 
 
 Self-poisoning by noxious food is one of the many errors 
 of youth, inexperience or ignorance, and sometimes of curi- 
 osity or cupidity. Fatal accidents occasionally occur in the 
 monkey from its stealing and swallowing poisonous drugs or 
 paints. The young dog chews everything however hard, 
 innutritions and indigestible. Mice have been killed by 
 eating ' greenbacks ' they had stolen and hoarded. The 
 vicious ' native cat ' of Australia drowns itself in its greed 
 (Baden Powell). Montagu mentions a shrike ' killed by 
 swallowing too large a quantity of mouse fur which it 
 could not eject.' 
 
 I have elsewhere shown how common accidental suicide 
 by self-poisoning is in some of our colonies, from the use by 
 cattle and sheep, as well as by man, of noxious plants or 
 fruits. 1 
 
 In connection with the subject of food errors, it has also 
 
 to be borne in mind how common are the mistakes arising 
 
 from simple repletion with, even good and suitable food from 
 
 engorgement of the stomach in voracious animals a proce- 
 
 1 Vide Bibliography.' 
 
510 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 dure that may be, and frequently is, fatal to life or liberty, 
 either by reason of 
 
 1. The immediate or direct effects of the distension of 
 the stomach on the animal economy ; or 
 
 2. Indirectly by causing the drowsy, sleeping, or helpless 
 animal to fall a prey to its natural enemies, including man. 
 
 Many habitually voracious animals die of fatty degenera- 
 tion the result of over-feeding and inactivity, as in man. 
 The immediate effect of over-eating, of gorging to repletion, 
 is the production of a kind or degree of stupor, or semi-stupor, 
 that leads to the easy capture of the helpless or unconscious 
 animals. The condor, by its gluttony, begets in itself a 
 state of stupid insensibility, of somnolence or stupor, of in- 
 ability to move or escape, during which it may be seized with 
 the lasso, or death itself may be the direct result of its sur- 
 feit. The special fondness for apples in the cedar bird, and 
 the repletion which ensues whenever any opportunity occurs 
 of gratifying its appetite, render it easily seized by hand 
 (Houzeau). The boa (serpent) is, however, a more familiar 
 instance of gorging to stupor. Loss of liberty, then, is one of 
 the least, most immediate, and direct of the penalties that 
 result from the stupefaction and immobility produced by 
 food-gorging. 
 
 Among errors of food-selection may be classed cannibal- 
 ism, as illustrated by a perch swallowing its own eye when 
 the eye was hooked out and both fish and eye were thrown 
 back into the water. Such errors include also the multitu- 
 dinous phenomena of morbid appetite a subject, to discuss 
 which a special chapter would be insufficient, and to which 
 special attention cannot be directed in the present work. 
 
 Perhaps there is no more ridiculous, but at the same 
 time common, error in other animals or man than the vent- 
 ing of annoyance, irritation, temper, passion, on the unof- 
 fending, unconscious, inanimate instruments by which injuries 
 have been inflicted. The man who stumbles unexpectedly 
 over his boot, shoe or slipper angrily kicks it to a distance as 
 if it had been to blame for an accident attributable to his own 
 carelessness and want of observation. 
 
 Of the Maoris, Colenso tells us >' Their keen, uncontrolled 
 
COMMISSION OF EEROK. 511 
 
 feelings often led them to beat, kick and strike inanimate 
 objects, sometimes to their own greater hurt ; and commonly 
 to gnaw and bite, on extraction, a splinter or thorn which had 
 pierced them.' 
 
 It is quite as obvious a folly in the dog or other animals 
 to vent their displeasure on inoffensive objects (Mrs. Lee). 
 The dog bites or barks at the trap in or by which it has been 
 caught; it snaps at the stream of water from a syringe, 
 hydropult, or hose, by which it has been drenched. It is a 
 common error of carnivora to bite or kick inanimate bodies 
 that hit them instead of the persons by whom these bodies 
 have been thrown. The antelope uselessly vents its fury upon 
 the ground, tearing it up with its horns. But very much the 
 same thing occurs in children, savages, and even, as we have 
 seen, in mature and civilised man in the form of the angry 
 kicking or throwing away of stones or sticks tripping them, 
 or of inflicting blows upon articles against which they have 
 stumbled. 
 
 One of the most illustrative examples of the folly of pour- 
 ing out the vials of wrath on unoffending, inanimate objects, 
 is a story current in Karntschatka, and which has given rise 
 to a well-known Kamtschatka proverb of a bear that hugged 
 a kettle of boiling water with which it had scalded itself 
 (Cassell). I have seen the incident described both as an 
 actual occurrence and simply as a story. The anecdote re- 
 quires verification ; and meanwhile it may be regarded as the 
 figurative basis of the moral that both in other animals and 
 man an individual has frequently only himself to blame for 
 his misfortunes. It may be what is virtually the same story 
 told in a different form which represents a horse, that 
 thrust its nose into a boiler, and so scalded itself, pouring 
 out its vengeance by furious kicking on the metal utensil.. 
 
 A chimpanzee bestowed its anger on an unoffending 
 article of food offered to it instead of some other kind it 
 specially desired. A baboon that had been fighting 1 with a 
 tiger, and was at last forcibly removed from the tiger's cage, 
 and so prevented venting its spleen on its enemy, viciously 
 bit the bars of the cage itself (Jamrach) in order to the 
 relief of its passion. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 COMMISSION OP ERROR (continued). 
 
 THERE is a whole group of errors of sufficient interest to 
 require special consideration those connected with the con- 
 founding of resemblance with reality. They include mistakes 
 connected with 
 
 1. Mirrored images. 
 
 2. Pictorial representations. 
 
 3. Other representations such as animal-like toys. 
 
 4. Stuffed animals or their skins. 
 
 5. Shadows. 
 
 6. What have latterly been called the natural ' protective 
 resemblances,' or ' disguises/ of plants and animals. 
 
 The dog or parrot, that sees its own image reflected in 
 a looking-glass, naturally mistakes that image for another 
 individual of the same species, who may become its rival or 
 playfellow ; and equally naturally, if it be an intelligent ani- 
 mal, not morbidly irascible, it goes to the other side of the 
 mirror in order to find its alter ego. The result is usually a 
 varying degree of bewilderment, with perhaps repeated 
 attempts by re-inspection and re-investigation to explain 
 the puzzle. It may go the length of experiment pawing, or 
 hitting at, its image, and finding simply a non-retaliating 
 surface and a figure that repeats provokingly and exactly 
 every movement and even look of its own. 
 
 The dog, for instance, puts to the test the exact nature 
 of the puzzling image by one of his modes of experimenting 
 by sniffing at it by smell. He does not long remain de- 
 ceived, because he corrects the error of his vision and imagi- 
 nation by his sense of smell ; he trusts at all times more to 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 513 
 
 the latter than to the former sense. The Mexican parrot, on 
 the other hand, is deceived only when it is freshly caught or 
 inexperienced (Houzeau). 
 
 The kitten plays with its own mirrored image. But the 
 result is very different in some other animals. Immediate 
 and intense pugnacity is more frequently developed. It was 
 so, for instance, in the case of a common Australian parrot, 
 into whose cage I caused to be introduced, for experimental 
 purposes, a small hand-mirror, while a nut was given it to 
 eat. The effect was immediate. There was no wonder or 
 hesitancy, no investigation or fear, no curiosity, no desire for 
 companionship. The animal at once violently and viciously 
 assaulted its own image, and, failing to produce any injury 
 on the smooth, hard surface of the glass, and on the mirrored 
 image that reflected all its own violence in look and action, it 
 seized the edge of the mirror with its bill, attempting to 
 break it. 
 
 The fighting fish of Siam, too, is so irritable in temper 
 that it f will even butt against its own shadow in a looking- 
 glass.' The sight of this supposed other individual creates 
 as much excitement and pugnacity as the presence of a real 
 opponent would do (Baird). The goat does the same thing 
 butts at its own mirrored image ( 'Percy Anecdotes '). 
 
 The Elizabethan poet, Chapman, speaks of elephants 
 shunning 
 
 clear springs 
 
 Lest they behold their own deformities 
 And start at their grim shadows. 
 
