im

MIND IN THE LOWEE
ANIMALS

IN HEALTH AND DISEASE

BY

W. LAUDER LINDSAY, M.D.

F.R.S.E., F.L.S.

RARY MEMBER OF THK NEW ZEALAND INST1TUTH

f 7

VOL. I.
MIND IN HEALTH

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1880.

1908

fc'T

TO

THE MEMORY OF

MY FATHEE

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

OP

THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTION xi

COMPAEATIYE PSYCHOLOGY.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, INCLUDING THE
METHODS OF ENQUIRY.

CHAPTER

I. Kesults of Human Ignorance, Error, and Prejudice ... 3

II Faults and Fancies of Terminology 11

HI. 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 :— LT. The

Vertebra 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-Eelations of Instinct and Eeason 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.

CHAPTEK 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

XII. Language in other Animals 289

XIII. Vocal Language 299

XIV. Non- Vocal Language 307

XV. Laughter and Weeping 314

XVL 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.

ADAPTIVENESS.

CHAPTER

XX. v General Adaptiveness .

XXI. Organisations .

XXII. Law and Punishment .

XXIII. Use of Natural Instruments

XXIV. Use of Man's Instruments .
XXV. Use of Clothing and Shelter

XXVI. Preparation of Food .

XXVII. Faculty of Numeration .

XXVIII. Power of Calculation .

XXIX. Courtship and Marriage .

XXX. Foster Parentage .

PAGE

357
377
397
409
429
440
446
451
454
468

FALLIBILITY.

XXXI. Liability to Error

XXXII. Commission of Error

XXXIII. Commission of Error — continued .

XXXIV. Deception

XXXV. PracticalJokes

488
498
512
523
537

INTKODUCTION.

A VAEIETT OP CONSIDERATIONS seems to me to render 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 mentalisation 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, xiii

that * a precise knowledge of what is already known is now
an indispensable requisite for carrying knowledge further,' l
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 ferce natures of all
quarters of the globe.

Regarding the whole subject of mind in animals

1 In a posthumous letter published in the ' Athenasum ' of November
1873, p. 563.

xiv INTRODUCTION.

from a medical and natural history point of view, I have
studied it from first to last without any preconceived ideas
— with no theory tp defend, support, or illustrate — and
ready throughout, without effort or regret, to renounce any
belief which fact 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-
ternational 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/ '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 ;

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 hare 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 basecl 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.

V.HAPTEE 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-

4 MAN'S ERRORS.

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.

6. 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
' 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 late Sir Benjamin Brodie that

MAN'S ERRORS. 5

animals live only in the present, which implies that they
have no foresight.

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 l 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-hysena, 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 ERROKS.

26. The disavowal or non-admission of man's Unship to,
or fellowship with, other animals ; obliviousness of the fact
that they are fellow-creatures or fellow-mortals, 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),
ajid 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
bias, 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 to 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 dispaiseionate, 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 IT.

FAULTS AND FANCIES OF TEEMINOLOGT.

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 least 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 ' 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,' * 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 i 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. ' G-ive 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 * 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 ' 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 ' an ass ' or ' 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 * 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 studied,
and consequently understand, it as can be the mere spoken or
written language of vain man.

2. Lower, as applied to other animals tha.n 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.

3

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 ' 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 exist^ 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
* 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.

CHAPTER III.

AUTHENTICITY OP 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 in the Bibliography.

20 AUTHENTICITY OF ANECDOTES

were literary hacks or compilers, probably unwilling, if not
also unable, in the haate of writing what are vulgarly known
as * pot-boiler ' books or articles, to observe for themselves,
or even to collect information at first hand. Such 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 ' 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 ' talking bird ' (a
grey parrot) in « Chambers's Journal ' * thinks it necessary
to preface the account of his * 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.

« Since this was written I have heard of its death, in November 1876.

OF ANIMAL SAGACITY. 21

the story* 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 up
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 re viewing
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
' Eab and his Friends,' that she cast a doubt on its truth-
fulness, regarding it as a '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 'Eab,' '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 ' 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, Gillmore, 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 ' 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 Eome, 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 na,tu-
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 Romulus and
.Remus by the discovery in India, in recent times, of so-called
' 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 ' 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 '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 Francois 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. Nor is poverty an obstacle to observation
and enquiry ; J 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.

80 OBSERVATION OF

* 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. 81

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. ' 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, mice,
and owls.

5. Aquaria, marine and fresh-water.

6. Apiaria, vespiaria, and formicaria of all kinds.

7. Aviaries, dovecots, rookeries, and swanneries.

Zoological gardens, and more especially travelling menage-
ries, 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

4

32 EXPERIMENTS 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 ' 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. Lublock: 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 REASON. 33

6. Huber (Fra^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 hare 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 J 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 Medusae.

20. Gillies : on trap-door spiders in New Zealand.

21. Gudden : on various animals ; effects of removal of
the brain.

22. Czermak : on birds ; the artificial production of hyp-
notism and catalepsy.

23. Flourens : on pigeons ; results of removal of the
cerebral hemispheres.

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 was 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 that 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

36 EXPERIMENTAL 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 eft'ect 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 OF MIND IN MAN: MENTAL CONDITION OP
CHILDEEN AND SAVAGES.

PKIOK 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 ; (5) 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 : — v

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 necessary to the development

OF THE CHILD. 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 ' 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. t.

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 the 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 (Biichner). 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-eating — fatal 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). (6) 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
(Biichner).

OF SAVAGE MAN. 41

6. Filthiness in their personal habits, excluding those
connected with food-eating. Thus the Veddas of Ceylon
show a * habitual disregard of any sort of ablution ' ( Harts-
horn e). The Bushmen of South Africa 'never wash*
(Eicherer).

7. No sense of decency, modesty, chastity, or shame.

8. Their main object in life is the gratification of their
physical wants. 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.'
(Eicherer). 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 tools, 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 Tiune
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. Bainey writes, ' 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 f 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' (Bicherer). 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 ; * 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 MAN. 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 aesthetic 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 *no reasoning — no waiting for results' (Eden).
The Andaman Islanders are untamable (Smith). 'The
faculty of memory ' among the Veddas ' 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

has 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 ' 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 (Biichner).

29. No idea of time.

30. No systems of knowledge.

31. No legislation-, no social or other laws — e.g. among
the Dokos (Biichner).

32. 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 (Biichner).

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 (Biichner).

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, 'he imitated every action,
just as apes do' (Biichner). 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 Veddas, we are told,
'never laugh' (Hartshorne).

45. Want of facial expression ; impassiveness 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 Veddas 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 savage races: —

OF SAVAGE MAN. 47

a. Asiatic races.

1. The Andaman Islanders of the Bay of Bengal, other-
wise known as the Mincopies, who are, according to Pro-
fessor Owen, the most degraded race of mankind.

2. The natives of Cerain 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 Veddas 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).

5

48 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 ' 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' 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 (Elam).

