TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. 

The words phoebe, manoeuvre, manoeuvring, Pooecetes and phoeniceus use"oe" ligature in the original text. 

The printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. 

 WAYS OF NATURE

 [Illustration: A BIRD IN SIGHT]

 WAYS OF NATURE

 BY

 JOHN BURROUGHS

 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge

 COPYRIGHT 1905 BY JOHN BURROUGHS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published October 1905_

 PREFACE

My reader will find this volume quite a departure in certain ways fromthe tone and spirit of my previous books, especially in regard to thesubject of animal intelligence. Heretofore I have made the most ofevery gleam of intelligence of bird or four-footed beast that cameunder my observation, often, I fancy, making too much of it, andgiving the wild creatures credit for more "sense" than they reallypossessed. The nature lover is always tempted to do this very thing;his tendency is to humanize the wild life about him, and to read hisown traits and moods into whatever he looks upon. I have neverconsciously done this myself, at least to the extent of willfullymisleading my reader. But some of our later nature writers have beenguilty of this fault, and have so grossly exaggerated andmisrepresented the every-day wild life of our fields and woods thattheir example has caused a strong reaction to take place in my ownmind, and has led me to set about examining the whole subject ofanimal life and instinct in a way I have never done before. 

In March, 1903, I contributed to "The Atlantic Monthly" a paper called"Real and Sham Natural History, " which was as vigorous a protest as Icould make against the growing tendency to humanize the loweranimals. The paper was widely read and discussed, and bore fruit inmany ways, much of it good and wholesome fruit, but a little of itbitter and acrid. For obvious reasons that paper is not included inthis collection. But I have given all the essays that were the outcomeof the currents of thought and inquiry that it set going in my mind, and I have given them nearly in the order in which they were written, so that the reader may see the growth of my own mind and opinions inrelation to the subject. I confess I have not been fully able topersuade myself that the lower animals ever show anything more than afaint gleam of what we call thought and reflection, --the power toevolve ideas from sense impressions, --except feebly in the case of thedog and the apes, and possibly the elephant. Nearly all the animalbehavior that the credulous public looks upon as the outcome of reasonis simply the result of the adaptiveness and plasticity of instinct. The animal has impulses and impressions where we have ideas andconcepts. Of our faculties I concede to them perception, sense memory, and association of memories, and little else. Without these it wouldbe impossible for their lives to go on. 

I am aware that there is much repetition in this volume, and that thenames of several of the separate chapters differ much more than do thesubjects discussed in them. 

When I was a boy on the farm, we used to thrash our grain with thehand-flail. Our custom was to thrash a flooring of sheaves on one side, then turn the sheaves over and thrash them on the other, then unbindthem and thrash the loosened straw again, and then finish by turningthe whole over and thrashing it once more. I suspect my reader willfeel that I have followed the same method in many of these papers. Ihave thrashed the same straw several times, but I have turned it eachtime, and I trust have been rewarded by a few additional grains of truth. 

Let me hope that the result of the discussion or thrashing will not be tomake the reader love the animals less, but rather to love the truth more. 

 June, 1905. 

 CONTENTS

 PAGE I. WAYS OF NATURE 1 II. BIRD-SONGS 29 III. NATURE WITH CLOSED DOORS 47 IV. THE WIT OF A DUCK 53 V. FACTORS IN ANIMAL LIFE 59 VI. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 87 VII. DEVIOUS PATHS 109 VIII. WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW? 123 IX. DO ANIMALS THINK AND REFLECT? 151 X. A PINCH OF SALT 173 XI. THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF NATURE 191 XII. A BEAVER'S REASON 209 XIII. READING THE BOOK OF NATURE 231 XIV. GATHERED BY THE WAY I. THE TRAINING OF WILD ANIMALS 239 II. AN ASTONISHED PORCUPINE 242 III. BIRDS AND STRINGS 246 IV. MIMICRY 248 V. THE COLORS OF FRUITS 251 VI. INSTINCT 254 VII. THE ROBIN 261 VIII. THE CROW 265

 INDEX 273

 I

 WAYS OF NATURE

I was much amused lately by a half-dozen or more letters that came tome from some Californian schoolchildren, who wrote to ask if I wouldplease tell them whether or not birds have sense. One little girlsaid: "I would be pleased if you would write and tell me if birds havesense. I wanted to see if I couldn't be the first one to know. " I feltobliged to reply to the children that we ourselves do not have senseenough to know just how much sense the birds and other wild creaturesdo have, and that they do appear to have some, though their actionsare probably the result of what we call instinct, or naturalprompting, like that of the bean-stalk when it climbs the pole. Yet abean-stalk will sometimes show a kind of perversity or depravity thatlooks like the result of deliberate choice. Each season, among mydozen or more hills of pole-beans, there are usually two or threelow-minded plants that will not climb the poles, but go groveling uponthe ground, wandering off among the potato-vines or cucumbers, departing utterly from the traditions of their race, becomingshiftless and vagrant. When I lift them up and wind them around thepoles and tie them with a wisp of grass, they rarely stay. In some waythey seem to get a wrong start in life, or else are degenerates fromthe first. I have never known anything like this among the wildcreatures, though it happens often enough among our own kind. Thetrouble with the bean is doubtless this: the Lima bean is of SouthAmerican origin, and in the Southern Hemisphere, beans, it seems, gothe other way around the pole; that is, from right to left. Whentransferred north of the equator, it takes them some time to learn thenew way, or from left to right, and a few of them are alwaysbacksliding, or departing from the new way and vaguely seeking theold; and not finding this, they become vagabonds. 

How much or how little sense or judgment our wild neighbors have ishard to determine. The crows and other birds that carry shell-fishhigh in the air and then let them drop upon the rocks to break theshell show something very much like reason, or a knowledge of therelation of cause and effect, though it is probably an unthinkinghabit formed in their ancestors under the pressure of hunger. Froudetells of some species of bird that he saw in South Africa flying amidthe swarm of migrating locusts and clipping off the wings of theinsects so that they would drop to the earth, where the birds coulddevour them at their leisure. Our squirrels will cut off the chestnutburs before they have opened, allowing them to fall to the ground, where, as they seem to know, the burs soon dry open. Feed a caged coonsoiled food, --a piece of bread or meat rolled on the ground, --andbefore he eats it he will put it in his dish of water and wash it off. The author of "Wild Life Near Home" says that muskrats "will wash whatthey eat, whether washing is needed or not. " If the coon washes hisfood only when it needs washing, and not in every individual instance, then the proceeding looks like an act of judgment; the same with themuskrat. But if they always wash their food, whether soiled or not, the act looks more like instinct or an inherited habit, the origin ofwhich is obscure. 