 On the other hand, the mirror is unquestionably used by 
 other animals, as it is by women, for the purposes of self- 
 admiration, though even in such cases there is always a 
 danger of the animal's forgetting if it ever realised that 
 it is looking only at itself, and of its suffering itself to be 
 tormented with the pangs of jealousy of an imaginary rival. 
 Thus a siskin belonging to a friend is fond of looking at 
 itself in a mirror, as so many other animals obviously are, 
 peering, however, behind and over the mirror, apparently in 
 order to see its supposed neighbour. But at last it loses 
 temper, and fights its alter ego as the Australian parrot did. 
 VOL. I. L L 
 
514 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 A correspondent of the ' Animal World ' thus writes of 
 the effect of a mirror on a parrot ; and the incident is here 
 given as it illustrates how cheaply and easily amusement may 
 sometimes be procured for bird-pets : ' She showed such in- 
 tense pleasure and excitement at her own reflection in a 
 looking-glass, and called so long after it when removed, that 
 I bought a very small one for her and hung it outside the 
 cage at the end of her perch. For a long time she sat with 
 her bill touching this, and making cooing sounds, and still it 
 is the dearest spot in the world to her. She is never lonely 
 while she has that companion in the looking-glass. She runs 
 to it with all her joys and sorrows. She rattles the frame 
 and talks to it when her cover is put on for the night. And, 
 if the back of the glass should be turned towards her, she does 
 all she can to set it right. Moreover, at this season .... 
 she feeds the children she sees in there. It has attached her 
 so much to the cage that when it is being cleaned she calls 
 loudly for it, and runs to meet it when she sees it coming 
 into the room.' 
 
 Pleasure is taken in its own mirrored image by the gold- 
 finch, the result, apparently, of personal vanity (Baird). And 
 other birds frequently gaze at themselves in mirrors, whatever 
 be their motive (Darwin). The orang, too, shows gratifica- 
 tion at its personal appearance in a mirror (Pierquin). 
 
 It is not a little interesting to note that savage men, 
 when first brought in contact with a mirror, behave very 
 much as the lower animals do. Thus, when a jungle Vedda 
 was shown a looking-glass, says Hartshorne, ' he appeared at 
 first to be terrified and annoyed ; but afterwards looked be- 
 hind it and round about in a puzzled and wondering manner, 
 with his hand upon his axe, as if preparing to defend him- 
 self. Five or six others to whom the glass was successively 
 shown displayed similar gestures.'^ 
 
 Capt. Moresby tells us that the women of New 'Guinea 
 6 would start back affrighted on a looking-glass being pre- 
 sented to them.' A correspondent of the c Scotsman ' (news- 
 paper) ' says of the inhabitants of Fishers Island, in the 
 middle passage between New Guinea and Australia, ' One 
 fellow having got a looking-glass, turned it round and round, 
 
 1 Of July 20, 1876. 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 515 
 
 up and down, just like a monkey, wanting to see the inside. 
 I shall never forget the laugh he gave when at last he saw 
 his own black face in it. The more he laughed the more his 
 likeness laughed. He could not make it out. He imagined 
 there was some one at the back of the glass.' The Pata- 
 gonians do the same. 
 
 But these effects of the mirror on the imagination of man 
 are by no means confined to savage man. They occur, under 
 exceptional circumstances, among ourselves, in races the 
 most highly civilised. Thus Galton writes : * No less than 
 nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or her 
 reflection in a looking-glass and addressing it in the belief it 
 was the other twin in person.' 
 
 Certain startling assertions have been made regarding 
 the effect of pictorial representations of persons, other ani- 
 mals or things, on the lower animals assertions involving 
 the highest possible compliments to the painter's skill and 
 the fidelity with which he copies nature. A type of these 
 statements is to be found in the old classical story of the 
 Greek artist, Zeuxis, outvying nature, in so far as birds pre- 
 ferred his painted grapes to real ones ! The story itself is 
 of course a poetical and complimentary exaggeration. But 
 it is a fact that this celebrated Athenian excelled in the 
 accuracy of his pictorial imitations of natural objects ; that 
 in Athens the works of the painters were often exhibited in 
 the theatre, in the open air ; and that the evidence of such 
 modern artists as Millais shows that there is no improbability 
 connected with the supposition that birds may have pecked at 
 the painted grapes of Zeuxis, mistaking them for real ones. 
 
 Pierquin tells us that recognition of the portraits of 
 masters, mistresses, or children-playfellows is common in the 
 dog or cat, which show their identification of the resem- 
 blance with the original by licks or caresses. They lick the 
 painted faces or hands of a dead master, just as they show a 
 joyful recognition of the resemblance while he is alive, when, 
 for instance, the portrait and the original are in the same 
 room or stand side by side. But they also mistake portraits 
 for their originals (Lee). 
 
 Such mistakes occur more usually, however, in relation 
 
 L I 2 
 
516 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 to the portraits of other animals of the same or of other 
 species or genera. The marmozet (monkey) recognises pic- 
 torial representations of its own species or of other animals 
 ( Audouin), identifying them with the originals. The picture 
 of a cat or wasp creates alarm, and it commits the error of 
 snatching at painted representations of insects (Cassell). 
 The Titi, too, commits the perhaps excusable mistake of re- 
 garding engravings as realities, showing thereby its recogni- 
 tion of likeness in the pictured representations of persons, 
 animals or things (Humboldt). The performing dog Minos 
 that was brought to London for exhibition in. May, 1875, was 
 said to be able to ' trace a likeness between photographs ' and 
 their originals. Hogg's dog Lion mistook a portrait of an- 
 other dog for a real animal, and allowed itself to be excited 
 thereby to angry rivalry, just as certain animals are annoyed 
 at or with their own mirrored image. A correspondent of 
 ' Science Gossip ' mentions a Pomeranian dog that was 
 excited by an almost life-size portrait. In short, according 
 as the portraits are those of friends or foes, the resultant 
 impression and expression are those of joy or fear. 
 
 Various statements have been made of parrots and other 
 birds, and of certain insects, being deceived by painted repre- 
 sentations of flowers or fruits. They are led into error 
 apparently by the impressions on their sense of vision not 
 being corrected by those of other senses. They are said to 
 express their sense of the fidelity of the representation to 
 show the reality of their mistake, by the display of gratifica- 
 tion, complacency, self- admiration, aversion, attack, fear, 
 flight, or attempts to feed upon the tempting objects. The 
 evidence at my command not being sufficient to convince 
 myself in one direction or another, I ventured to apply to 
 various distinguished painters, begging them to favour me 
 with the results of any personal experience they might have 
 had on the subject. Two replies reached me fortunately 
 representing opposite views from artists whose names are 
 a sufficient guarantee for the value of their remarks Mr. 
 Millais representing the affirmative and Mr. Hamerton the 
 negative. The statements made in both cases are of suffi- 
 cient interest to warrant my giving them in extenso. 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 517 
 
 Mr. Millais wrote me from London, in May, 1874 : * The 
 only fact I can call to mind which may be of use to you was 
 when I was painting in spring a picture which I called 
 " Apple Blossoms." I painted the trees when they were in full 
 flower, and, not being able to finish the work in one spring, 
 I continued the picture the following spring, so that many 
 of the flowers were quite dry. I should tell you that I had 
 my canvas out in the orchard and worked direct from nature. 
 I was perfectly annoyed by bees crawling over my canvas 
 and distinctly going to the centre of my painted blossoms 
 those a year old and scentless as well as the wet ones, which 
 might have had attraction in the way of smell, from oil and 
 turpentine. To my mind they mistook the imitation for the 
 real flower. They were a great nuisance, and retarded my 
 work, dragging their legs, clogged with white and pink 
 paint, across the canvas. Some of the blossoms I painted in 
 the foreground were nearly the real size, and to these they 
 chiefly went.' 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Hamerton, writing from the 
 neighbourhood of Autun, department of the Saone-et-Loire, 
 France, in July, 1874, remarks : ' So far as I have had op- 
 portunities for observing, I should say that animals do not 
 recognise painting. I remember one instance, however, of 
 a terrier which belonged to me, and which used to look at a 
 painted portrait of a pointer, in a manner that convinced me 
 she was interested in the representation. This is positively 
 the only instance of recognition of painting by an animal 
 that I can answer for. But even here the doubt remains 
 whether the terrier thought the painted pointer was a dog, or 
 only some sort of animal on four legs. We never can judge ex- 
 actly of the degree of observation which animals are capable of. 
 As to the stories like that of birds pecking fruit in the Greek 
 painting, I simply do not believe them. They are myths, 
 which would naturally form themselves in this way. One 
 spectator would say that the fruit was painted so well that 
 a bird would peck at it. This, when repeated, would soon 
 take the form that a bird had pecked at it: afterwards that 
 birds in general had pecked at it.' 
 