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 ' 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,

50 MENTAL STATUS OF SAVAGE MAN.

chimpanzees, parrots, or other animals and whole races of
savage man — that ' 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 * lower ' animal and not to man

CHAPTER VT.

EVOLUTION OP MIND IN THE ASCENDING ZOOLOGICAL SCALE.

I. The Invertebrata.

So little is at present known of the phenomena of mind 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 Encyclopaedia'). 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 ' intelligent seizure of matter or pabulum adapted to
its growth ' by the Hydra.

In the third subkingdom — 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 8pio seticornis
when he says of her that she ' 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, * slowly walking round a bladder [of Utricularia
clandestine^, 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 Kocks Professor Sir Wyville
Thomson writes, ' 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.' * 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 l 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

/>6 EVOLUTION OF MIND

those characteristic of crabs. Thus one described as a
lady's pet in Paris ' 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-
7<eau). They even test the strength or security of their webs

1 « North British Daily Mail,' Feb. 8, 1875.

IN 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 '* 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 * Science Gossip ' describes
a trap-door spider as ' 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.

Tn 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,'
'dog/ '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 of relief parties.

3. 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 1NVEKTEBRATA. 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 Termitidee, 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 (Wa,tson 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 Carabidce, 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 wantedr-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 f 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 INVERTEBKATA. 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. Reception 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 subkingdoin 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 Jcrake 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 THE ITNVERTEBEATA. 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.

(J4 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 INVERTEBEATA. 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 Vertebrata, 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.

1 7. 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

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. Co-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 Coslenterata — 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.

IN THE INVEKTEBRATA. 67

b. 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 Invertebrata
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 Mellusca, 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

68 MIND IN THE INVEETEBEATA.

Invertebrata, 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
'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 subkingdom 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 Vn.

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 the Vertebrata — the Pisces,
or fish — though there is a wide range of psychical character,
there is little if any advance compared 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, sufiiciently 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 nmn's signals.

18. Variation of lehaviour 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
Batrachia) little can at present be said. So far as we yet
know, there is not only no decided advance as compared

IN THE VEKTEBRATA. 71

with the Pisces, hut 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
Chelsea 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 ' 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 VERTEBEATA. 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 GallinacecB.

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.
Tor 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
' Stupidity ' and * Reputation.'

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

IN 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

76 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.
6. 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.

&. 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
Invertebrata, 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 VEETEBRATA. 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.
7

S() 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. TTngulata, 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 VERTEBRATA. 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 suffices, 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

ANIMAL REPUTATION.

CEETAIN 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, hyaena, 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 ' 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 * Grey friars' 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 be 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. Hyssna. 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.

84

ANIMAI KEPUTATION.

7. Dogs, or certain breeds
thereof, such as the
bull-dog.

8.

9.

'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.

Industry, pugnacity.
Voracity.

Stupidity, stolidity or apathy,
meekness or uncomplaining
patience.

Stupidity, perverseness.
Innocence or guilelessness,
gentleness, connubial love
and fidelity.

Nobility of mien and cha-
racter, magnanimity, bold-
ness.

Personal pride or vanity.
Industry, orderliness, con-
structive -skill.
Irritability of temper.
We hear a great deal of the lion as the ' 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 Eev. 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-

10. Beaver.

11. Glutton.

12. Ox.

13. Mule.

14. Dove.

15. Eagle.

16. Peacock.

17. Bee.

18. Wasp.

ANIMAL KEPUTATION. 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
alter 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 EEPUTA110N.

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 ' laughing ' hyaena, but its laughter is supposed
to be of the kind that we call ' fiendish,' and ascribe to the
typical demons of operas. Nevertheless the hyeena 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,
' 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 '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 KEPUTATION. 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
fee^l, 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 REPUTATION.

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 * 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
* 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. 89

' 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,
Blaine, 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 ' hounding ' in man is usually
revenge or crime.

90 ANIMAL KEPUTATION.

Again, we borrow the term ' 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
' 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 spea.k 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 EEPUTATION. 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 c 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 f 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. ' 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,
* 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 hos 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 ' 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 Gillmore 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

ANIMAL EEPUTATION. 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 EEPUTATION.

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. Rats, 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
tell? 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 011 her, and
his young, to return to her ' first love.' So that the character
8

96 ANIMAL EEPUTATION.

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 maw'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 ' instinct ' we never dream of connecting with ideas
of possible error, stupidity, confusion, temper, or idleness.

ANIMAL REPUTATION. 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 shown 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 ' Iliad/ book xxi.,
addresses the

"Wasp ! front of impudence, and past all bounds audacious ;

and from the earliest ages to the present day it has been
regarded as the type of everything in the human character
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

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 — from 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 EEPUTATION. 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 iisually, 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.

CHAPTER IX.

ALLEGED PSYCHICAL DIFFEKENCES 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 * 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 ot
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 Eesur-
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.' Nor 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
Eeligious 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 Biichner, 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.

o. 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 Miiller, the assertion as to self-
consciousness is * 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. ' 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 DIFFEEENCES 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 latent powers capable of development
under favourable conditions, is nearly synonymous with —

7. The capacity tor 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, accoi'ding 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
' 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.
' From personal observation of savage and semi- savage life,
I feel almost certain that a real savage is utterly incapable
of in any way raising himself. He lacks the sensibility
which must serve as a fulcrum for the lever which is to lift
him.' China, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Koine, 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
Fall.

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 Eoss 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 —

Reflection. 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). Their1 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 wards. 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, ' 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 soiling. 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 ' any system of culti-
vation ' (Hartshorn e), and the Bushmen of Southern Africa
have neither nocks nor cultivated ground (Richerer). On
the other hand, according to the observations of Dr. Lincecum,
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 ' 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 right season. ... In the
wet season the seeds in the ant granaries 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.' *
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 '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 ' Athenzeum,' January 16, 1875, p. 87.
» 'Nature,' April 8, 1875, p. 458.
9

112 DIFFERENCES 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 at 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 ' 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. Colour-change in the skin, or

114 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN

various of its appendages, from the same cause as that which
immediately produces a temporary hypersemia 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-
8ion — 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 c 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 OTHEK ANIMAL& 115

37. 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 costerntongers, carters, waggoners, and
drivers for humane treatment of donkeys, horses, and ponies,
4 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, R.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.' * 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, ' 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.

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 ' speculative truth.'
Animals ' apprehend the object, not the subject,' says Goodsir.
They lack the ' faculty of apprehending universals,' 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 f ally 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 noisiest of the human virtues : —

1. Heroism, patriotism, self-sacrifice.

2. Compassion or sympathy, charity, benevolence, for-
giveness.

3. Love and adoration of a master.

4. Fidelity to trust, duty, or friendship.

120 SUPKEMACY OF MAN.

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

SUPEEMACY 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 ' 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 Rev. Mr. Richerer (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.
* 'Daily Telegraph,' August 30, 1875.

122 SUPREMACY OF MAN.

Bari of Tropical Africa, says Sir Samuel Baker, is '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.'
The Manyuenia 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 Boss, 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.'