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think;that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems tobe endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterestedintelligence, --intelligence that is not primarily concerned with hisown safety and well-being, but that looks abroad upon things. The witof the lower animals seems all to have been developed by the strugglefor existence, and it rarely gets beyond the prudential stage. Thesharper the struggle, the sharper the wit. Our porcupine, forinstance, is probably the most stupid of animals and has the leastspeed; it has little use for either wit or celerity of movement. Itcarries a death-dealing armor to protect it from its enemies, and itcan climb the nearest hemlock tree and live on the bark all winter. The skunk, too, pays for its terrible weapon by dull wits. But thinkof the wit of the much-hunted fox, the much-hunted otter, themuch-sought beaver! Even the grouse, when often fired at, learns, whenit is started in the open, to fly with a corkscrew motion to avoid theshot. 

Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of thelower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors indeveloping the intelligence of man. But man has gone on, while theanimals have stopped at these fundamental wants, --the need of safety, of offspring, of food. 

Probably in a state of wild nature birds never make mistakes, butwhere they come in contact with our civilization and are confronted bynew conditions, they very naturally make mistakes. For instance, theircunning in nest-building sometimes deserts them. The art of the birdis to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but nowand then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy andbizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away, and whichseem to violate all the traditions of its kind. I have the picture ofa robin's nest before me, upon the outside of which are stuck a muslinflower, a leaf from a small calendar, and a photograph of a localcelebrity. A more incongruous use of material in bird architecture itwould be hard to find. I have been told of another robin's nest uponthe outside of which the bird had fastened a wooden label from anear-by flower-bed, marked "Wake Robin. " Still another nest I haveseen built upon a large, showy foundation of the paper-like flowers ofantennaria, or everlasting. The wood thrush frequently weaves afragment of newspaper or a white rag into the foundation of its nest. "Evil communications corrupt good manners. " The newspaper and therag-bag unsettle the wits of the birds. The phoebe-bird is capableof this kind of mistake or indiscretion. All the past generations ofher tribe have built upon natural and, therefore, neutral sites, usually under shelving and overhanging rocks, and the art of adaptingthe nest to its surroundings, blending it with them, has been highlydeveloped. But phoebe now frequently builds under our sheds andporches, where, so far as concealment is concerned, a change ofmaterial, say from moss to dry grass or shreds of bark, would be anadvantage to her; but she departs not a bit from the familytraditions; she uses the same woodsy mosses, which in some cases, especially when the nest is placed upon newly sawed timber, make hersecret an open one to all eyes. 

It does indeed often look as if the birds had very little sense. Thinkof a bluebird, or an oriole, or a robin, or a jay, fighting for hoursat a time its own image as reflected in a pane of glass; quiteexhausting itself in its fury to demolish its supposed rival! Yet Ihave often witnessed this little comedy. It is another instance of howthe arts of our civilization corrupt and confuse the birds. It may bethat in the course of many generations the knowledge of glass will getinto their blood, and they will cease to be fooled by it, as they mayalso in time learn what a poor foundation the newspaper is to buildupon. The ant or the bee could not be fooled by the glass in that wayfor a moment. 

_Have_ the birds and our other wild neighbors sense, as distinguishedfrom instinct? Is a change of habits to meet new conditions, or thetaking advantage of accidental circumstances, an evidence of sense?How many birds appear to have taken advantage of the protectionafforded by man in building their nests! How many of them build nearpaths and along roadsides, to say nothing of those that come close toour dwellings! Even the quail seems to prefer the borders of thehighway to the open fields. I have chanced upon only three quails'nests, and these were all by the roadside. One season a scarlettanager that had failed with her first nest in the woods came to tryagain in a little cherry tree that stood in the open, a few feet frommy cabin, where I could almost touch the nest with my hand as Ipassed. But in my absence she again came to grief, some marauder, probably a red squirrel, taking her eggs. Will her failure in thiscase cause her to lose faith in the protective influence of the shadowof a human dwelling? I hope not. I have known the turtle dove to makea similar move, occupying an old robin's nest near my neighbor'scottage. The timid rabbit will sometimes come up from the bushy fieldsand excavate a place for her nest in the lawn a few feet from thehouse. All such things look like acts of judgment, though they may beonly the result of a greater fear overcoming a lesser fear. 

It is in the preservation of their lives and of their young that thewild creatures come the nearest to showing what we call sense orreason. The boys tell me that a rabbit that has been driven from herhole a couple of times by a ferret will not again run into it whenpursued. The tragedy of a rabbit pursued by a mink or a weasel mayoften be read upon our winter snows. The rabbit does not take to herhole; it would be fatal. And yet, though capable of far greater speed, so far as I have observed, she does not escape the mink; he very soonpulls her down. It would look as though a fatal paralysis, theparalysis of utter fear, fell upon the poor creature as soon as shefound herself hunted by this subtle, bloodthirsty enemy. I have seenupon the snow where her jumps had become shorter and shorter, withtufts of fur marking each stride, till the bloodstains, and then herhalf-devoured body, told the whole tragic story. 

There is probably nothing in human experience, at this age of theworld, that is like the helpless terror that seizes the rabbits as itdoes other of our lesser wild creatures, when pursued by any of theweasel tribe. They seem instantly to be under some fatal spell whichbinds their feet and destroys their will power. It would seem as if acertain phase of nature from which we get our notions of fate andcruelty had taken form in the weasel. 

The rabbit, when pursued by the fox or by the dog, quickly takes tohole. Hence, perhaps, the wit of the fox that a hunter told me about. The story was all written upon the snow. A mink was hunting a rabbit, and the fox, happening along, evidently took in the situation at aglance. He secreted himself behind a tree or a rock, and, as therabbit came along, swept her from her course like a charge of shotfired at close range, hurling her several feet over the snow, and thenseizing her and carrying her to his den up the mountain-side. 

It would be interesting to know how long our chimney swifts saw theopen chimney-stacks of the early settlers beneath them before theyabandoned the hollow trees in the woods and entered the chimneys fornesting and roosting purposes. Was the act an act of judgment, orsimply an unreasoning impulse, like so much else in the lives of thewild creatures?