 ' I have tried animals often with paintings, but uni- 
 
518 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 formly without success. I should fancy that to be recog- 
 nised by an animal, a painting should be executed on certain 
 peculiar principles, divesting the representation as much 
 as possible of everything likely to puzzle the animal- 
 such as foreshortening effect, &c. Even human beings, en- 
 tirely without culture, do not always easily recognise painted 
 work, and the more consummate it is, the less they recog- 
 nise it. Millais told me that many people could not under- 
 stand foreshortening in drawing : so that if you foreshortened 
 one arm, and not the other, they would ask, " Why have you 
 made that one so short ? " 
 
 I have met with no recorded instances of animals of any 
 kind recognising in any way pictures of places, or of things, 
 other than articles of food. 
 
 Nor have I facts to show, whether or how far animals are 
 deceived by the beautiful artificial flowers for which Parisian 
 artistes are so famous, and which so frequently impose upon 
 man, so long as he is guided merely by his distant vision. 
 But the subject is one of much interest ; and the flowers in 
 question, like the mirror and pictures, open up an important 
 means of experiment and field of inquiry to the comparative 
 psychologist. 
 
 I have certainly been assured by the vendors of artificial 
 flowers in ornamental pots, used for the purposes of drawing- 
 room decoration, that bees and butterflies frequent these 
 flowers, and the inference drawn is that the animals are pay- 
 ing an unwitting compliment to the fidelity with which the imi- 
 tator has reproduced nature, so far as mere look is concerned. 
 These, and other insects, however, alight upon dozens of 
 other objects of the most opposite kinds that bear no sort of 
 resemblance to flowers, and there is nothing at present ap- 
 proaching a proof that the animals above named, in such a 
 case, mistake artificial flowers for real ones. The probability, 
 however, is great that they do so. I have myself, over and 
 over again, been deceived by the exquisite imitations of 
 flowers made by foreign, and even by home artists, and I 
 have repeatedly experimentally caused similar mistakes in 
 other persons, all familiar with real flowers, by placing potted 
 artificial and other flowers in drawing rooms or parlours. 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR. 519 
 
 Moreover, we have the analogy of the mirror, of paintings, 
 of models, and of other mere representations or resemblances, in 
 favour of the probability of the self-deception of birds, insects 
 and other animals, by well-imitated artificial flowers. 
 
 There are some curious cases of painted living animals 
 deceiving their fellows. Thus the skin of a living male ass 
 has been painted so as to resemble that of a zebra, experi- 
 mentally, with a view to deceiving a female zebra in pairing; 
 and the ruse has succeeded, in so far as the latter animal 
 has been induced to accept the attentions of the former 
 (Baird) . This kind of experiment might fitly be extended to 
 other species and genera, and to other and higher pheno- 
 mena than pairing. 
 
 Stuffed skins and very inartistically stuffed are quite 
 successful in the capture of the ruff, acting as inanimate 
 decoys. Even when f executed in a very rude manner ; ' not 
 at all life-like, moved by strings in jerks, representing jumps ; 
 simply stuffed with a wisp of straw, ' with no great atten- 
 tion to cover the straw beneath ' by proper suture of the 
 skin ; ' rough as this preparation is, and as unlike a living 
 bird, as skin and feathers can be made, it answers all the 
 purpose' (Montagu) : a fact that surely indicates, either 
 great stupidity, much carelessness in observation, a very 
 vivid imagination, or all three, on the part of the animals 
 deceived. 
 
 Stuffed animals are used sometimes as decoys for wild 
 ones. The London bird-catcher uses a 'dummy,' or dead 
 stuffed bird, to deceive the male chaffinch (Greenwood). 
 
 A mother sheep, bereaved of her own lambs, has been 
 deceived by putting the skin of one of her dead lambs on a 
 living one of some other individual, under which circum- 
 stances she has accepted the unwitting role of foster-parent 
 (Hogg). 
 
 Living imitations of their own form and gait deceive many 
 unwary animals ; thus the Australian aborigines successfully 
 counterfeit, for the purpose of capture, the look and walk of 
 the emu. 
 
 To this category belongs the usefulness of the human 
 scarecrow, the very rude imitation of man, constructed by 
 
520 COMMISSION OF EKEOR. 
 
 the farmer and placed in his grain-field, as an intended de- 
 terrent to crows, or other birds. The effigy is efficient, or 
 the reverse, in proportion to its artistic execution, its like- 
 ness to man. Dead, or stuffed birds are used for a similar 
 purpose ; but neither in the case of the human effigy, nor 
 of the dead animal, is the intended deterrent uniform!}' 
 successful. For there are always bold or inquisitive birds 
 that cautiously venture on investigation, and thereby speedily 
 convince themselves of the innocuousness of the scarecrow, 
 whatever be its nature. 
 
 Models of animals modelled imitations of animals of 
 whatever kind give rise to the same kind of mistakes. 
 The most familiar forms of such models and of such mistakes 
 are to be found in the apparatus of the angler, in his arti- 
 ficial bait, fish and flies. The salmon, trout, and other fish, 
 in accepting the sportsman's artificial minnow, or fly, fail 
 to distinguish between the imitation and the reality, the 
 artificial and the natural; perhaps because of haste or 
 greed giving no chance to powers of observation and , inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 Wood mentions a dog that assaulted a pasteboard cat, 
 and became much ashamed of its mistake ; and in another 
 chapter we have seen what a bitch did with an india-rubber 
 toy, fashioned in the likeness of a pup. A monkey that 
 mistook a toy snake, a mere painted model, or imitation of a 
 very rude kind, for a real one, in its terror, nearly drowned 
 itself (Cassell). Other monkeys have been quite paralysed 
 with terror at the sight of a stuffed adder. A correspondent 
 of ( Nature ' describes the effect of presenting a stuffed leo- 
 pard to a pet monkey. c It would scream with terror, shut 
 its eyes, and hide away in my friend's coat. On touching it 
 with the claws, its terror was piteous. On removing the 
 leopard it would slowly peep out, and on catching sight of it 
 close its eyes tight.' 
 
 The representations of the living reality may be inani- 
 mate, and far-fetched; but in the absence of any keen 
 observation, or of any examination, or reflection, on the part 
 of the animal deceived, such an imitation may be quite as 
 successful as the original, in producing a given result. Thus 
 
COMMISSION OF ERROR 521 
 
 an American correspondent of * Nature ' tells us that the 
 common frog in the United States utters a particular cry, 
 when alarmed by its enemy, the striped snake (tropidonotus 
 tama, Dakay), and that ' sliding a stick after him, like a 
 snake, will produce the same result, in a still more striking 
 manner.' 
 
 Dr. Brown, speaking of the grampus, of Greenland, says, 
 * I know of a case in which they attacked a white-painted 
 herring boat, in the Western Islands, probably mistaking it 
 for a beluga,' or white whale. 
 
 The kitten is said to play with shadows, even its own, on 
 the wall, mistaking them apparently for living, moving, but 
 harmless realities. The celebrated French traveller, Le 
 Vaillant, mentions a young monkey mistaking a wig Hock 
 for its mother. The dog is sometimes deceived by false or 
 imitation fire. Dance describes something of an opposite 
 kind in a toad. He speaks of an Indian peon, in Venezuela, 
 ' throwing live coals to a toad, which jumped forward at each 
 throw, and caught the bright coals in its mouth, dropping 
 one to take up another. The toad must have mistaken 
 the coals for fire flies, and it was not deterred from hoping 
 for better luck at each succeeding trial.' 
 
 The protective disguises of various plants and animals lead 
 other animals into errors of non-observation, or faulty obser- 
 vation. Many seeds or seed-vessels, various insects, even 
 huge animals such as the crocodile and alligator, are externally 
 so like certain natural objects of an unattractive kind for food 
 purposes, that they escape, or repulse the notice even of 
 keen-eyed predatory birds. 
 
 Bates and Wallace, in particular, have shown how fre- 
 quently, by means of what are called their mimetic resemblances, 
 in colour or form, to the ground or grass, tree-barks, leaves, 
 or twigs, certain insects secure immunity from their 
 natural enemies birds of various kinds. Many phasmata 
 and mantides so resemble dry sticks as to be unrecognisable 
 by man even when he is on the outlook for them unless 
 they are in motion : as I found for myself in the New Zea- 
 land Bush many years ago. The leaf insect, so well described 
 and figured by the late Andrew Murray, F.L.S., one of our 
 
522 COMMISSION OF ERROR. 
 
 ablest and best-known entomologists, is a more beautiful, 
 though scarcely more interesting example. The crocodile and 
 alligator are mistaken for floating tree-trunks by unwary 
 animals drinking on the banks of tropical rivers, and they 
 sometimes pay by loss of life the penalty of their error. On 
 the other hand, insects sometimes so closely resemble the 
 droppings of birds, or spiders the axillary buds of plants, as 
 to throw birds off their guard ; thus enabling these protected 
 insects and spiders to escape the usually keen vision of their 
 bird enemies. The seed vessels of medicago polymorpha 
 sometimes resemble caterpillars, and are mistaken for cater- 
 pillars by birds ; while the seeds of calendula (marigold) also 
 resemble a hairy caterpillar, and may thus deter some birds 
 from preying upon them (Erasmus Darwin). 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 DECEPTION. 
 