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, 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}r
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 Idnd, 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

SUPREMACY 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.

CHAPTEE XI.

INTER-RELATIONS OF INSTINCT AND REASON.

THE terras 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 thai, 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.

10

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 for re-
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 defined as * inherited
experience.' 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 common 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-

""N plained as those belonging to the preceding category; and —
J 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

130 INSTINCT AND REASON.

sparrow or chicken, the lion by the horse, CEstridce 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 oifspring. 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 t 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, 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.

6. 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 snort — 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.

6. 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.

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 EEASON. • 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-
nials — 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 variations of. instinct are illustrated in other chapters —
for instance, those on 'Adaptiveness,' 'Education,' ' 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 nidification 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
swallow 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 KEASON.

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 (Kouget).

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 KEASON. 135

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, ly 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 REASON.

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. 137

8. Combativeness, 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 KEASON.

of his presence, ' their thirst for water quite overcoming their
sense of danger.' 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 REASON. 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 eat 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 AXV 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.
His 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.

Ifc 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 denning 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, Eeid — 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 REASON. 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 PEOBLEMS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LOWER
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 tbe 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 PROBLEMS. 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. Unknown 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 hare 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
11

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 homeland 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 carne 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. Progs
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, ^nan'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

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 lee line in
certain cases ; but there is no good ground for believing
that this so-called * 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 cii-cumstances,
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

148 UNSOLVED PROBLEMS.

way- finding of blind men in the crowded, noisy streets of our
large 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 Red 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 PEOBLEM3. 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 diflicult
or impossible to understand what means the birds can have
at sea of judging of locality, or how they can recognise land-
marks 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 Rae, 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, determinable. 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 PEOBLKMS.

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 in 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 (Westwood), 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 PEOBLEMS.

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 ' 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.
* ' Daily Review ' (Edinburgh), August 31, 1874.
3 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 ' American Whaleman ' (Davis) states
that '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 bj 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 in 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 mainta^ied 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 no 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 PROBLEMS.

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-
te iro. 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
3annot 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.

12

MIND IN THE LOWER

ANIMALS:

ITS NORMAL MANIFESTATIONS.

MOBALITY AND EELIGION.

CHAPTEE I.

THE MOEAL 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-

164 MORAL 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.
6. 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, Yidal) .
/. 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).
6. The ' 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 ' blacks' of Australia (Biichner).

MORAL SENSE IN MAN. 165

I. 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.

\ 0. 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.

II. 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
titter 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 ' (Buchner).

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 IN 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' (Vidal). '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 Fijians ' 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, ' 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
' 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 'indicative of affection or love;' nor
does he show such emotions themselves (Moiiteiro). 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,
' 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
' 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 ' 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
' no idea of shame has ever caused them to think of veiling
their sexual parts' (Biichner). Defcecation is another prac-

MOKAL 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, * 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' (Biichner).
The Sultan Abdallah, 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 Carnivora 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 Red 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 MAN. 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.' l

Of American criminals Dr. Macdonald, of the State
Asylum for Insane Criminals, Auburn, New York, tells us,
* 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.
8 Seventeenth Annual Report of said Asylum (1877), p. 14.

172 MORAL 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 Sco-
iice tinkers). '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.' * Of a group of twenty-four persons some
were wholly, others partially, nude, in both cases with * 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, tlieir 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 * Deserted Village,'
speaking of tigers and their ferocity, refer to

Savage men, more murderous still than they.

In short, 'man's inhumanity to man' may well make
'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 truth ; and who
hold the treacherous and cowardly murder of a sleeping
guest the height of human honour?' In short, there is
' no sin, however infamous, no crime, however abominable,

174 MOKAL SENSE IN MAN.

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 ' 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.

CHAPTER 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.
13

176 MORAL 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, and
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 result of which is various forms or
degrees of wrong-doing.

But in the dog, cat, and other animals this wrong-doing

178 MORAL 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.

6. 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 OTHER 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,
* 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 ' she never stole again ' (' Animal World ').

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

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 on 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 reward 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 MOfiAL 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.
6. 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 unfrequently 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 : — ' 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 MORAL 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, on 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 ' 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 young 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 ni.

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.'

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 dimcult, 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 MOBAL MEEIT

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 ' 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, but 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 DEHEKIT. 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 her young (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 MERIT

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

Man'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.

14

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. It
exhibits equally its satisfaction at successful defence or the
salvation of life or property, and its shame at theft, especially
if caught inflagrante 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.

CHAPTEE IV.

MOEAL 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

194 MORAL 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
* 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,

MORAL 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 deeded 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 ' 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

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 Roman 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 say 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. m

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 MOKAL EESPONSIBILITY.

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 EESPONSIBILITY. 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 l 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 MOEAL EESPONSIBILITY.

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.

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.
&. Rudimentary forms of religion —
as well as in —

2. The higher or civilised races ; in —

a. Infants and children.
6. 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 Uev. William Colenso, of
Napier, New Zealand, says of the Maoris, when they wore
first visited by Europeans — a race with which I have myself

RELIGIOUS FEELING. 203

come in contact in the course of many wanderings — ' Eeli-
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.' ! 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 New
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 Rev. Dr.
Moffatt, the veteran South African missionary, says of the
Bushman (or Bosjesman), *He knows no god; knows no-
thing of eternity.' a 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 nof ion 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 New 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: — * 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 * 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 '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 Nyanza region of Central Africa, Baker reports that
the ' head of the Austrian mission acknowledged .... that
the mission was absolutely 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 'Dailv 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.' 1
Of one of the jungle Veddas 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 Rifles,' says of these Veddas, ' They know nothing
of heaven or hell, or any kind of future existence.' Never-
theless, * so far from being savage, they are mild and inoffen-
sive. . . . Missionaries would be much better and more
usefully employed at home in reclaiming the worse than wild
beasts 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 Magazine, vol. for 1876, p. 550.

206 RELIGIOUS 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.' l Lieutenant Low, of
H.H. 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 Researches among the Andaman Islanders,' 1863
p. 303.

* ' The Land of the Sun : Sketches of Travel,' 1870, p. 168.

IN LOWEE MAN. 207

the general existence of religion among men is .... to a
great extent a matter of definition.*

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 Ruler 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.

6. The lower animals.

c. Inanimate objects, including —

1. Trees, plants, or leaves.

2. Rocks 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.

6. A future state of being, whether of happiness or
the reverse.
15

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
' 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 sate
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 '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 ' 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. ' 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.
* « Sunday Magazine,' November 1875, p. 143.

IN LOWEE MAN. 209

India ' in the course of the same year was the subject of an
article in the ' Athenaeum.' 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 Rev. 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 ' all but idolatry ' with which he re-
garded Bunsen ; 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 worship 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. ' 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, 1876, p. 264.

2 < Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans,' 1854, vol. i. p. 237.

210 RELIGIOUS FEELING

rence; and they do all this noth withstanding 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 Adam 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 ' Sermons out of Church,' 1875, p. 10.