In the choice of nesting-material the swift shows no change of habit. She still snips off the small dry twigs from the tree-tops and gluesthem together, and to the side of the chimney, with her own glue. Thesoot is a new obstacle in her way, that she does not yet seem to havelearned to overcome, as the rains often loosen it and cause her nestto fall to the bottom. She has a pretty way of trying to frighten youoff when your head suddenly darkens the opening above her. At suchtimes she leaves the nest and clings to the side of the chimney nearit. Then, slowly raising her wings, she suddenly springs out from thewall and back again, making as loud a drumming with them in thepassage as she is capable of. If this does not frighten you away, sherepeats it three or four times. If your face still hovers above her, she remains quiet and watches you. 

What a creature of the air this bird is, never touching the ground, so far as I know, and never tasting earthly food! The swallow doesperch now and then and descend to the ground for nesting-material;but the swift, I have reason to believe, even outrides the summerstorms, facing them on steady wing, high in air. The twigs for hernest she gathers on the wing, sweeping along like children on a"merry-go-round" who try to seize a ring, or to do some other feat, asthey pass a given point. If the swift misses the twig, or it fails toyield to her the first time, she tries again and again, each timemaking a wider circuit, as if to tame and train her steed a littleand bring him up more squarely to the mark next time. 

The swift is a stiff flyer: there appear to be no joints in her wings;she suggests something made of wires or of steel. Yet the air offrolic and of superabundance of wing-power is more marked with herthan with any other of our birds. Her feeding and twig-gathering seemlike asides in a life of endless play. Several times both in springand fall I have seen swifts gather in immense numbers towardnightfall, to take refuge in large unused chimney-stacks. On suchoccasions they seem to be coming together for some aerial festival orgrand celebration; and, as if bent upon a final effort to work off apart of their superabundant wing-power before settling down for thenight, they circle and circle high above the chimney-top, a greatcloud of them, drifting this way and that, all in high spirits andchippering as they fly. Their numbers constantly increase as othermembers of the clan come dashing in from all points of the compass. Swifts seem to materialize out of empty air on all sides of thechippering, whirling ring, as an hour or more this assembling of theclan and this flight festival go on. The birds must gather in fromwhole counties, or from half a State. They have been on the wing allday, and yet now they seem as tireless as the wind, and as if unableto curb their powers. 

One fall they gathered in this way and took refuge for the night in alarge chimney-stack in a city near me, for more than a month and ahalf. Several times I went to town to witness the spectacle, and aspectacle it was: ten thousand of them, I should think, filling theair above a whole square like a whirling swarm of huge black bees, butsaluting the ear with a multitudinous chippering, instead of ahumming. People gathered upon the sidewalks to see them. It was a rarecircus performance, free to all. After a great many feints and playfulapproaches, the whirling ring of birds would suddenly grow denserabove the chimney; then a stream of them, as if drawn down by somepower of suction, would pour into the opening. For only a few secondswould this downward rush continue; then, as if the spirit of frolichad again got the upper hand of them, the ring would rise, and thechippering and circling go on. In a minute or two the same manoeuvrewould be repeated, the chimney, as it were, taking its swallows atintervals to prevent choking. It usually took a half-hour or more forthe birds all to disappear down its capacious throat. There was alwaysan air of timidity and irresolution about their approach to thechimney, just as there always is about their approach to the deadtree-top from which they procure their twigs for nest-building. Oftendid I see birds hesitate above the opening and then pass on, apparently as though they had not struck it at just the right angle. On one occasion a solitary bird was left flying, and it took three orfour trials either to make up its mind or to catch the trick of thedescent. On dark or threatening or stormy days the birds would beginto assemble by mid-afternoon, and by four or five o'clock were all intheir lodgings. 

The chimney is a capacious one, forty or fifty feet high and nearlythree feet square, yet it did not seem adequate to affordbreathing-space for so many birds. I was curious to know how theydisposed themselves inside. At the bottom was a small opening. Holdingmy ear to it, I could hear a continuous chippering and humming, as ifthe birds were still all in motion, like an agitated beehive. At nineo'clock this multitudinous sound of wings and voices was still goingon, and doubtless it was kept up all night. What was the meaning ofit? Was the press of birds so great that they needed to keep theirwings moving to ventilate the shaft, as do certain of the bees in acrowded hive? Or were these restless spirits unable to fold theirwings even in sleep? I was very curious to get a peep inside thatchimney when the swifts were in it. So one afternoon this opportunitywas afforded me by the removal of the large smoke-pipe of the oldsteam-boiler. This left an opening into which I could thrust my headand shoulders. The sound of wings and voices filled the hollow shaft. On looking up, I saw the sides of the chimney for about half itslength paved with the restless birds; they sat so close together thattheir bodies touched. Moreover, a large number of them wereconstantly on the wing, showing against the sky light as if they wereleaving the chimney. But they did not leave it. They rose up a fewfeet and then resumed their positions upon the sides, and it was thismovement that caused the humming sound. All the while the droppings ofthe birds came down like a summer shower. At the bottom of the shaftwas a mine of guano three or four feet deep, with a dead swift hereand there upon it. Probably one or more birds out of such a multitudedied every night. I had fancied there would be many more. It was along time before it dawned upon me what this uninterrupted flightwithin the chimney meant. Finally I saw that it was a sanitarymeasure: only thus could the birds keep from soiling each other withtheir droppings. Birds digest very rapidly, and had they all continuedto cling to the sides of the wall, they would have been in a sadpredicament before morning. Like other acts of cleanliness on the partof birds, this was doubtless the prompting of instinct and not ofjudgment. It was Nature looking out for her own. 

In view, then, of the doubtful sense or intelligence of the wildcreatures, what shall we say of the new school of nature writers ornatural history romancers that has lately arisen, and that reads intothe birds and animals almost the entire human psychology? This, surely: so far as these writers awaken an interest in the wilddenizens of the field and wood, and foster a genuine love of them inthe hearts of the young people, so far is their influence good; but sofar as they pervert natural history and give false impressions of theintelligence of our animals, catering to a taste that prefers thefanciful to the true and the real, is their influence bad. Of coursethe great army of readers prefer this sugar-coated natural history tothe real thing, but the danger always is that an indulgence of thistaste will take away a liking for the real thing, or prevent itsdevelopment. The knowing ones, those who can take these pretty taleswith the pinch of salt of real knowledge, are not many; the greatmajority are simply entertained while they are being humbugged. Theremay be no very serious objection to the popular love of sweets beingcatered to in this field by serving up the life-history of our animalsin a story, all the missing links supplied, and all their motives andacts humanized, provided it is not done covertly and under the guiseof a real history. We are never at a loss how to take Kipling in his"Jungle Book;" we are pretty sure that this is fact dressed up asfiction, and that much of the real life of the jungle is in thesestories. I remember reading his story of "The White Seal" shortlyafter I had visited the Seal Islands in Bering Sea, and I could notdetect in the story one departure from the facts of the life-historyof the seal, so far as it is known. Kipling takes no covert libertieswith natural history, any more than he does with the facts of humanhistory in his novels. 

Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lovercraves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as thereality. Then, to know that a thing is true gives it such a savor! Thetruth--how we do crave the truth! We cannot feed our minds onsimulacra any more than we can our bodies. Do assure us that the thingyou tell is true. If you must counterfeit the truth, do it so deftlythat we shall never detect you. But in natural history there is noneed to counterfeit the truth; the reality always suffices, if youhave eyes to see it and ears to hear it. Behold what Maeterlinck makesout of the life of the bee, simply by getting at and portraying thefacts--a true wonder-book, the enchantment of poetry wedded to theauthority of science. 

Works on animal intelligence, such as Romanes's, abound in incidentsthat show in the animals reason and forethought in their simplerforms; but in many cases the incidents related in these works are notwell authenticated, nor told by trained observers. The observations ofthe great majority of people have no scientific value whatever. Romanes quotes from some person who alleges that he saw a pair ofnightingales, during a flood in the river near which their nest wasplaced, pick up the nest bodily and carry it to a place of safety. This is incredible. If Romanes himself or Darwin himself said he sawthis, one would have to believe it. Birds whose nests have beenplundered sometimes pull the old nest to pieces and use the material, or parts of it, in building a new nest; but I cannot believe that anypair of birds ever picked up a nest containing eggs and carried it offto a new place. How could they do it? With one on each side, how couldthey fly with the nest between them? They could not carry it withtheir feet, and how could they manage it with their beaks?

My neighbor met in the woods a black snake that had just swallowed ared squirrel. Now your romance-naturalist may take such a fact as thisand make as pretty a story of it as he can. He may ascribe to thesnake and his victim all the human emotions he pleases. He may makethe snake glide through the tree-tops from limb to limb, and from treeto tree, in pursuit of its prey: the main thing is, the snake got thesquirrel. If our romancer makes the snake fascinate the squirrel, Ishall object, because I don't believe that snakes have this power. People like to believe that they have. It would seem as if thissubtle, gliding, hateful creature ought to have some such mysteriousgift, but I have no proof that it has. Every year I see the blacksnake robbing birds'-nests, or pursued by birds whose nests it hasjust plundered, but I have yet to see it cast its fatal spell upon agrown bird. Or, if our romancer says that the black snake was drilledin the art of squirrel-catching by its mother, I shall know he is apretender. 

Speaking of snakes reminds me of an incident I have several timeswitnessed in our woods in connection with a snake commonly called thesissing or blowing adder. When I have teased this snake a few momentswith my cane, it seems to be seized with an epileptic or catalepticfit. It throws itself upon its back, coiled nearly in the form of afigure eight, and begins a series of writhings and twistings andconvulsive movements astonishing to behold. Its mouth is open andpresently full of leaf-mould, its eyes are covered with the same, itshead is thrown back, its white belly up; now it is under the leaves, now out, the body all the while being rapidly drawn through thisfigure eight, so that the head and tail are constantly changing place. What does it mean? Is it fear? Is it a real fit? I do not know, butany one of our romance-naturalists could tell you at once. I can onlysuggest that it may be a ruse to baffle its enemy, the black snake, when he would attempt to crush it in his folds, or to seize its headwhen he would swallow it. 

I am reminded of another mystery connected with a snake, or asnake-skin, and a bird. Why does our great crested flycatcher weave asnake-skin into its nest, or, in lieu of that, something that suggestsa snake-skin, such as an onion-skin, or fish-scales, or a bit of oiledpaper? It is thought by some persons that it uses the snake-skin as akind of scarecrow, to frighten away its natural enemies. But thinkwhat this purpose in the use of it would imply. It would imply thatthe bird knew that there were among its enemies creatures that wereafraid of snakes--so afraid of them that one of their faded andcast-off skins would keep these enemies away. How could the birdobtain this knowledge? It is not afraid of the skin itself; why shouldit infer that squirrels, for instance, are? I am convinced there isnothing in this notion. In all the nests that have come under myobservation, the snake-skin was in faded fragments woven into thetexture of the nest, and one would not be aware of its presence unlesshe pulled the nest to pieces. True, Mr. Frank Bolles reports finding anest of this bird with a whole snake-skin coiled around a single egg;but it was the skin of a small garter-snake, six or seven inches long, and could not therefore have inspired much terror in the heart of thebird's natural enemies. Dallas Lore Sharp, author of that delightfulbook, "Wild Life Near Home, " tells me he has seen a whole skindangling nearly its entire length from the hole that contained thenest, just as he has seen strings hanging from the nest of thekingbird. The bird was too hurried or too careless to pull in theskin. Mr. Sharp adds that he cannot "give the bird credit forappreciating the attitude of the rest of the world toward snakes, andmaking use of the fear. " Moreover, a cast-off snake-skin looks verylittle like a snake. It is thin, shrunken, faded, papery, and there isno terror in it. Then, too, it is dark in the cavity of the nest, consequently the skin could not serve as a scarecrow in any case. Hence, whatever its purpose may be, it surely is not that. It lookslike a mere fancy or whim of the bird. There is that in its voice andways that suggests something a little uncanny. Its call is more likethe call of the toad than that of a bird. If the toad did not alwaysswallow its own cast-off skin, the bird would probably use that too. 

At the best we can only guess at the motives of the birds and beasts. As I have elsewhere said, they nearly all have reference in some wayto the self-preservation of these creatures. But how the bits of anold snake-skin in a bird's nest can contribute specially to this end, I cannot see. 

Nature is not always consistent; she does not always choose the bestmeans to a given end. For instance, all the wrens except our housewren seem to use about the best material at hand for their nests. Whatcan be more unsuitable, untractable, for a nest in a hole or cavitythan the twigs the house wren uses? Dry grasses or bits of soft barkwould bend and adapt themselves easily to the exigencies of the case;but stiff, unyielding twigs! What a contrast to the suitableness ofthe material the hummingbird uses--the down of some plant, which seemsto have a poetic fitness!

Yesterday in my walk I saw where a red squirrel had stripped the softouter bark off a group of red cedars to build its winter's nest with. This also seemed fit, --fit that such a creature of the trees shouldnot go to the ground for its nest-material, and should choosesomething soft and pliable. Among the birches, it probably gathers thefine curling shreds of the birch bark. 