 IT has been supposed and alleged that one of the patent 
 differences between man and other animals is the trans- 
 parency of motive, and the simplicity of conduct in the 
 latter ; their freedom from hypocrisy, or guile ; their incapa- 
 bility of disguising their real feelings, or intentions, and 
 their want of desire to conceal or misrepresent them ; their 
 blunt, obvious honesty. Thus Miss Cobbe speaks of the dog 
 having a character ' pure and simple,' with no convention- 
 ality. And no doubt such a description may apply to some 
 dogs; but it certainly does not apply to many, nor is it 
 characteristic of the dog as a species. One of the many errors 
 of novelists and poets, indeed, is regarding the dog as ' in- 
 capable of deceit ' with ' no share of man's falsehood.' 
 
 So far is this from being true that the dog, and certain 
 other animals, are capable of wonderful refinements of hypo* 
 crisy and deceit, those which are associated with outward 
 politeness, and with all the proprieties of behaviour. A white- 
 faced monkey of Belt's, that did not relish certain insect-foods, 
 ' was too polite not to take them when they were offered to 
 him, and would sometimes smell them. But he invariably 
 rolled them up in his hand, and dropped them quietly again 
 after a few moments/ a procedure that has its parallel in 
 the behaviour of even well-bred children with food they dis- 
 like. 
 
 If they do not tell, dogs at least elaborately, deliberately, 
 and successfully act, lies. 
 
 There is a refined hypocrisy in the secret night-coursing 
 or poaching of dogs for their own ends, when they slip 
 
524 DECEPTION. 
 
 their necks out of a collar, escape from the kennel for 
 hours, return as surreptitiously as they went, resuming their 
 collar and their place in the kennel, and assuming before 
 human visitors an air of perfect innocence and ignorance 
 (Cassell, Low). And other night marauders resort to similar 
 shifts to conceal or effect their purpose, knowing obviously 
 that concealment is necessary and detection possible. 
 
 There is a wonderful amount of hypocrisy, too, in the 
 invention of excuses for laziness, or for the avoidance of irk- 
 some work ; in the ruses of the c lazy dog,' or e idle dog,' or 
 6 dirty dog ' to escape duty, or punishment ruses that include 
 the simulation of sleep, repose, fatigue, flight, wounds, ill- 
 ness, dying, or death ! 
 
 Even verbal or oral deception occurs occasionally in the 
 speech-gifted parrot, when it uses its gift, for instance, for 
 the purpose of fun or mischief in practical jokes. 
 
 In point of fact, then, the lower animals, like man, prac- 
 tise deceit in a great variety of ways, and from a great variety 
 of motives : some of the latter commendable, as self-defence, 
 the preservation of life, escape from enemies or danger, 
 the protection or amusement of the young, self-recreation ; 
 others reprehensible, as revenge, cupidity, wanton mischie- 
 vousness, or cruelty. Illustrations of the many forms in 
 which individual animals deceive each other, or man, are 
 to be found in all kinds of 
 
 Simulation, or dissimulation, including 
 
 Feints or ruses ; 
 
 Stratagems or manoeuvres ; 
 
 Pretence ; 
 
 as these are embodied in games, practical jokes, theatrical 
 performances ; and as they are expressed sometimes, merely 
 in look, as well as more generally by behaviour, which in- 
 volves gesture, a/fctitude and action. Only some of these 
 forms of deception can be considered in the present chapter. 
 But references to other forms may be found in the chapters 
 on ' Practical Jokes,' ' Adaptiveness,' and ' Error.' 
 
 Perhaps the most familiar examples of deception prac- 
 tised by the lower animals are the varied forms of simulating 
 or feigning 
 
DECEPTION. 525 
 
 1. Death or dying. 
 
 2. Disease or illness. 
 
 3. Disablement from accident, injury or wounds. 
 
 4. Strong emotion, especially misery or distress. 
 
 5. Sleep or repose. 
 
 6. Insensibility. 
 
 7. Play or inattention. 
 
 8. Preoccupation or intentness on occupation. 
 
 9. Ignorance. 
 
 10. Innocence. 
 
 11. Suffering, mentally or bodily 
 the usual motives for which are 
 
 1. The diversion of man or other animals from their 
 young or their nests. 
 
 2. The securing of their own safety in presence of immi- 
 nent danger. 
 
 It is notorious that many beetles various coleoptera 
 many of the Cantharidece and Eryotylidce, and Bromius vitis 
 (Baird), feign death in the presence of an enemy or of other 
 danger, and obviously in order to escape therefrom. The crab 
 also, like beetles, in terror or alarm especially if sudden 
 on seizure by man, sometimes even on being touched, makes 
 believe that it is defunct (Baird, Watson). The fox does the 
 same (Drake), the elephant (Tennent, Watson), the young 
 turkey ('Percy Anecdotes), and the polecat (Low), to escape 
 threatened danger. A New Brunswick humming-bird and 
 the jackal resort to the same feint or ruse on capture 
 (Adams) ; and similar phenomena are exhibited by certain 
 other birds, by snakes and spiders, by the rat, opossum, and 
 other animals. 
 
 One of the commonest tricks that the dog is taught, is 
 to feign itself dead, to allow its limbs, and whole carcase 
 indeed, to be treated by man as if it were dead. 
 
 A North American opossum is called e the dissimulator ' 
 from its well-known habit of feigning death. ' When at- 
 tacked it rolls itself up like a ball, submits to be kicked and 
 maltreated without moving; feigns death ; lies on the ground 
 with shut eyes, and cheats its assailants into the belief thai 
 it has been destroyed ' (Audubon). 
 
526 DECEPTION. 
 
 All these animals must realise their danger, must possess 
 a sense of danger, must have generalised ideas of peril based 
 on individual experiences, as well as a feeling of the desira- 
 bility of escaping it, of consulting their personal safety, with 
 a knowledge of the proper means of escape, and the power of 
 instantly applying their knowledge. There are also involved 
 such mental qualities as presence of mind or self-possession, 
 self-command or self-control, fertility of resource or inge- 
 nuity, patience, reasoning, reflection, cunning. 
 
 The successful feigning of death is usually or frequently 
 simply the assumption and maintenance of rigid immobility. 
 But it does not follow, per contra, that such immobility, when 
 voluntarily assumed, is so for the purpose of feigning death 
 and of avoiding danger. In certain cases the cause, object 
 or motive is of a very different kind. Thus the object may 
 be to dissipate fear, if not to inspire confidence, in intended 
 pre} r , so as to allow them to go on with their feeding or other 
 occupations till the proper opportunity for capture arrives. 
 This is the case, for instance, with a certain Nicaragua!! 
 hawk, in order to deceive his prey small birds. He sits 
 motionless on a tree-bough till his opportunity presents itself 
 (Belt). On the other hand, a certain Nicaraguan locust, 
 when suddenly surrounded by foraging ants, assumes immo- 
 bility to save its life. Such was its maintenance of this 
 condition, such its conviction, apparently, that its salvation 
 depended on its motionlessness, c that it allowed me to pick 
 it up and replace it among the ants without making a 
 single effort to escape,' says Belt. Berkeley mentions a 
 young stoat laying still as death when her mother had been 
 shot, and the dogs and hunters approached ; which motion- 
 lessness may have been here, however, the paralysis, and 
 resulting immobility, of fear or bewilderment in and from 
 the suddenness of bereavement, and the presence of two 
 classes of enemies. 
 
 A young merganser deceived the Duke of Argyll and a 
 party of his visitors at Inverary, simply by remaining per- 
 fectly still on ground on which it was inconspicuous by 
 reason of the protective resemblance or mimicry of its colour, 
 a manoeuvre involving great self-command in so young an 
 
DECEPTION. 527 
 
 animal. Mrs. Burton speaks of a learned Syrian donkey 
 that fell down ' and pretended to die,' allowing himself to 
 be ' dragged about by his tail, ears and legs,' apparently as 
 a mere piece of acting. 
 
 Many game and other birds feign lameness, or other 
 forms of disablement from wounds, for the purpose of draw- 
 ing the sportsman, or his dog, from the neighbourhood of 
 their nests or young. They have a specific, intelligible and 
 commendable object in view; and they attain it in the most 
 ingenious, appropriate and successful way. To this category 
 belong the familiar stratagems, or wiles, of the lapwing, 
 corncraik and golden plover (Baird). The shore-lark coun- 
 terfeits lameness, assumes a mimic wretchedness involving 
 the use of a plaintive note (Baird). The partridge decoys 
 the dog by similar means (Markwick). The male especially 
 trails its wing as if wounded before a dog that approaches 
 its nest. The riverside bunting, skylark and yellow- hammer 
 are other birds that lure man away from their nests or 
 young by the personation of being wounded and helpless 
 (' Science Gossip'). 
 