IN LOWER MAN. ill

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.' ' 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 graces 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 Sarnoyedes and Laplanders
of Northern Europe, and, on the other, among the in some re-
spects highly civilised Chinese. Rae tells us that the Russian
1 Autobiography, 1873.

212 EELIGIOUS FEELING

Sarnoyedes 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 ' noumea,' 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."

'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 shamanistic 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 ' 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 Samoyedes,' 1875, pp. 256-7.
s ' Chambers 's Encyclopaedia.'

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 be 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 RELIGIOUS 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 said, 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-
ton, 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.' * And among the same peasants
also there is still a belief in sorcery.* While of a class repre-
senting the average civilisation of the metropolis of the
world Lord Lyttelton, in replying to Mr. W. R. Greg's ' Rocks
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. 254. 2 Ibid. p. 256.

IN LOWEK 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

Nor form, nor feeling, great or small :
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual all-in-all.

* Here,' 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 ' 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 RELIGIOUS 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.' l

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 ' 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 mental 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 Encyclopedia.'

IN LOWER MAN. 217

neither in civilised nor savage peoples. Moreover, it has to be
noted that, where it does exist, a low development of religions
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.

EELIGIOUS 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.

b. Dutiful conduct.

c. Reverence 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. 'A blind sense of dependence' (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 RELIGIOUS 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 Flint 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.' ! 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.

IN OTHEE 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 Eobert 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
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 Grod 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
love, 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 a,lso 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 * 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 powerlessness 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 OTHER 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

16

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
By 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 ' 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 story. Hood exclaims, and may well do so —

Alas for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun !

226 RELIGIOUS FEELINO

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
on ' 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 OTHER 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 « Language ' or the
expression of the desires. If qui laborat oral 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 ' 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 4 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

228 RELIGIOUS FEELING

certain bitch, that had a special respect for the drivers or
stokers of locomotive engines on the Metropolitan Railway
(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 ' 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.' l 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. 24-5.

IN OTHER ANIMALS. 229

those on 'Crime5 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
value 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 ' 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 EELIGIOUS 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
appears 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 ANIMALS. 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 ' 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 l<yve 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 tStays at home and turns the spit ;

For though good dogs to church may go,
Yet going there don't make them so.

232 RELIGIOUS 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 KESULTS.

CHAPTER VII.

CAPACITY FOR 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 ' 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 FOR 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 : — ' 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.' 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,'
' Error,' and * Mental Derangement.'

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 C9rrespondingly special
education for their due development. In certain dogs and in

1 « Daily Review ' report of a lecture delivered in Edinburgh in February
1877.

CAPACITY FOE 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 * performing '
or ' 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 orprofessional 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.

Reflection.

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
restore to the paths of rectitude animals that are morally in
the position 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. Remarkable 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.'

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.

17

Z40 CAPACITY FOR 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 up 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 with, 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.

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 FOE EDUCATION. 243

be no mental distraction on the pupil's part ; he 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 rations 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

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 upt>n 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.
6. 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 —

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. Recognition 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.
6. 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, '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 (' 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. Eooks 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, on 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 hi 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 (Gillmore), 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, ' 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 * 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 ' 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 the
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.

Rat-catching terriers explore houses in search of their
prey. Both cats and dogs sometimes seeTc 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' (Biichner). Cingalese elephants try the strength of
bridges before trusting their body weight on 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 tiying 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 * 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
18

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 MAW.

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 may be 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.

258 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY MAN.

/. Playing games of various kinds with man.

g. Peats in arithmetic, or the calculation of numbers.

h. Beading the clock, involving a knowledge of
figures, if not also of numbers or time.

i. Beading or understanding figures on cards,
patterns on carpets, pictorial illustrations of
persons, other animals, and things.

j. Peats of song and whistling, including the per-
formance of operas and concerts, involving the
taking of parts.

~k. 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
'play' appropriately their different parts, in-
cluding the simulation of human character, of
military exercises, of declamation.

m. Peats 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 oil 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.

6. 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 Hind 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.

g. 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
' monkey coolies,' in Ceylon.

m. 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.

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, f eats her egg with a spoon,
takes her grog daily, 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 l imported from
Acheen in batches like coolies, and are marched round the
plantations by their owners, who let them out on hire.'
They are ' 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. g. Sympathy.

b. Obedience. h. Eespect.

c. Self-control. i. Coolness or calmness.

d. Docility. j. Industry.

e. Honesty. If. 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 the}7
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. '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.

Habit 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.' J
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

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 ' 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 Hanley, 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'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. But 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, '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, '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

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.'

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 tram 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 * 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 * 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 hysena, Madagascar lemur, American skunk,
19

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 thefortiter 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 the gentle yet firm — in other words,
judicious and skilful — management of his charges, the sheep.

CHAPTER X.

EDUCATION OP ANIMALS BY EACH OTHER.

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/ 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-selee-

276 EDUCATION OF ANIMALS BY EACH OTHEE.

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 (* 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, f 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, ' 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 metliod 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 young, 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 OTHEE. 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,' on ' Stupidity,' and on ' Error.'

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
* 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).

8 elf -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.

CHAPTER XI.

LANGUAGE IN LOWER MAN.

PRESUMPTUOUS man never made a graver mistake than
when he distinctively defined 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 ' 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 thab 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 utter 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 IN LOWER MAN. 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, '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 without
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 ' crying for the light,' as having ' no language
but a cry.' 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 wails (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 written 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. Rubbing 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 « 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.
' 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
whines 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 j 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.3 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, howls, 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
diflicult 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,
* 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
' 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

20

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 ' 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, ' one service every Sunday is conducted in the language
of signs.' 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 ' 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 Home, or of modern Germany and

290 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS.

France, 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 veiy name philology is literally a fondness for words —
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 sufficient 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 OTHER 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 Ferrier, 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

292 LANGUAGE IN OTHER ANIMALS.

the result of (a) self-tuition or of (6) man's instruction or
training. In both cases its variety is to be remarked upon,
and, just 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 —
&. 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.

3. 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.

6. 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 to3

LANGUAGE IN 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

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 OTHEE 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 (Reynolds, Darwin).

The orang expresses anger, joy, and peevishness by
stamping (Cassell) . The hen's well-known cluck may signify
either (a) food discovery, or (&) satisfaction at the delivery
of an egg, or (c) maternal pride at seeing her brood around
her (Darwin).

The camel expresses, by tne 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 consequentiality, 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, which 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 demonstrativeness
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 not 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. Restlessless 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.

b. 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. Rebuke.

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.

&. 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 /mmcm-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
' 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 '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 —
t. 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 ' 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 :
— Roused from sleep by the one o'clock time-gun fired from
Edinburgh Castle, he would exclaim, * 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, ' 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
21

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, and it could
venture to abuse both in French and English those who
affronted it.

And, what is even more 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.
Pierquin 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 Pajace bird shows in 1875, 'not only spoke
English but French too ' (« Animal World ').