Beside my path in the woods a downy woodpecker, late one fall, drilleda hole in the top of a small dead black birch for his winter quarters. My attention was first called to his doings by the white chips uponthe ground. Every day as I passed I would rap upon his tree, and if hewas in he would appear at his door and ask plainly enough what Iwanted now. One day when I rapped, something else appeared at thedoor--I could not make out what. I continued my rapping, when out cametwo flying-squirrels. On the tree being given a vigorous shake, itbroke off at the hole, and the squirrels went sliding down the air tothe foot of a hemlock, up which they disappeared. They haddispossessed Downy of his house, had carried in some grass and leavesfor a nest, and were as snug as a bug in a rug. Downy drilled anothercell in a dead oak farther up the hill, and, I hope, passed the winterthere unmolested. Such incidents, comic or tragic, as they chance tostrike us, are happening all about us, if we have eyes to see them. 

The next season, near sundown of a late November day, I saw Downytrying to get possession of a hole not his own. I chanced to bepassing under a maple, when white chips upon the ground again causedme to scrutinize the branches overhead. Just then I saw Downy come tothe tree, and, hopping around on the under side of a large dry limb, begin to make passes at something with his beak. Presently I made outa round hole there, with something in it returning Downy's thrusts. The sparring continued some moments. Downy would hop away a few feet, then return to the attack, each time to be met by the occupant of thehole. I suspected an English sparrow had taken possession of Downy'scell in his absence during the day, but I was wrong. Downy flew toanother branch, and I tossed up a stone against the one that containedthe hole, when, with a sharp, steely note, out came a hairy woodpeckerand alighted on a near-by branch. Downy, then, had the "cheek" to tryto turn his large rival out of doors--and it was Hairy's cell, too;one could see that by the size of the entrance. Thus loosely does therule of _meum_ and _tuum_ obtain in the woods. There is no moral codein nature. Might reads right. Man in communities has evolved ethicalstandards of conduct, but nations, in their dealings with one another, are still largely in a state of savage nature, and seek to establishthe right, as dogs do, by the appeal to battle. 

One season a wood duck laid her eggs in a cavity in the top of a tallyellow birch near the spring that supplies my cabin with water. A boldclimber "shinned" up the fifty or sixty feet of rough tree-trunk andlooked in upon the eleven eggs. They were beyond the reach of his arm, in a well-like cavity over three feet deep. How would the mother duckget her young up out of that well and down to the ground? We watched, hoping to see her in the act. But we did not. She may have done it atnight or very early in the morning. All we know is that when Amasa onemorning passed that way, there sat eleven little tufts of black andyellow down in the spring, with the mother duck near by. It was apretty sight. The feat of getting down from the tree-top cradle hadbeen safely effected, probably by the young clambering up on theinside walls of the cavity and then tumbling out into the air andcoming down gently like huge snowflakes. They are mostly down, and whyshould they not fall without any danger to life or limb? The notionthat the mother duck takes the young one by one in her beak andcarries them to the creek is doubtless erroneous. Mr. William Brewsteronce saw the golden-eye, whose habits of nesting are like those of thewood duck, get its young from the nest to the water in this manner:The mother bird alighted in the water under the nest, looked allaround to see that the coast was clear, and then gave a peculiar call. Instantly the young shot out of the cavity that held them, as if thetree had taken an emetic, and came softly down to the water besidetheir mother. Another observer assures me that he once found a newlyhatched duckling hung by the neck in the fork of a bush under a treein which a brood of Wood ducks had been hatched. 

The ways of nature, --who can map them, or fathom them, or interpretthem, or do much more than read a hint correctly here and there? Ofone thing we may be pretty certain, namely, that the ways of wildnature may be studied in our human ways, inasmuch as the latter are anevolution from the former, till we come to the ethical code, toaltruism and self-sacrifice. Here we seem to breathe another air, though probably this code differs no more from the animal standards ofconduct than our physical atmosphere differs from that of earlygeologic time. 

Our moral code must in some way have been evolved from our rude animalinstincts. It came from within; its possibilities were all in nature. If not, where were they?

I have seen disinterested acts among the birds, or what looked likesuch, as when one bird feeds the young of another species when ithears them crying for food. But that a bird would feed a grown bird ofanother species, or even of its own, to keep it from starving, I havemy doubts. I am quite positive that mice will try to pull one of theirfellows out of a trap, but what the motive is, who shall say? Wouldthe same mice share their last crumb with their fellow if he werestarving? That, of course, would be a much nearer approach to thehuman code, and is too much to expect. Bees will clear their fellowsof honey, but whether it be to help them, or to save the honey, is aquestion. 

In my youth I saw a parent weasel seize one of its nearly grown youngwhich I had wounded and carry it across an open barway, in spite of myefforts to hinder it. A friend of mine, who is a careful observer, says he once wounded a shrike so that it fell to the ground, butbefore he got to it, it recovered itself and flew with difficultytoward some near trees, calling to its mate the while; the mate cameand seemed to get beneath the wounded bird and buoy it up, so aidingit that it gained the top of a tall tree, where my friend left it. Butin neither instance can we call this helpfulness entirelydisinterested, or pure altruism. 

Emerson said that he was an endless experimenter with no past at hisback. This is just what Nature is. She experiments endlessly, seekingnew ways, new modes, new forms, and is ever intent upon breaking awayfrom the past. In this way, as Darwin showed, she attains to newspecies. She is blind, she gropes her way, she trusts to luck; all hersuccesses are chance hits. Whenever I look over my right shoulder, asI sit at my desk writing these sentences, I see a long shoot of ahoneysuckle that came in through a crack of my imperfectly closedwindow last summer. It came in looking, or rather feeling, forsomething to cling to. It first dropped down upon a pile of books, then reached off till it struck the window-sill of another largewindow; along this it crept, its regular leaves standing up like somany pairs of green ears, looking very pretty. Coming to the end ofthe open way there, it turned to the left and reached out intovacancy, till it struck another window-sill running at right angles tothe former; along this it traveled nearly half an inch a day, till itcame to the end of that road. Then it ventured out into vacant spaceagain, and pointed straight toward me at my desk, ten feet distant. Day by day it kept its seat upon the window-sill, and stretched outfarther and farther, almost beckoning me to give it a lift or to bringit support. I could hardly resist its patient daily appeal. Late inOctober it had bridged about three feet of the distance that separatedus, when, one day, the moment came when it could maintain itselfoutright in the air no longer, and it fell to the floor. "Poor thing, "I said, "your faith was blind, but it was real. You knew there was asupport somewhere, and you tried all ways to find it. " This is Nature. She goes around the circle, she tries every direction, sure that shewill find a way at some point. Animals in cages behave in a similarway, looking for a means of escape. In the vineyard I see thegrape-vines reaching out blindly in all directions for some hold fortheir tendrils. The young arms seize upon one another and tightentheir hold as if they had at last found what they were in search of. Stop long enough beside one of the vines, and it will cling to you andrun all over you. 