 The ruffed grouse of North America feigns lameness to 
 draw attention from its nest (Gillmore). Such feigning of 
 disablement, for the purpose of luring man or other animals 
 from the vicinity of their nests or young, is not uncommon 
 in British small birds in mother birds especially for in- 
 stance, the chaffinch (' Science Gossip '). The Duke of 
 Argyll mentions a blackcap falling to the ground from a 
 bush as if wounded, in order to distract attention from its 
 nest.' 
 
 Of the great rock partridge of Tibet Prejevalsky says : 
 * If danger be near, particularly when the young are very 
 small, the old birds will run about twenty paces from the 
 sportsman and try to attract his attention by feigning lame- 
 ness or illness, as our partridges will often do at home.' 
 
 The stickleback diverts from its nest any foe too powerful 
 for its attack, using the artifice in such a case of engaging 
 in ' the pursuit of an imaginary prey,' according to Coste. 
 
 Another mode of protecting nests is adopted by the trap- 
 door spider of New Zealand, which, according to Gillies, 
 
528 DECEPTION. 
 
 conceals them by ' a skilful and adroit piece of deception,' 
 whereby ' bold imitation of prominent and noticeable fea- 
 tures of the surface landscape ' prevents either nest or 
 entrance being observed. ' The evidences of thought, inge- 
 nuity and reason are displayed in the selection of the parti- 
 cular materials used in special places ; in the calculation of 
 the probabilities of certain contingencies happening ; and in 
 the apparently careless arrangement of both living and dead 
 matter, so as to make what is in reality the highest art appear 
 to be the result of natural and ordinary circumstances.' 
 
 In some cases there is ' a plant of green grass .... planted 
 artificially, and growing on the lid.' In other cases 'you 
 will find clay on the outside of the lid, plastered and smooth, 
 or possibly with an imitation crack, introduced apparently at 
 random.' In others, again, 'the skilful artist brings to his 
 aid all the taste and knowledge of the practical gardener 
 selects plants suited for his purpose, brings them from a dis- 
 tance, and actually transplants them to the top of his trap- 
 door with astonishingly natural variety and arrangement.' 
 Or 'you will find mosses of various hues and colours growing 
 green, and sometimes brown and dead upon the lid.' Or 
 sometimes ' this tiny pasture is brilliantly ornamented with 
 parti-coloured patches of lichens.' Or ' sprigs of lycopods, 
 ferns or heath, veronicas, and white-berry plants are intro- 
 duced to correspond with the bolder herbage around ; ' or, 
 6 if the common white tussock is the prevailing vegetation 
 
 in the locality the dead bits (of that kind) of grass 
 
 are woven adroitly into the trap-door or round its mouth, so 
 as to deceive the most practised eye.' 
 
 ' So, too, where roots or woody fibres, or bits of dead 
 stick, are scattered over the ground, or protrude from the 
 soil, this clever imitator will repeat the conditions on his lid, 
 weaving these hard, foreign, and often clumsy materials into 
 his trap-door in an irregular and apparently undesigned 
 
 way - Hard seeds, and anything whatever covering 
 
 the ground are reproduced in their natural attitudes in these 
 clever pieces of deception. In fact, you will never find any 
 two trap-doors exactly the same, even in any one locality and 
 belonging to the same colony of spiders, except where surface 
 
DECEPTION. 529 
 
 soil or clay simply is the covering The wily creature, 
 
 with his characteristic craft and cunning, selects what will 
 suit (his purpose) at some distance, comparatively speaking , 
 from the scene of his operations and brings it to his home 
 and plants it.' 
 
 As e an instance of how observant these animals are of 
 peculiarities of situation, and of their power of exact imitation 
 of these peculiarities,' he mentions a nest that occurred in a 
 line of holes in the ground, made by rain drops. * This cun- 
 ning observer completes the series by adding one at its proper 
 distance at the corner, which exactly imitates such holes. 
 So complete was the deception, that though I and others 
 must have seen this hole scores of times during a course of 
 years, being in a much frequented and prominent position, 
 we never thought it was anything else than a raindrop-hole, 
 and it was not till the accident of my having dropped some- 
 thing at the spot led me to examine the hole narrowly, that 
 I discovered it was in reality a trap-door spider's nest.' He 
 speaks, in short, of the door of such a nest and its outer 
 covering as a ' marvellous piece of deception,' and remarks 
 that 'the simplicity and prominence of its mode of con- 
 struction was the very perfection of concealment.' 
 
 With other specific and sufficient ends in view, the other 
 artifices of the lower animals are both numerous and varied. 
 Thus, in order to the capture of prey, some highly ingenious 
 devices are exhibited. Reynard, in pursuit of his favourite 
 prey ducks sometimes immerses himself in water up to his 
 head, which he covers with a leafy bough, and, so disguised, 
 slowly swims towards the unsuspecting birds ( Watson, ' Ani- 
 mal World '). He also baits fowls with grain, so as to render 
 them unsuspicious, or intent on their feeding, and to bring 
 them within his range ( c Animal World '). A Nicaraguan 
 wasp, in hunting spiders, makes a sudden dart at the web. 
 This has the effect of so startling or frightening the spider 
 that it falls to the ground that is, becomes free of its web, 
 and is then pounced upon (Belt). 
 
 In the various games or sports of animals, and especially 
 of the young, pretended or make-believe races and fights, 
 trials of strength or speed, are not uncommon. Puppies at 
 
 VOL. I. MM 
 
530 DECEPTION 
 
 play and in fun pretend to worry each other. The siamang 
 has mock combats with its child playfellows, and the orang, 
 in its romping with boys, engages in mimic scuffles (Cassell). 
 Burns' ' Twa Dogs ' 
 
 Scoured away in long excursion, 
 And worried ither/or Diversion. 
 
 Dogs, too, offer each other mock insults in play, just as they 
 do real ones when they are in serious earnest. Young 
 rhinoceroses bite each other, like young dogs, in mere play. 
 
 Kavens strike or cuff each other in play (White). Mimic 
 wrestling matches occur in young cocks for diversion ; young 
 goats and rams, like young dogs, all in perfect amity, make 
 pretence of biting, attacking, worrying each other. Even 
 young ants have their playful thrusts and wrestlings (Hou- 
 zeau, Huber), their play and pretence. 
 
 All this involves a perception of the distinction between 
 jest and earnest. Unfortunately, just as in children, there is 
 the same tendency in the mimic fights of young cocks or 
 sporting dogs for jest or sport to pass into earnest. And 
 the consequences of such a transition are sometimes quite as 
 serious or sad in other animals as in man. Thus certain 
 old regimental horses that began in all amity the game of 
 Trench and English,' which involved their dividing into two 
 bodies and taking opposite or rival sides, ended by charging 
 each other with determination, rage, fury, ferocity, and 
 genuine animosity, the unfortunate result to some of them 
 being dangerous wounds and even death (' Animal World '). 
 
 In order to theft, to the possession of coveted articles of 
 food especially, the Ehesus monkey feigns or acts sleep, ill- 
 ness, play, insensibility or preoccupation (Cassell). For the 
 purpose of concealing their guilt, of throwing their human 
 masters off the scent, and of disarming their suspicions, dogs 
 and cats are capable of assuming the look and aspect, atti- 
 tude or behaviour of innocence. Thus Mrs. Burton mentions 
 a female bull pup of hers in Syria that, after a sly bite at the 
 leg of a Jew, e when no one was looking, .... instead of 
 running away, sat looking the picture of innocence,' by both 
 actions showing an obvious consciousness of wrong-doing 
 and its consequences. Demureness may be real, but it is also 
 
DECEPTION. 531 
 
 affected, pretended, or assumed. The meekness of the dog 
 under censure is frequently affected, and even ostentatious. 
 It is apt to feign misery under man's displeasure, especially 
 if this displeasure is unmerited. And by the constant repe- 
 tition of such acts of dissimulation it may become habitually 
 deceitful (Cobbe). A mock seriousness is not uncommon in 
 the parrot (' Animal World '). 
 
 The stratagems, feints or ruses of many of the lower 
 animals frequently involve a high degree or kind of uncon- 
 scious dramatic action, of histrionic power or talent. The 
 Duke of Argyll has described the theatrical nature of the 
 feints of a common wild duck, to save its young, involving 
 mimickry of the condition of being helplessly wounded. 
 The partridge or the lapwing, in its feigning so as to protect 
 its young or nest, may be regarded as a successful and con- 
 summate actor. 
 