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 * Ma-ma.'

There is, for instance, a so-called 'speaking bird' in
Guiana (Waterton), 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, no doubt,
of the so-called talk even of the starling.

Those who have studied bird song have pointed out the

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 speaJc 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 Ferrier. 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-
meister, 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 f 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).

CHAPTEE 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,

skulking, slinking, shirking, or shrinking.
E.g. in the dog, cat, and orang.

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, guanaco,
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.
&. 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.
/. Band-wringing, squeezing, or shaking.

E.g. in the lori, certain monkeys, and

anthropoid apes. ,

8. Head and its appendages, including horns.
a. Butting and goring.

E.g. in cattle, deer, sheep, goats, capy-

bara.
&. 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
Ruminants.

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, napping,

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. Hyperc&mia — 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).

fe. 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 fluid*.

NON- 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
Rosa 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 '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 touchy especially as it occurs among ants. By
strokes of their antennae 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
words.'

CHAPTER XV.

LAUGHTER AND WEEPING.

THEBE 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 a,s 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 ggod-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 LATJGHTEE 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 ' evident purpose ; ' the dog
'wished to be particularly agreeable,' and he imitated man's
laughter even to '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
Wyville 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
' 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.

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.

Nor 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 ' f ranticness ' — 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 hi 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.' 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 monopoly 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 f 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 (Buckland). Miss Cobbe says,
* The goose .... has perhaps the keenest appreciation of
humour of any animal, unless it be her own arch-enemy the

LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 319

fox.' 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 ' run the gauntlet '
down a lane 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
22

320 LAUGHTEE 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 '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 '
hysena, 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 'the
laugher' (Schmidt).

6. Livingstone mentions an African (brown) ibis whose
cry is * a loud ha-ha-ha ! '

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

LAUGHTER 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 Eengger).

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

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, ' 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, ' 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 ' 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.

In certain cases there is sobbing without tears, or the

LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 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 OP 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.

&. 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.

6. Prey — in order to their capture.

10. To issue orders or commands ; make requests or de-
mands.

1 1. 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.

Animation.

Blame, imputation

Abuse.

Announcements,

of.

Accident or un-

making and re-

— sense of.

usual contin-

ceiving.

Blandishment.

gency, sense of.

Annoyance.

Boastfulness.

Acquaintanceship.

Answering to ques-

Buoyancy of

Address, paying.

tions.

spirits.

Adoration.

Anticipation.

Business, sense of.

Advantage, sense

Antipathy.

of.

Anxiety.

Cajolery or

Adventuresome-

Apathy.

Coaxing.

ness.

Apology.

CaU.

Advice, power of

Appeal.

Calmness.

giving.

Appetite, sexual or

Caricature.

Affectation.

other.

Caution.

Affection.

Apprehension.

Chagrin.

Affirmation.

Approval.

Challenge.

Affliction.

Ardour.

Chastisement,

Affront, desire to

Arrogance.

sense of.

offer.

Astonishment.

Cheerfulness.

Affront, sense of.

Attachment to

Choice.

Agitation.

persons, places,

Churlishness.

Agony, or

other animals.

Civility.

Anguish, physi-

Attention.

Coldness, or

cal or men-

Authority, sense of.

Coolness, of feel-

tal.

Aversion.

ing.

Aid, desire for

Awe.

Combativeness.

— intention of

Comfort, sense of.

giving.

Bad temper.

Command.

Alacrity.

Begging.

Companionship,

Alarm.

Belief.

love of.

Alertness.

Benefit, sense of

Compassion.

Amity.

Benignity.

Complacency.

Amorousness.

Bereavement,sense

Complaint.

Amusement.

of.

Complaisance.

Anger.

Bewilderment.

Compliance.

EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

329

Compliment, pay-

Defence.

Disobedience.

ing.

Defiance.

Display, love of.

Compliment, sense

Dejection.

Displeasure, sense

of.

Delight.

of man's.

Conciliation.

Deliverance, sense

Dissatisfaction.

Condemnation,

of.

Distress, mental.

sense of.

Delusion.

Disturbance, or

Confession.

Demand.

Disorder, men-

Confidence.

Demonstrativeness

tal.

Confusion.

Demureness.

Diversion.

Congratulation.

Deprecation.

Doubt.

Consciousness.

Depression,mental.

Dread.

Consequentially.

Derision.

Drollery.

Consternation.

Desire and desires.

Drudgery, sense of.

Constraint.

Despair.

Duty, sense of.

Contempt.

Desperation.

Content or

Despondency.

Eagerness.

Contentment.

Detection, sense of.

Earnestness.

Conventionality.

Determination.

Ease, sense of.

Coquetry.

Difference, sense of.

Ecstasy.

Cordiality.

Difficulty, sense of.

Effrontery.

Courage.

Diffidence.

Effusiveness.

Courtesy.

Dignity.

Elation of spirits.

Courtship.

Disappointment.

Embarrassment.

Covetousness.

Disapprobation.

Emergency, sense

Cowardice.

Discomfiture, sense

of.

Coxcombry.

of.

Emotion.

Craftiness.

Discomfort, sense

Emulation.

Craving — for love,

of.

Encouragement,

society, or com-

Discomposure.

desire to give.

panionship.

Disconsolateness.

Encouragement,

Cruelty, sense of

Discontent.

sense of.

received.

Discovery, sense of.

Endurance.

Cunning.

Disdain.

Energy.

Curiosity.

Disease, mental

Enjoyment.

and bodily.

Enmity.

Danger, sense of.

Disgrace, sense of.

Ennui.

Decision.

Disgust.

Enquiry.

Defeat, sense of.

Dislike.

Enthusiasm.

330

EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

Entreaty.

Fieriness of tem-

Happiness.

Envy.

per or spirit.

Hate or

Error.

Fondness.

Hatred.

Escape, sense of.

Forebodings.

Haughtiness.

Esteem.

Freedom, sense of.

Heartiness.

Exaltation, sense

Fretfulness.

Hesitation.

of.

Friendliness or

Holiday, sense of.

Exasperation.

Friendship.

Hope.

Excitement, men-

Fright.

Hopelessness.

tal.

Frivolity.

Horror.

Execration.

Fun.

Hostility.

Exhaustion, bodily

Fury.

Humiliation, sense

Exhilaration.

of.

Exhortation.

Gaiety of spirits.

Humility.

Existence, sense of.

Gallantry.

Humour.

Expectation or

Generosity.

Hunger.

Expectancy.

Gentleness.

Hypersensitive-

Expostulation.

Gladness.

ness.

Exuberance of

Glee.

spirits or of

Gloom, or

Ideas.

emotion.

Gloominess, of

Identity.

Exultation.

spirits.

Ignorance.

Glory, sense of.

Ill humour or na-

Falsehood, sense of.

Good breeding.

ture.

Familiarity.

— feeling.

Illness, bodily a,nd

Farewell or

Good luck, sense

mental.

Goodbye.

of.