Behold the tumble-bug with her ball of dung by the roadside; where isshe going with it? She is going anywhere and everywhere; she changesher direction, like the vine, whenever she encounters an obstacle. Sheonly knows that somewhere there is a depression or a hole in which herball with its egg can rest secure, and she keeps on tumbling abouttill she finds it, or maybe digs one, or comes to grief by the foot ofsome careless passer-by. This, again, is Nature's way, randomly andtirelessly seeking her ends. When we look over a large section ofhistory, we see that it is man's way, too, or Nature's way in man. Hisprogress has been a blind groping, the result of endlessexperimentation, and all his failures and mistakes could not bewritten in a book. How he has tumbled about with his ball, seeking theright place for it, and how many times has he come to grief! All hissuccesses have been lucky hits: steam, electricity, representativegovernment, printing--how long he groped for them before he foundthem! There is always and everywhere the Darwinian tendency tovariation, to seek new forms, to improve upon the past; and man isunder this law, the same as is the rest of nature. One generation ofmen, like one generation of leaves, becomes the fertilizer of thenext; failures only enrich the soil or make smoother the way. 

There are so many conflicting forces and interests, and the conditionsof success are so complex! If the seed fall here, it will notgerminate; if there, it will be drowned or washed away; if yonder, itwill find too sharp competition. There are only a few places where itwill find all the conditions favorable. Hence the prodigality ofNature in seeds, scattering a thousand for one plant or tree. She islike a hunter shooting at random into every tree or bush, hoping tobring down his game, which he does if his ammunition holds out longenough; or like the British soldier in the Boer War, firing vaguely atan enemy that he does not see. But Nature's ammunition always holdsout, and she hits her mark in the end. Her ammunition on our planet isthe heat of the sun. When this fails, she will no longer hit the markor try to hit it. 

Let there be a plum tree anywhere with the disease called the"black-knot" upon it, and presently every plum tree in itsneighborhood will have black knots. Do you think the germs from thefirst knot knew where to find the other plum trees? No; the windcarried them in every direction, where the plum trees were not as wellas where they were. It was a blind search and a chance hit. So withall seeds and germs. Nature covers all the space, and is bound to hitthe mark sooner or later. The sun spills his light indiscriminatelyinto space; a small fraction of his rays hit the earth, and we arewarmed. Yet to all intents and purposes it is as if he shone for usalone. 

 II

 BIRD-SONGS

I suspect it requires a special gift of grace to enable one to hearthe bird-songs; some new power must be added to the ear, or someobstruction removed. There are not only scales upon our eyes so thatwe do not see, there are scales upon our ears so that we do not hear. A city woman who had spent much of her time in the country once askeda well-known ornithologist to take her where she could hear thebluebird. "What, never heard the bluebird!" said he. "I have not, "said the woman. "Then you will never hear it, " said the bird-lover;never hear it with that inward ear that gives beauty and meaning tothe note. He could probably have taken her in a few minutes where shecould have heard the call or warble of the bluebird; but it would havefallen upon unresponsive ears--upon ears that were not sensitized bylove for the birds or associations with them. Bird-songs are notmusic, properly speaking, but only suggestions of music. A great manypeople whose attention would be quickly arrested by the same volume ofsound made by a musical instrument or by artificial means never hearthem at all. The sound of a boy's penny whistle there in the grove orthe meadow would separate itself more from the background of nature, and be a greater challenge to the ear, than is the strain of thethrush or the song of the sparrow. There is something elusive, indefinite, neutral, about bird-songs that makes them strikeobliquely, as it were, upon the ear; and we are very apt to miss them. They are a part of nature, the Nature that lies about us, entirelyoccupied with her own affairs, and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is with bird-songs as it is with so many other things innature--they are what we make them; the ear that hears them must behalf creative. I am always disturbed when persons not especiallyobservant of birds ask me to take them where they can hear aparticular bird, in whose song they have become interested through adescription in some book. As I listen with them, I feel likeapologizing for the bird: it has a bad cold, or has just heard somedepressing news; it will not let itself out. The song seems so casualand minor when you make a dead set at it. I have taken persons to hearthe hermit thrush, and I have fancied that they were all the timesaying to themselves, "Is that all?" But should one hear the bird inhis walk, when the mind is attuned to simple things and is open andreceptive, when expectation is not aroused and the song comes as asurprise out of the dusky silence of the woods, then one feels thatit merits all the fine things that can be said of it. 

One of our popular writers and lecturers upon birds told me thisincident: He had engaged to take two city girls out for a walk in thecountry, to teach them the names of the birds they might see and hear. Before they started, he read to them Henry van Dyke's poem on the songsparrow, --one of our best bird-poems, --telling them that the songsparrow was one of the first birds they were likely to hear. As theyproceeded with their walk, sure enough, there by the roadside was asparrow in song. The bird man called the attention of his companionsto it. It was some time before the unpracticed ears of the girls couldmake it out; then one of them said (the poem she had just heard, Isuppose, still ringing in her ears), "What! that little squeakything?" The sparrow's song meant nothing to her at all, and how couldshe share the enthusiasm of the poet? Probably the warble of therobin, or the call of the meadowlark or of the highhole, if theychanced to hear them, meant no more to these girls. If we have noassociations with these sounds, they will mean very little to us. Their merit as musical performances is very slight. It is as signs ofjoy and love in nature, as heralds of spring, and as the spirit of thewoods and fields made audible, that they appeal to us. The drumming ofthe woodpeckers and of the ruffed grouse give great pleasure to acountryman, though these sounds have not the quality of real music. Itis the same with the call of the migrating geese or the voice of anywild thing: our pleasure in them is entirely apart from anyconsiderations of music. Why does the wild flower, as we chance uponit in the woods or bogs, give us more pleasure than the more elaborateflower of the garden or lawn? Because it comes as a surprise, offers agreater contrast with its surroundings, and suggests a spirit in wildnature that seems to take thought of itself and to aspire to beautifulforms. 