 Romanes mentions a Skye terrier that, under his ridicule, 
 intentional and experimental, tried to deceive its master by 
 going through all the dramatic action of catching and killing 
 a supposed fly, and then assuming an air of success. But 
 when proof was shown that this action was known to be one 
 of pretence, when he saw his hypocrisy detected, ' he slunk 
 away under some furniture, evidently very much ashamed of 
 himself.' The dog and cat go through the semblance or 
 pretence of performing various other operations (Watson). 
 
 The dog and certain other animals display their theatrical 
 aptitudes, however, in other more unmistakable ways. Thus 
 the dog engages for its own amusement, or that of its young, 
 and perhaps with its young, in impromptu dramas ; it enacts 
 charades of a sensational kind, with tragic fervour and 
 imaginary victims. With a distinct object in view, he has 
 no difficulty in enacting a c scene.' Thus Watson describes 
 one that acted a fight outside his master's door, in order to 
 get his master to open the door to look out at or for the cause 
 of disturbance an opportunity that was at once seized to gain 
 the coveted admission to the house. Again begging in the 
 dog is frequently an elaborate piece of acting. But it takes 
 care always not to hurt itself (Cobbe). 
 
 And further, the histrionic power of the dog and many 
 
 M M 2 
 
532 DECEPTION. 
 
 other animals is capable of being trained or developed to 
 wonderful perfection by man, so that they act or play their 
 parts on the dramatic stage in the same way that man him- 
 self does. Successful animal actors include bears, horses, 
 elephants and fleas, as well as dogs and certain birds, such 
 as the parrot. The dog, for instance, is capable of assuming 
 a great variety of characters. He makes pretence of death, 
 poisoning, wounds, recovery, dignity or humility, all with 
 equal ease. He engages in imaginary quarrels with perfect 
 control of temper and a thorough understanding of the 
 difference between the real and the fictitious. He exhibits 
 suitable feeling or expression, as well as gesture, attitude or 
 action, in his counterfeits, successfully simulating various 
 passions or emotions. Counterfeiting the passions such as 
 anger or rage in theatrical declamation or gesticulation 
 was one of the accomplishments of Lady Davies' parroquet. 
 Theatrical declamation is one of the many directions in which 
 the clever parrot that can speak has a manifest advantage 
 over the equally clever dog that cannot so express itself. 
 
 The various tricks or feats of performing dogs, as they are 
 exhibited in the drawing-room, or on the public street, also 
 embody dramatic ability and display. Street beggars' dogs, 
 for instance, use all sorts of ingenious make-believe in their 
 benevolent tricks ; they ( act ' sometimes so cleverly that 
 their performances are entitled to rank as and they some- 
 times also reap the merited reward of a certain kind of 
 6 high art.' 
 
 The whole phenomena then of theatrical or dramatic 
 representation by animals illustrate certain forms of feigning 
 or deception ; while, on the other hand, all kinds of feigning 
 in them may be regarded as pro tanto histrionic perform- 
 ances. 
 
 The phenomena of imposture by animals, on each other or 
 on man, involve their taking due, or undue, or every advan- 
 tage, in their dupes or victims, of such various mental quali- 
 ties or states as ignorance, unpreparedness, fear, sympathy, 
 good nature, or other feelings or emotions. And this taking 
 advantage implies, in its turn, a knowledge of the value and 
 use of opportunity, with promptitude of action in rendering 
 it serviceable. 
 
DECEPTION. 533 
 
 Artifice and artfulness, though they do not necessarily 
 imply deception, usually include some of its varied forms. 
 Thus a horse that shammed lameness, showed delight at the 
 success of his artifice (Howitt). 
 
 Certain animals are systematically trained by man in the 
 arts of deception, and become adepts, accomplished, therein, 
 and thereby of the greatest service to man by co-operating 
 with, or acting for, him, for his selfish or nefarious ends. 
 Thus the lurcher (dog) is taught the means of deceiving man 
 so as to become of service in poaching, smuggling and brig- 
 andage. He is fertile in the ' arts ' of escaping detection 
 both as regards his master and himself (Low). And the 
 same occurs in the sheep-stealing collie, when it has been 
 trained as man's accomplice or confederate in nefarious 
 schemes and practices. Again, the decoy elephant syste- 
 matically diverts the attention of wild ones in order to lure 
 them to their capture by man. 
 
 Though many of the deceptions practised by animals are 
 intentional, they do not always or necessarily involve the idea 
 of consciousness or deliberation, of deceiving for a specific 
 purpose or definite end. Thus the parrot, starling, mocking 
 bird, and many other birds, deceive man himself, as well as 
 each other, by the fidelity with which they imitate the voice 
 of man or the cries or notes of other animals. 
 
 But, though they sometimes make these imitations in 
 order to deceive for instance, in their practical jokes they 
 make them also when there is nobody no other animal to 
 deceive, under circumstances, therefore, which do not admit 
 of the supposition of intention to deceive, though a probable 
 motive is their own amusement. This kind of imitation 
 embraces the phenomena of ventriloquism in certain animals, 
 which phenomena, with others that partly belong to the 
 subject of the present chapter, will be found discussed in the 
 chapter on ' Practical Jokes.' 
 
 If we take the trouble to analyse any, even of the simple, 
 acts of deception above described, and still more so, if we 
 select for critical examination those of a more complex cha- 
 racter, such as trained theatrical or pantomimic performances, 
 the mental qualities involved will be found to be not only 
 
534 DECEPTION 
 
 numerous and varied, but many of them of a high order. 
 Thus one cannot fail to discover 
 
 1. Abstraction or generalisation in reference, for in- 
 stance, to ideas of danger. 
 
 2. The adaptation of means to an end. 
 
 3. A knowledge of what is advantageous to the individual 
 or those other individuals belonging to or associated with 
 the actor. Thus Mrs. Siddons' cat shammed lameness from 
 having found the pleasure of being petted in one real lame- 
 ness (Wynter) ; just as children frequently make the most of 
 trivial ailments, or invent ailments, in order to enjoy the 
 pleasures attendant upon invalidism, including idleness, ab- 
 sence from school, gifts of toys, and the creature comforts of 
 dietetic luxuries. 
 
 4. The distinction between the spurious and the real. 
 
 5. Imagination and! 
 
 limitation } in ft high degree. 
 
 7. Inventiveness. 
 
 8. Consciousness of using deceit, as well as of being 
 deceived. 
 
 9. Co-operation or confederacy for a common end or 
 purpose. 
 
 Up to this point we have been considering deception by 
 animals, either of each other or of man, the said deception 
 being mainly intentional. But there are other kinds of 
 deception that claim some consideration here, though they 
 are more fully discussed in other chapters, such as those on 
 c Error ' and * Stupidity.' These are 
 
 1. Self-deception of course unintentional ; and 
 
 2. Deception by man, in which the lower animals are man's 
 dupes or victims, by unwarily falling into the errors to which 
 he invites them. 
 
 Self-deception is constantly occurring no less in old than 
 in young animals, in an almost infinite variety of ways ; for 
 instance, very commonly in the form of errors of the senses, 
 or of interpretation of impressions on the senses, which im- 
 pressions require interpretation, and sometimes correction, 
 by other sensorial influences, or by the judgment and by 
 experience, as in man. 
 
DECEPTION. 535 
 
 Deception by man, though generally, is not necessarily in- 
 tentional. It is intentional where his object is to 
 
 1. Capture animals, for whatever purpose. 
 
 2. Torment them, as in his practical jokes. 
 
 3. Artificially to create fear, surprise, or other emotions 
 or passions. 
 
 4. Study experimentally their mental aptitudes. 
 
 But it is unintentional where, for instance, he merely 
 changes his dress, and the result is, in the dog, an error in 
 distinguishing even his own master's identity. 
 
 The successful impostures of man include various decep- 
 tions of the maternal instinct. For instance, Romanes made 
 a hen foster-mother to three orphaned ferrets ; and he says 
 he has heard that ' even such an intelligent animal as the 
 bitch may be deceived into rearing a cat, and vice versa, 7 if 
 only the two mothers have littered on the same day. The 
 success of man's deception depends on the liability to error 
 that characterises the lower animal. 
 