Imagination and

Fatigue, bodily.

Good nature, tem-

Imaginativeness.

Favour, design to

per, or humour.

Imitation.

confer.

Good wishes.

Impatience.

Favour, sense of.

Gratification.

Imperiousness.

Favouritism.

Gratitude.

Importunity.

Fear.

Gravity or

Imposture.

Fearlessness.

Graveness.

Impudence.

Feelings and feel-

Greeting.

Inclination.

ing.

Grief.

Incoherency.

Fidgetiness.

Gruffness.

Indifference.

Fierceness or

Guardianship.

Indignation.

Ferocity.

Guilt, sense of.

Indolence.

EXPRESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

331

Information, or

Love, sexual.

Order, sense of.

Intelligence, giv-

Lugubriousness.

Orders, giving.

ing and receiv-

ing-

Magnanimity.

Pain, both of body

Injustice, sense of.

Malice or

and mind.

Innocence.

Maliciousness.

Passions.

Insanity, various

Meaning.

Pathos.

forms of.

Meanness.

Patience.

Insolence.

Meekness.

Peace, sense of.

Insult, desire to

Melancholy.

Peevishness.

offer.

Memory, retentive-

Pensiveness.

Insult, sense of.

ness of.

Peremptoriness.

Intentions.

Menace.

Perfun ctorines s .

Intentness.

Mercy, receiving

Perplexity.

Interest.

and showing.

Pertinacity.

Interrogation.

Merit, sense of.

Pertness.

Irascibility.

Mildness of dispo-

Petition.

Irritability.

sition.

Pet or

Irritation.

Mimicry.

Pettedness.

Investigation.

Mirth.

Pity and

Mischievousness.

Piteousness.

Jealousy.

Misery.

Petulance.

Jeering.

Mockery.

Plaintiveness.

Jest.

Moodiness.

Plans.

Joke.

Mourning and

Playfulness.

Joy.

Mournfulness.

Pleading.

Justice, sense of.

Pleasure, both of

Necessities or

body and mind.

Kindness, sense

Needs.

Politeness.

of.

Negation.

Praise, apprecia-

News, giving and

tion of.

Lamentation.

receiving.

Preference.

Languishing.

Nobility of cha-

Pretence.

Liberty, sense of.

racter.

Pride.

Likings.

Novelty, sense of.

Promptitude.

Listlessness.

Propitiation.

Loathing.

Obedience.

Protection, sense

Longings.

Obstinacy.

of.

Loss, sense of.

Offence, sense of.

Protest.

332

EXPEESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

Provocation.

Resentment.

Shelter, sense of.

Punishment, sense

Resignation.

Shyness.

of.

Resistance.

Signs or

Purpose.

Resolution.

Signals.

Pusillanimity.

Respect or

Slyness.

Regard.

Soberness or

Quarrelsomeness.

Restlessness of

Sobriety.

Questioning.

mind.

Solemnity.

Revenge.

Solicitation.

Rage.

Rivalry.

Solicitude.

Rapture.

Rudeness.

Sorrow.

Rebuke.

Spirit.

Recognition.

Sadness.

Spite or

Recovery, sense of.

Safety, sense of.

Spitefulness.

Refinement.

Salutation.

Sportiveness.

Reflection.

Satire or

Sprightliness.

Refusal.

Sarcasm.

Stealthiness.

Regret.

Satisfaction.

Strangeness, sense

Reinstatement in,

Scolding.

of.

or Restoration

Sedateness.

Strength, sense of,

to, favour, sense

Self-absorption.

or of its ab-

of.

— approbation.

sence.

Rejoicing.

— compliment.

Stupidity.

Relaxation, sense

— conceit.

Suavity.

of.

— control.

Submissiveness and

Release, or

— defence, sense

Submission.

Relief, sense of.

of necessity

Success, sense of.

Remonstrance.

for.

Suffering, mental

Repartee.

— gratulation.

or bodily.

Repentance.

— importance.

Sulkiness.

Reply or

— love.

Sullenness.

Response.

— reliance.

Supplication.

Repose, sense of.

— repression.

Surliness.

Reproach.

— satisfaction.

Surprise.

Repugnance.

— sufliciency.

Suspicion or

Repulsion and

Selfishness.

Suspiciousness.

Repulsiveness.

Sensations.

Sympathy.

Requests.

Seriousness.

Requirements.

Shame, sense of.

Temper.

EXPEESSIVENESS OF ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

333

Tenderness.

Unusual, sense of

Watchfulness.

Terror.

the.

Waywardness.

Thanks.

Upbraiding.

Weakness, sense

Thirst.

Urbanity.

of physical.

Thoughtfulness.

Urgency.

Weariness.

Thoughts.

Uxoriousness.

Welcome.

Threats and

Wilfulness.

Threatening.

Valour.

Willingness.

Timidity.

Vanity.

Wishes.

Timorousness.

Vehemence.

Wistfulness.

Transport.

Vexation.

Woe.

Trepidation.

Victory, sense of.

Wonder.

Triumph, sense of.

Vigilance.

Wooing.

Vivacity.

Worry, sense of.

Unconcern. .

Vulgarity.

Wrath.

Understanding.

Wrong-doing,

Uneasiness — of

Wants.

sense of.

mind or body.

War, disposition or

Wounded feeling.

Unseen, dread of

readiness for.

the.

Warning.

Yearning.

CHAPTER XVII.

INTELLIGIBILITY OP 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). Re-
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 OTHEK'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 : ' 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 hyaena 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 OTHER'S LANGUAGE. 337

is understood both bj 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).

CHAPTER 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 essentially 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 ' 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.

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. Tims 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 ia man, in a large number of cases, motives in other
animals are obviously 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. Wo 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 the 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 l 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 treat-
ing as friends — not as slaves — their milk cattle, plant lice
(Aphides) or beetles (species of Claviger). 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 harvesting 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 MAN. 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.'

CHAPTER 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 UNDEKSTANDING 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
Eossiter) .

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
his 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-coming 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-
24

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,5 and it was subsequently found
that he went on 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
coming by such means to a conclusion how far it has reason
to fear or to trust man, the dog is very mucli 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,

UNDERSTANDING 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 game,

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 by 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

UNDEKSTANDING 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, at
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,
in one of his tales — ' 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 thje
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-

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).

ADAPTIYENESS.

CHAPTER XX.

GENEBAL 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 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS.

4. SHU, 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

GENEEAL 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 pr&y.

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.

13. 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. Eepair 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 * Language.'

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 GENEEAL 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 bine — 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 yielfl. a much-prized honeydew. Ants own whole
4 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 antennae 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
Royal Institution, London, in January 1877.

GENERAL 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.'

' 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 Cercopidcs 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 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS.

2. The construction and defence of fortresses, fortifica-
tions, camps and barricades.

8. 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 remaine'd 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.'