The songs of caged birds are always disappointing, because such birdshave nothing but their musical qualities to recommend them to us. Wehave separated them from that which gives quality and, meaning totheir songs. One recalls Emerson's lines:--

 "I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky;-- He sang to my ear, --they sang to my eye. "

I have never yet seen a caged bird that I wanted, --at least, not onaccount of its song, --nor a wild flower that I wished to transfer tomy garden. A caged skylark will sing its song sitting on a bit ofturf in the bottom of the cage; but you want to stop your ears, it isso harsh and sibilant and penetrating. But up there against themorning sky, and above the wide expanse of fields, what delight wehave in it! It is not the concord of sweet sounds: it is the soaringspirit of gladness and ecstasy raining down upon us from "heaven'sgate. "

Then, if to the time and the place one could only add the association, or hear the bird through the vista of the years, the song touched withthe magic of youthful memories! One season a friend in England sent mea score of skylarks in a cage. I gave them their liberty in a fieldnear my place. They drifted away, and I never heard them or saw themagain. But one Sunday a Scotchman from a neighboring city called uponme, and declared with visible excitement that on his way along theroad he had heard a skylark. He was not dreaming; he knew it was askylark, though he had not heard one since he had left the banks ofthe Doon, a quarter of a century or more before. What pleasure it gavehim! How much more the song meant to him than it would have meant tome! For the moment he was on his native heath again. Then I told himabout the larks I had liberated, and he seemed to enjoy it all overagain with renewed appreciation. 

Many years ago some skylarks were liberated on Long Island, and theybecame established there, and may now occasionally be heard in certainlocalities. One summer day a friend of mine was out there observingthem; a lark was soaring and singing in the sky above him. An oldIrishman came along, and suddenly stopped as if transfixed to thespot; a look of mingled delight and incredulity came into his face. Was he indeed hearing the bird of his youth? He took off his hat, turned his face skyward, and with moving lips and streaming eyes stooda long time regarding the bird. "Ah, " my friend thought, "if I couldonly hear that song with his ears!" How it brought back his youth andall those long-gone days on his native hills!

The power of bird-songs over us is so much a matter of associationthat every traveler to other countries finds the feathered songstersof less merit than those he left behind. The stranger does not hearthe birds in the same receptive, uncritical frame of mind as does thenative; they are not in the same way the voices of the place and theseason. What music can there be in that long, piercing, far-heard noteof the first meadowlark in spring to any but a native, or in the"o-ka-lee" of the red-shouldered starling as he rests upon the willowsin March? A stranger would probably recognize melody and a wild woodsyquality in the flutings of the veery thrush; but how much more theywould mean to him after he had spent many successive Junes threadingour northern trout-streams and encamping on their banks! The veerywill come early in the morning, and again at sundown, and perch aboveyour tent, and blow his soft, reverberant note for many minutes at atime. The strain repeats the echoes of the limpid stream in the hallsand corridors of the leafy woods. 

While in England in 1882, I rushed about two or three counties in lateJune and early July, bent on hearing the song of the nightingale, butmissed it by a few days, and in some cases, as it seemed, only by afew hours. The nightingale seems to be wound up to go only so long, ortill about the middle of June, and it is only by a rare chance thatyou hear one after that date. Then I came home to hear a nightingalein song one winter morning in a friend's house in the city. It was acurious let-down to my enthusiasm. A caged song in a city chamber inbroad daylight, in lieu of the wild, free song in the gloaming of anEnglish landscape! I closed my eyes, abstracted myself from mysurroundings, and tried my best to fancy myself listening to thestrain back there amid the scenes I had haunted about Haslemere andGodalming, but with poor success, I suspect. The nightingale's song, like the lark's, needs vista, needs all the accessories of time andplace. The song is not all in the singing, any more than the wit isall in the saying. It is in the occasion, the surroundings, the spiritof which it is the expression. My friend said that the bird did notfully let itself out. Its song was a brilliant medley of notes, --notheme that I could detect, --like the lark's song in this respect; allthe notes of the field and forest appeared to be the gift of thisbird, but what tone! what accent! like that of a great poet!

Nearly every May I am seized with an impulse to go back to the scenesof my youth, and hear the bobolinks in the home meadows once more. Iam sure they sing there better than anywhere else. They probably drinknothing but dew, and the dew distilled in those high pastoral regionshas surprising virtues. It gives a clear, full, vibrant quality to thebirds' voices that I have never heard elsewhere. The night of myarrival, I leave my southern window open, so that the meadow chorusmay come pouring in before I am up in the morning. How it doestransport me athwart the years, and make me a boy again, sheltered bythe paternal wing! On one occasion, the third morning after myarrival, a bobolink appeared with a new note in his song. The notesounded like the word "baby" uttered with a peculiar, tenderresonance: but it was clearly an interpolation; it did not belongthere; it had no relation to the rest of the song. Yet the bird neverfailed to utter it with the same joy and confidence as the rest of hissong. Maybe it was the beginning of a variation that will in timeresult in an entirely new bobolink song. 

On my last spring visit to my native hills, my attention was attractedto another songster not seen or heard there in my youth, namely, theprairie horned lark. Flocks of these birds used to be seen in some ofthe Northern States in the late fall during their southern migrations;but within the last twenty years they have become regular summerresidents in the hilly parts of many sections of New York and NewEngland. They are genuine skylarks, and lack only the powers of songto make them as attractive as their famous cousins of Europe. 

The larks are ground-birds when they perch, and sky-birds when theysing; from the turf to the clouds--nothing between. Our horned larkmounts upward on quivering wing in the true lark fashion, and, spreadout against the sky at an altitude of two or three hundred feet, hovers and sings. The watcher and listener below holds him in his eye, but the ear catches only a faint, broken, half-inarticulate note nowand then--mere splinters, as it were, of the song of the skylark. Thesong of the latter is continuous, and is loud and humming; it is afountain of jubilant song up there in the sky: but our lark sings insnatches; at each repetition of its notes it dips forward and downwarda few feet, and then rises again. One day I kept my eye upon one untilit had repeated its song one hundred and three times; then it closedits wings, and dropped toward the earth like a plummet, as does itsEuropean congener. While I was watching the bird, a bobolink flew overmy head, between me and the lark, and poured out his voluble andcopious strain. "What a contrast, " I thought, "between the voice ofthe spluttering, tongue-tied lark, and the free, liquid, and variedsong of the bobolink!"