 A doe-rabbit, to which was given, experimentally, a new- 
 born ferret to suckle, * perceived the imposture at once, and 
 attacked the young ferret so savagely that she broke two of 
 its legs before I could remove it ' (Romanes). 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting feature in these attempts of 
 man to outwit or cheat other animals is their frequent failure 
 by reason of the intelligence, wariness, watchfulness, or in- 
 genuity of the latter, which enables them so frequently to 
 baffle or circumvent his powerful influence, sometimes even 
 to turn the tables upon him. In the first place they fre- 
 quently detect see through man's pretence ; they know 
 when he is in fun or jest, when in earnest. In an actioned 
 or acted threat by man, their conduct is guided by their be- 
 lief as to whether he means what he threatens, as well as by 
 their knowledge occasionally as to whether he has the power 
 of doing what he threatens. Thus there is no pantomimic 
 threat more common than a man pretending to be about to 
 throw a stone at a dog. 
 
 Many, perhaps most, dogs confound the resemblance with 
 the reality ; they jump too hastily to the conclusion that 
 what he threatens he intends and can fulfil ; and they accord- 
 
536 DECEPTION. 
 
 ingly seek safety in flight, or hesitate in their attack. But 
 other dogs, more intelligent, good readers of human charac- 
 ter, and well acquainted with all shades of their master's 
 humour, find out in their own way that when a man goes 
 through the pretended action of throwing a stone, he has 
 none in his hand to throw, knowing, in certain cases, that 
 there being no stones at hand to throw, there cannot be one 
 in his hand (Houzeau). And the natural result of such be- 
 lief or knowledge is that they do not take the trouble to get 
 out of his way, showing, on the contrary, perfect unconcern. 
 When, therefore, a master affects anger at some escapade, 
 some amusing misdemeanour of a favourite dog, and makes 
 believe to throw a stone at it, while, in truth, he is laugh- 
 ing at it, the do probably realises at once that its master 
 is 'just in fun.' 
 
 While there is a correct interpretation of man's natural 
 tone of voice by the dog, or other animals, they are apt to be 
 misled by his assumed tones, by his make-believe anger, 
 reproof or harshness. But this is usually the case only for 
 a time. In proportion as the animals know their master 
 thoroughly, and are in the habit of closely observing all his 
 habits of look, tone, and action, they become less and less 
 liable to be deceived by his pretences. 
 
 The success of man's deceptions depends, on the one 
 hand, on the unwariness, or stupidity, want of observation 
 or reflection, of his dupe ; and, on the other, on the excellence 
 of his imitations of nature, of natural objects and sounds, 
 of insects, in artificial flies, of bird-notes, in his artificial calls, 
 of gait and appearance, in decking himself with skins, or 
 covering himself with herbage, and in strutting, running, or 
 moving like this or that animal. He has occasion to resort 
 to a great variety of ingenious devices, as when he paints an 
 ass's skin, so as to resemble a zebra's ; or when he cheats 
 the wary spider with sand grains, used as artificial midges. 
 Miss Gordon Gumming tells us of an Indian ornithologist 
 ' so perfectly skilled in imitating the calls of different rare 
 birds, that the deluded victims respond, and coming close to 
 the beguiling voice, pay the penalty of their curiosity.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 PEACTICAL JOKES. 
 
 CERTAIN animals, including species and genera so different 
 as monkeys, apes, orangs and baboons, the dog, cat, horse, 
 elephant, rabbit and squirrel, the parrot, mocking bird, 
 starling, magpie, and goose, not only perpetrate practical 
 jokes on each other, or on man, but they enter thoroughly 
 into the spirit of the joke or fun : they enjoy, exult in their 
 or its success. 
 
 The motive or object of the joke varies in different cases. 
 It may be dictated simply by a spirit of mischief, or mis- 
 chievousness in young animals ; for instance in monkeys, 
 which are proverbially so given to mere mischief-making, 
 without, in general, any cruel or ulterior object in view, 
 that troublesome children are commonly spoken of by their 
 parents, as e young monkeys,' ' mischievous monkeys,' or 
 'troublesome monkeys.' On the other hand, a practical 
 joke may be the medium of expressing a very refined revenge, 
 of inflicting a very condign punishment. 
 
 There was, for instance, very deliberate malice exhibited 
 by the Rhesus monkey, that plucked alive a crow, and left it 
 to be murdered by its own companions (Cassell). 
 
 Mischievousness or trickiness, including sometimes a de- 
 cided love of, or propensity to, practical joking, is a common 
 attribute of youth, in other animals, as in man. All young 
 animals are naturally fond of fun and frolic ; and their desire 
 for amusement not un frequently gratifies itself at the ex- 
 pense of the feelings of other individuals or species. Even 
 in such cases, however, mischief or tricks, whether or not of 
 the character of practical jokes, are usually innocuous, un- 
 
538 PEACTICAL JOKES. 
 
 less in the occasional case where jest becomes earnest, where 
 what is begun in perfect good humour, terminates in ir- 
 ritability and quarrelsomeness. And in this latter event, what 
 is comical at first, may become even tragical at last. 
 
 Among other pre-eminently mischievous animals may be 
 enumerated the magpie (Baird). Trickiness is not un- 
 common, as a prominent feature, in the character of some 
 of our cage birds (Buist). Mischievousness is a special 
 attribute of certain monkeys, such as the titi, or the mar- 
 mozet, which derives its main amusement from its destruc- 
 tiveness (Cassell). 
 
 Mischievousness, however, is not always simply ludicrous 
 or amusing and innocuous. Nor does it always arise from 
 youthful frolicsomeness. There is much mischievousness 
 that is the product of mental perversion or disorder ; much 
 that is malicious in its character, and serious in its results. 
 The squirrel plays on its companions practical jokes that are 
 sometimes fatal (Cassell). 
 
 The parrot sometimes succeeds, just as man does, in 
 setting cat and dog by the ears ; and in such a case it is 
 morally responsible for the result. 
 
 Certain practical jokes involve various refinements of 
 cruelty, and an obvious delight in witnessing the effects of 
 cruelty, the torture of victims. Crows enjoy the impotent 
 fury of their victims (Hall). Monkeys show the 'keenest 
 delight in torturing others, simply for torturing sake/ put- 
 ting themselves to great trouble in order to gratify their 
 instinct of cruelty. ' A naturalist, who had lived a long time 
 in India, told me that he has not unfrequently seen mon- 
 keys feign death for an hour or two at a time, for the express 
 purpose of inducing crows and other carnivorous birds to 
 approach within grasping distance ; and when one of the 
 birds was caught, the delighted monkey put it to all kinds 
 of agonies, of which plucking alive seemed to be a favourite' 
 (' Nature '). The parrot, too, enjoys the punishment of an- 
 other animal, perhaps for its misdemeanour or practical 
 joke ( c Animal World '). 
 
 It does not follow that there is always, though there 
 must be sometimes, realisation, or appreciation of the kind 
 
PKACTICAL JOKES. 539 
 
 or amount of pain, bodily or mental, that a victim is under- 
 going. Thus an American correspondent of ' Nature ' 
 describes a playful kitten as amusing itself by teasing a frog, 
 6 seemingly for the purpose of hearing him cry.' Here there 
 is a selfish amusement at the expense of suffering in another. 
 But it is not at all likely that the kitten had any idea that it 
 was inflicting pain, and that a cry was the natural expres- 
 sion of pain. Indeed, the simple teasing, or tormenting of 
 animals by each other, though provocative of displays of 
 temper, combativeness, retaliation, seldom involve the idea 
 that pain is being inflicted and suffered. 
 
 Lady Verney writes of apes and monkeys, as seen at the 
 Zoological Gardens, London : -An ape will push a bit of 
 apple or bun through his bars, just within reach of his 
 neighbour, and draw it back again before he can get at it 
 going on for an hour at a time, for the mere delight of seeing 
 the anger and distress and longing of the poor little victim. 
 No other beast seems to have the wit, or the desire, to enjoy 
 evil in this manner.' Here the pain inflicted is necessarily 
 mental; but it is no less keen on that account. Pain of 
 a purely bodily kind is produced, on the other hand, by a 
 monkey driving a stick into the eye of a crocodile. e He 
 went to work with all the caution and seriousness of an old 
 lawyer ; and when he had inflicted the joke, he hauled him- 
 self aloft with an alacrity that showed he could form a very 
 good estimation of the danger which he ran ' (Lawson). 
 
 The success of practical jokes implies deception of, and error 
 in the victims or dupes. Triumph, exultation, or delight, 
 which is sometimes so evident, and is expressed in various 
 ways, involves a clear perception of the nature of the trick 
 or joke, and a consciousness of its success. Miss Cobbe de- 
 scribes the paeans in chorus of a flock of geese at the success 
 of a practical joke of theirs on a number of pigs. The 
 Rhesus monkey shows its triumph by chattering and grin- 
 ning (Cassell) . The parrot appreciates its own jokes, shows 
 joy at least at its success in mischief (Houzeau, Watson). 
 The elephant also enjoys its practical joking, that is, witness- 
 ing the effects thereof (Lee) . The raven exhibits, as so many 
 other birds do, delight at the success of its mimicry (Low). 
 