364 GENERAL 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

GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS. 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 GENERAL 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
Copeland). 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 Nicaraguan 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,
* 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-
25

368 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS.

vanced much, by the introduction of western civilisation.5
Some birds give up the use of moss in favour of wool in
nest-making or lining. The yellow-hammer uses man's
thread, 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. 369

porary scaffolding (Watson), just as man does, and only in
emergency — 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 * 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

370 GENERAL ADAPTIVE!* ESS.

themselves underneath (Gillmore). Hens wait and watch
patiently the splitting up of firewood for the sake of the
embedded larvae (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, '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 ' 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

GENERAL 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 ' 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 preservation 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

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 confinement 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 ADAPTIVENESS. 373

observed an old bled 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 ; and
the wolf, pelican, and other animals do the same.

The somewhat common phenomenon of dogs stopping
runaway 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 ' 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 GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS.

common fly by simply tiring it out by its* greater pertinacity.
' By seizing a wing or leg, and holding on till the fly is tired
out J (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 * 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').

Many other arrangements for mutual advantage or aid
involve adaptiveness. Thus titi monkeys cuddle together as
children do for mutual warmth and companionship (Gas-
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 are
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 GENEKAL ADAPTIVENESS.

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.

CHAPTEE 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. Respect 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 —

a. Boyal chambers or apartments.

378 ORGANISATIONS.

6. 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 (Biichner).

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 amasons,
female troops or soldiers (Westwood). According to Combe
there are exceptional cases — as in goats — where the leader
of a flock or herd is a female.

Certain Termites, says Biichner, * 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. Republics have been described in the
ant and bee (Figuier), in horses, dogs, and other animals. The
commonwealths 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,
flock 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.

3. The subjection of the weak to the strong in body, mind,
will.

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 1876.

380 ORGANISATIONS.

stantinople, camels, deer, oxen, mules, sheep, elephants,
buffalo, ass, kangaroo, goats, certain of the Quadrumana
(such as the siamang 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 ' 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 Lon gears 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).

Man himself frequently becomes the leader of his flocks
or herds, as in the case of shepherds in the East, who
literally * 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 (Touatt).

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, iopunisJi-
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, no one knows how, and his supremacy is at once, by
tacit consent, acknowledged. Average people feel that he is
'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
26

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 very 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

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

1 < North British Daily Mail,' December 27, 1876.
a 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

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. Koyal 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, Spence,
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 all 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 or 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
banting 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, * 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 (' 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, « 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
honour, as of danger, is the rear assault, it is entrusted to
the most experienced, bravest animal (Gillmore).

392 OEGANISATIONS.

Two taine 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-hyzenas, 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. Eavens 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 forma of crime — such as —

a. Theft of all kinds — from shop-lifting, sheep-
stealing, poaching, brigandage, burglary,
smuggling, up to highway robbery.

I. 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 of 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 the 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 j and without complete confidence in the operator
or co-operator there can obviously be no hearty and efficient
co-operation.

CHAPTER XXII.

LA\V 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 jnight 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. Carriageable 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. Eank 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.

3. 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
laiv. 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
27

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 thesja northern islands. He pro-
fesses to have seen ' 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, ' 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 * 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

402 LAW AND PUNISHMENT.

be erroneous, that we have to deal with an accused, con-
victed, condemned criminal ; official accusers ; and the sum-
mary 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 AND PUNISHMENT. 403

5. Various forms of ill-temper.

6. 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. Kivalry.

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.

16. Malingering.

1 7. 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
the 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.

b. Buffeting — also by birds.

c. Worrying by dogs.

d. Precipitation.

e. Drowning.
/. Stinging.

2. Banishment or outlawry, as in 'rogue' elephants;
deposition, or other forms of disgrace.

3. Corporal chastisement, by —

a. Blows or cuffs.

404 LAW AND PUNISHMENT.

b. 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' (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 * 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 Rhesus 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 march 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
' 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 watei. 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 PUNISHMENT. 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
cruelty. 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 offices 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

USE OF NATURAL 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 NATURAL INSTRUMENTS.

said to be tool- or weapon-makers, just as they are indubit-
ably tool- or weapon-users. 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 antennae, 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 Quadrmnana 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
(Houzeau) and monkeys (Miss Gordon Cumming) 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 Cumming tells us of monkeys in India ' nursing
their babies as tenderly as a woman .... sometimes
carrying a baby in each arm,' or the babies were seen ' sit-
ting on their (mothers') backs, with their little arms round
the parental necks.' They sometimes also run on all fours,
* 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. In 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-
rumana 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 or
hug 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 hands.

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 Verney). A young, and necessarily wild, soko ' held
out her hand to be shaken ' (Livingstone). The chimpanzee
presents its hanjd 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). Yarious 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

(Drayson). 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 callithrix monkey rubs its hands in anger
(Cassell). Wringing 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'
(Biichner). 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 Rhesus,
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 mona 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 Parkyns). 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 callithrix, 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 (' Nature '). 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.' l

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
' handiness J among the Quadrumana, it is desirable to con-
trast them with a parallel series of illustrations of what may
equally appropriately be denominated the ' 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
' 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 the bit of oiled
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 5, 1876, p. 123.
28

416 USE OF NATUEAL INSTKUMENTS.

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
(' 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 asking 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 NATUKAL 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 full 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.' !

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.

418 USE OF NATURAL 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). Rats 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,
Avith 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 NATUKAL 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,' says Dr. Robert 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

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, marinozet, 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 Romanes, 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 Tiis
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, by 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 ' at a certain hour every
afternoon ' to intimate that it had come for its food supply
(Carpenter). Eobins 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 NATUEAL 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 INSTRUMENTS. 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 ' 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 dog
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 OF NATURAL INSTRUMENTS.

the case of the bull or wild boar. The domestic ox breaks
fences with its horns. A bull lifted a gate off its hinges by
means of its horns, employed as a hoist or lever (' 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, ' 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 Tise 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 NATURAL INSTRUMENTS.

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 (Buchiier;
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 Burmah 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 NATURAL INSTRUMENTS. 427

oyster-shells (Dampier). In the commoner case of birds,
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 midden' ('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.' Boddam 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' (Biichner). 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 c'omparable with the shelters con-
structed for themselves by the various primitive people who

428 USE OF NATURAL 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 INSTKUMENTS.

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 j 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-making 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'S' INSTRUMENTS. 431

modicum- of bread at the baker's — lie 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, ' 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 * 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, ' 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
29

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
nse 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 ' 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. * 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

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 hora, 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
' 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 kickg, 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 Quadruinana 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

436 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS.

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 Niam-niam
hunters, armed with spears, wrest these spears from their
human pursuers, against whom they 'make good use of
them.' The orai*g 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').

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-
di'esser'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 &eZZ-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 well as the nefarious one of deceiving servants in

438 USE OF MAN'S INSTKUMENTS.

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-
deeper 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 ').

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. ' 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
telum 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 lest effect.

CHAPTER XXV.

USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTEE.