540 PEACTICAL JOKES. 
 
 Certain animals require sympathy in their joys, as in their 
 griefs ; and possibly their love of admiration in some 
 cases must be gratified. Thus the orang plays pranks and 
 delights in them ; but only when it has spectators of its 
 tricks (Cassell), when approval or applause would appear to 
 be taken for granted. 
 
 Some practical jokes of the lower animals are apt to be 
 as serious to man as to each other. Thus the c Animal 
 World ' tells us of a sheep, whose fondness for practical fun 
 led it to watch for unwary human bye-passers from the win- 
 dow of the second storey of a granary : and when one was 
 passing immediately underneath the window, this eccentric 
 animal would drop itself suddenly upon him, with all its 
 weight of course. In this case the mischief was gratuitous. 
 But in other cases the practical jokes of animals take the very 
 appropriate form of the punishment of man for his misdeeds 
 perhaps for his practical jokes on them. The success and 
 appropriateness of such punishment illustrate man's own 
 proverbs, or sayings about ' the biter bit,' ' diamond cut dia- 
 mond,' or c more than his match.' Thus the elephant, dog 
 and parrot sometimes inflict ingenious forms of punishment 
 well deserved on boys or adults who have teased them. 
 
 The mode in which practical jokes are perpetrated by 
 different species and genera varies greatly ; and this variation 
 involves great ingenuity, devising the most appropriate 
 means in each case. An orang in a ship's galley, 4 in order to 
 play the cook a trick, used to turn the water cocks ' (Biich- 
 ner). 
 
 One of the commonest modes of perpetrating practical 
 jokes is mimicry, imitation of the songs, cries, calls, voice- 
 sounds of other animals, including man. But all mimicry 
 does not involve mockery the intention to ( make a fool ' of 
 another; to lead it into some mishap, to deceive it to its 
 hurt, and to enjoy itself at the victim's expense. Even in 
 the same animal, for instance the mocking bird itself, there 
 may be either, or both, harmless mimicry, and deliberate 
 mockery. And the mockery employed may involve genuine 
 derision, studied insult. The mocking bird mocks, as well 
 as mimics ; it engages in deception, intentional, as well as 
 
PRACTICAL JOKES. 541 
 
 accidental ; it possesses a sense of the ludicrous, or of fan ; 
 and it indulges in genuine practical jokes, just as the parrot 
 more frequently and successfully does. 
 
 One of the forms again both of mimicry and mockery is 
 ventriloquism in certain birds. Professor Sir Wyville Thom- 
 son informs us how a Brazilian parrot succeeded in making 
 himself and a railway party, of which he was a member, 
 believe they had run over a child. ' Suddenly the agonised 
 cries of a child, followed by low moanings, rang out from 
 under the wheels. A jerk of the drag pulled the car up, 
 and nearly threw us out of our seats. We jumped out and 
 looked nervously under the truck ; but there was no child 
 there.' Nor was the apparent accident explained, till ' a 
 large green parrot, in a cage close beside us, went through, 
 no doubt, another of his best performances in the shape of a 
 loud mocking laugh. 9 
 
 A. male chat, described by Dr. Abbott, not only imitated 
 successfully the notes, cries, groans, squeaks, or calls of 
 different animals, including other birds, the squirrel, and 
 the yelping bark of the puppy ; not only could it mimic the 
 c dull creaking of a rusty sign-board,' and the ' cries of some 
 poor creature in distress ; ' but all this ' mimicry of uncouth 
 sounds ' could be uttered as if by another individual in a 
 distant tree, ' throwing his voice in every direction, other 
 than towards the nest ; ' so that his notes appeared as if 
 coming c from a point several yards distant.' In this case the 
 animal was ' thoroughly conscious of its ventriloquial power ' 
 and its effects deception thereby ; and it ' trusted far more 
 to it than to flight, to avoid and mislead its enemies.' It 
 was not surprising that it succeeded in deceiving the natu- 
 ralist-observer, as well as birds of various kinds, that 
 approached its nest. 
 
 The artificial production of consternation, alarm, fear 
 or fright is one of the common modes resorted to by the 
 parrot and other animals, of playing their tricks, pranks, or 
 jokes (Watson). 
 
 The practical jokes of man on other animals ; the various 
 tricks that he plays upon them, mainly for the purposes of 
 what he considers 'sport,' may be fitly considered here. 
 
542 PEACTICAL JOKES. 
 
 Such jokes take advantage of certain mental or moral pecu- 
 liarities, or individualities, of the animals he selects as the 
 subject of his experiments, the victims too frequently of his 
 cruelty. These mostly mental peculiarities include, for in- 
 stance, irritability, pugnacity, liability to fear and panic, 
 ignorance, unsuspiciousness, confidence, curiosity, greed, 
 love of alcohol or other articles of man's food or drink, or 
 known partiality to certain natural foods. But while fully 
 appreciating, and frequently taking undue advantage of such 
 mental qualities, man is too apt to overlook certain others, 
 and. his oversight leads him to be forgetful of the possible 
 results to himself, as well as to his animal dupes, of his ill- 
 timed pleasantries. 
 
 Thus he gives his victims no credit for their memory of 
 injury, their sense of indignation at affront or abuse, the 
 keenness and the impetuosity of their passions, their thirst 
 for revenge, their power of selecting the proper means of 
 inflicting condign punishment for offence, their capacity to 
 impute blame where it is deserved, their patience in waiting 
 for, and their sagacity in seizing opportunity, their promp- 
 titude of action when the watched-for opportunity arrives. 
 
 Hence the fatal injuries, of which we so frequently read, 
 inflicted by horses, elephants and dogs, or by various me- 
 nagerie animals, on those persons who have wilfully tor- 
 mented them. Thus we are told of a boy, killed outright 
 by an elephant, as the effect of teasing it (' Animal World'). 
 When men or boys give elephants stones instead of expected 
 nuts, unsuspiciousness or inexperience of man's treachery 
 may lead the sagacious animal into error for the moment. 
 But discovery of the deception is very speedy ; the animal's 
 anger or resentment is unmistakably exhibited ; and man's 
 stupidity for he may have erred but in thoughtlessness, 
 not in cruel intention has thus stimulated his victim to 
 revenge by murder. 
 
 Man's pleasantries or practical jokes are at all times 
 liable to be misunderstood and resented, even by animals 
 that are familiar with the player of the joke. Though, as 
 has been already shown, certain animals can, and do dis- 
 tinguish between jest, joke, fun, frolic, pretence, and earnest, 
 
PEACTICAL JOKES. 543 
 
 reality, seriousness, there are others that naturally confound 
 the two ; or they may be at a loss, as children, and even men 
 so frequently are, to discriminate between them. There is 
 apt to result, in such cases, especially in touchy, testy, cap- 
 tive animals, a dangerous and instantaneous loss of temper 
 and patience, a sense of irritation likely to lead to acts of 
 retaliation or punishment. 
 
 Repeated acts of annoyance are of course correspondingly 
 more liable to beget furiosity. So that there is always 
 danger to man himself from his tormenting, teasing, irri- 
 tating, annoying, torturing or tempting even such docile 
 much-suffering animals as the elephant, horse and dog, and 
 still more so the captious and captive inmates of menageries 
 or Zoological Gardens, or of drawing-room aviaries. 
 
 On the other hand, the consequences to the animals ex- 
 perimented on are sometimes equally unexpected and unin- 
 tended by man. Thus a wild forest bear, to which some 
 American-Indian huntsmen fastened a buffalo bell, was 
 ' found dead of fright and starvation ' fifty miles distant 
 from the place where the obnoxious and alarmingly sonorous 
 instrument was attached to its neck, as an official informs 
 us. 
 
 Some of man's modes of capture of the lower animals have 
 all the aspect and effect of practical jokes. When, for in- 
 stance, he wishes to capture old wary monkeys, he first gets 
 hold, sometimes, of a few unwary young ones, paints them 
 over with a mixture of treacle and tartar emetic, and then 
 sets them free. The joyful parents lick their recovered off- 
 spring, with the natural result that they suffer, as man would 
 do under similar circumstances, from a prostrating nausea 
 that renders them an easy prey to man (Cassell). He may 
 have other objects in view in the perpetration of his practical 
 jokes on other animals ; for instance, when his purpose is to 
 purchase the silence of a barking dog or cackling goose, that 
 would otherwise be a, tell-tale to his nocturnal burglary or 
 poaching. 
 
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