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 ' covers herself with a mat to sleep,' according
to Livingstone. Others of the anthropoid apes wear man's

USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTEE. 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
' 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.' '

Dr. Yvan, who was attached to the French expedition to
China in the year 1843, tells us that 'a certain Borneo orang
clothed himself as soon as ever he could lay hold of any piece
of stuff for the purpose.' Lady Yerney 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,
e 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
o'ver 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 ' in holes in the earth,
dug out with their hands ' (Biichner). 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 Rev. 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 (Biichner).
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 SHELTER.

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. ' At the Lucknow madhouse,' says Gerhardt,
' 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 Vabri (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
' 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,
dwelling1, 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
shelter 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 FOOD.

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,

PREPARATION 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).
' 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,' as well as other forms of putrid or mouldy meat.
Part of the food of the Apache Indians consists of stolen
horses and asses. ' 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 Yeddas 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.' l

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, ' He drank like a dog, and liked a bone and
1 ' Academy, May 1875.

448 PREPARATION 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, e Before they eat or taste food they smell
it, and when they don't like the smell they throw it away.'
A boy found in company with a female wolf and her cubs
1 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 Muller 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,

PREPARATION 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 beast 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,
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 t 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). ^ome 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

450 PREPAEATION OF FOOD.

the Taj, 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 ' (Buchner).

CHAPTEE XXVII.

FACULTY OP NUMEBATION.

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 ' art of reckoning by numbers,' unless in a
very limited sense and in a very rudimentary degree. Thus
the Veddas of Ceylon are described by Hartshorn 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.

452 FACULTY OF NUMEKATION.

aborigines of New Caledonia ' 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 (Biichner). 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, ' 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 (' 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 NUMEEATION. 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 thinks that all are gone, and
becomes careless' (Buchner). 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 OP 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
1 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.

POWER 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. Appreciation 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
come 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 POWER 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 clock — as
being able to indicate the hour by reading the dial of either
or both (Watson). But there is obviously 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

POWER OF CALCULATION. 459

even during summer ; while (3) there are other possible ex-
planations— 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, ( 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 Eest, 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).

Eooks 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

POWER OF CALCULATION. 461

fourteenth 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 * 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 e 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 ' 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
31

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, ' 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 c 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-

466 POWER OF CALCULATION.

fallen to the nearest busli 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 ' the merlin by the force and impetus of its flight plunged,
head over ears, into the sea, whence, with draggled plumage
and brine-rblinded 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, ra.shly, 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.
9 < 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.

CHAPTEE XXIX.

COURTSHIP AND MAESIAGE.

THEEE 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,i Deliberation — the consideration of the qualifica-
tions of candidates.

&. 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 MAKEIAGE. 469

of personal charms by the male, which involves on his
part —

a. The study of effect.

6. 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 COUKTSHIP AND MAKEIAGE.

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
erplanation 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 MAKKIAGE. 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 femalgs. 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.

3. 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 COUETSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

10. Selection of proper articles by dogs or otlier 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

COUKTSHIP 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 artificial 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
* back it would double, facing all the danger from me rather
than advance nearer to its natural enemy.' There can be no
difiiculty 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 ; ' 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. 475

If it should be objected that their rubbing of noses lias 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 (esthetic 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 sc 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 COURTSHIP AND MAKKIAGE.

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 (Kouzeau), 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 appreciate
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
a,nimal 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.'

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 to 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 (' 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 ' (Von 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 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

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.' 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 ' 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 * 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 COUKTSHIP 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 ' 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 sacred, 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. For instance, court-

COURTSHIP AND MAERIAGE. 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.

CHAPTEE 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

FOSTER 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

484 FOSTER PARENTAGE.

foster-mother, as bj 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 un wittingly, ignorantly, exhibiting therein
grave errors of the maternal instinct. Thus certain birds sit
on l 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 * 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 ' 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, 011 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, 011 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,' 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, France and England, who devolve
upon others some of the perhaps irksome duties of their own
maternity.

FOSTEK PAKENTAGE. 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 habits 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.

3. 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. Eeflection.

13. Caution, haste, eagerness, impatience.

1 4. 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 ERROR.

27. Instinct.

28. Panic, fright and fear.

29. Combativeness and temper : obstinacy.

30. Rivalry 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 EEROE. 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 ' 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 EEEOR. 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 eiforts 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 ' 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 Responsibility ' 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 display 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' 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 naturalibus. 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 (Oassell) — 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 '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.
33

496 LIABILITY TO ERROR.

2. The dog that rolls itself in putrid carcases only at-
tracts fl,ies 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 ;5 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 j
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 fails 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.

CHAPTER XXXII.

COMMISSION OP ERROR.

AMONG the most frequently quoted examples of ' unerring
instinct,' guiding actions or operations superior to those
which result from human reason, is the cell-making of the
bee — 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 larvae 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

500 COMMISSION OF ERROR.

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 io 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 FUROR 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 ' 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 ERROR.

they 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 ieast 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 EEEOK.

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 — ' 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 (8) 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 (' 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 ' 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 ERROE. 507

as well as upon * dummies ' — inert, inanimate substances,
such as stones or imitation eggs.

Hancock tells us that birds ' 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, * 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
'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 ' 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, 1874.

508 COMMISSION OF EKROB.

the eggs, or of the young, from cold. Some birds deposit
their eggs in nests where they will not be hatched (Houzeau).
The quail and partridge ' 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 ' 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 ERROR. 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 the food 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 itsejlf may be the direct result of its sur-
feit. The special fon&ness 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 ERROR. 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 Kamtschatka, 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 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 EEEOK (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 j 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 ' will even butt against its own shadow in a looking-
glass.5 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 J).

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.

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
' would start back affrighted on a looking-glass being pre-
sented to them.' A correspondent of the ' 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

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 (Hurnboldt). 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.

Yarious 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 EEEOB. 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 EEEOR.

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 EEEOB. 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 ' 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 EEEOR.

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 uniformly
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. * 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 block
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 EEEOE.

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).

CHAPTEE 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, a-nd 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 then
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 ' lazy dog,' or ' idle dog,' or
'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 manoauvres ;

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, attitude 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),/et'(jw 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 ' 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 that
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
prey, 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 Nicaraguan
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, ' 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 lying 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,5
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,
' 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. i . . . . 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 ' 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. Eeynard, 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 (' 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

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.

Ravens 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
'French 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 Rhesus 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, ' 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 « 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

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
' 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 1 .

6. Imitation | ^ a 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
' 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 ly 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,' 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 ' (Eomanes).

Perhaps the most interesting feature in these attempts of
man to" outwit or cheat other animals is their frequent) /cufotre
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 dog 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 Cumming 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.

CEETAIN 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 '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 Ehesus 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 PRACTICAL 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 (« Animal World ').

It does not follow that there is always, though there
must be sometimes, realisation, or appreciation of the kind

PRACTICAL 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,
' 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. ' 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 pseans 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 PRACTICAL 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 '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 *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, ' 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
hurtj 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 fun ;
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 meanings, 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.'

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
' 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 ' 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 PKACTICAL 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,

PRACTICAL 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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