I have heard of a curious fact in the life-histories of these larks inthe West. A Michigan woman once wrote me that her brother, who was anengineer on an express train that made daily trips between two Westerncities, reported that many birds were struck by the engine every day, and killed--often as many as thirty on a trip of sixty miles. Birds ofmany kinds were killed, but the most common was a bird that went inflocks, the description of which answered to the horned lark. Sincethen I have read in a Minnesota newspaper that many horned larks arekilled by railroad locomotives in that State. It was thought that thebirds sat behind the rails to get out of the wind, and on starting upin front of the advancing train, were struck down by the engine. TheMichigan engineer referred to thought that the birds gathered upon thetrack to earth their wings, or else to pick up the grain that leaksout of the wheat-trains, and sows the track from Dakota to theseaboard. Probably the wind which they might have to face in gettingup was the prime cause of their being struck. One does not think ofthe locomotive as a bird-destroyer, though it is well known that manyof the smaller mammals often fall beneath it. 

A very interesting feature of our bird-songs is the wing-song, or songof ecstasy. It is not the gift of many of our birds. Indeed, less thana dozen species are known to me as ever singing on the wing. It seemsto spring from more intense excitement and self-abandonment than theordinary song delivered from the perch. When its joy reaches the pointof rapture, the bird is literally carried off its feet, and up it goesinto the air, pouring out its song as a rocket pours out its sparks. The skylark and the bobolink habitually do this, while a few others ofour birds do it only on occasions. One summer, up in the Catskills, Iadded another name to my list of ecstatic singers--that of the vespersparrow. Several times I heard a new song in the air, and caught aglimpse of the bird as it dropped back to the earth. My attentionwould be attracted by a succession of hurried, chirping notes, followed by a brief burst of song, then by the vanishing form of thebird. One day I was lucky enough to see the bird as it was rising toits climax in the air, and to identify it as the vesper sparrow. Theburst of song that crowned the upward flight of seventy-five or onehundred feet was brief; but it was brilliant and striking, andentirely unlike the leisurely chant of the bird while upon the ground. It suggested a lark, but was less buzzing or humming. The preliminarychirping notes, uttered faster and faster as the bird mounted in theair, were like the trail of sparks which a rocket emits before itsgrand burst of color at the top of its flight. 

It is interesting to note that this bird is quite lark-like in itscolor and markings, having the two lateral white quills in the tail, and it has the habit of elevating the feathers on the top of the headso as to suggest a crest. The solitary skylark that I discoveredseveral years ago in a field near me was seen on several occasionspaying his addresses to one of these birds, but the vesper-bird wasshy, and eluded all his advances. 

Probably the perch-songster among our ordinary birds that is mostregularly seized with the fit of ecstasy that results in this lyricburst in the air, as I described in my first book, "Wake Robin, " overthirty years ago, is the oven-bird, or wood-accentor--thegolden-crowned thrush of the old ornithologists. Every loiterer aboutthe woods knows this pretty, speckled-breasted, olive-backed littlebird, which walks along over the dry leaves a few yards from him, moving its head as it walks, like a miniature domestic fowl. Mostbirds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hopupon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the body. Notso the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, orthe quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movementof the feet. The sharp, reiterated, almost screeching song of theoven-bird, as it perches on a limb a few feet from the ground, likethe words, "preacher, preacher, preacher, " or "teacher, teacher, teacher, " uttered louder and louder, and repeated six or seven times, is also familiar to most ears; but its wild, ringing, rapturous burstof song in the air high above the tree-tops is not so well known. Froma very prosy, tiresome, unmelodious singer, it is suddenly transformedfor a brief moment into a lyric poet of great power. It is a greatsurprise. The bird undergoes a complete transformation. Ordinarily itis a very quiet, demure sort of bird. It walks about over the leaves, moving its head like a little hen; then perches on a limb a few feetfrom the ground and sends forth its shrill, rather prosy, unmusicalchant. Surely it is an ordinary, common-place bird. But wait till theinspiration of its flight-song is upon it. What a change! Up it goesthrough the branches of the trees, leaping from limb to limb, fasterand faster, till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet intothe air above them, and bursts into an ecstasy of song, rapid, ringing, lyrical; no more like its habitual performance than a matchis like a rocket; brief but thrilling; emphatic but musical. Havingreached its climax of flight and song, the bird closes its wings anddrops nearly perpendicularly downward like the skylark. If its songwere more prolonged, it would rival the song of that famous bird. Thebird does this many times a day during early June, but oftenest attwilight. The song in quality and general cast is like that of itscongener, the water-accentor, which, however, I believe is neverdelivered on the wing. From its habit of singing at twilight, and fromthe swift, darting motions of the bird, I am inclined to think that init we have solved the mystery of Thoreau's "night-warbler, " thatpuzzled and eluded him for years. Emerson told him he must beware offinding and booking it, lest life should have nothing more to showhim. The older ornithologists must have heard this song many times, but they never seem to have suspected the identity of the singer. 

Other birds that sing on the wing are the meadowlark, goldfinch, purple finch, indigo-bird, Maryland yellow-throat, and woodcock. Theflight-song of the woodcock I have heard but twice in my life. Thefirst time was in the evening twilight about the middle of April. Thebird was calling in the dusk "yeap, yeap, " or "seap, seap, " from theground, --a peculiar reedy call. Then, by and by, it started upward onan easy slant, that peculiar whistling of its wings alone heard; then, at an altitude of one hundred feet or more, it began to float about inwide circles and broke out in an ecstatic chipper, almost a warble attimes, with a peculiar smacking musical quality; then, in a minute orso, it dropped back to the ground again, not straight down like thelark, but more spirally, and continued its call as before. In lessthan five minutes it was up again. The next time, a few years later, I heard the song in company with a friend, Dr. Clara Barrus. Let megive the woman's impression of the song as she afterward wrote it upfor a popular journal. 

"The sunset light was flooding all this May loveliness of field andfarm and distant wood; song sparrows were blithely pouring outhappiness by the throatful; peepers were piping and toads trilling, and we thought it no hardship to wait in such a place till the duskshould gather, and the wary woodcock announce his presence. But hark!while yet 'tis light, only a few rods distant, I hear that welcome'seap . . . Seap, ' and lo! a chipper and a chirr, and past us heflies, --a direct, slanting upward flight, somewhat labored, --his billshowing long against the reddened sky. 'He has something in hismouth, ' I start to say, when I bethink me what a long bill he has. Around, above us he flies in wide, ambitious circles, the while we areenveloped, as it were, in that hurried chippering sound--fine, elusive, now near, now distant. How rapid is the flight! Now it soundsfaster and faster, 'like a whiplash flashed through the air, ' said myfriend; up, up he soars, till he becomes lost to sight at the instantthat his song ends in that last mad ecstasy that just precedes hisalighting. "

The meadowlark sings in a level flight, half hovering in the air, giving voice to a rapid medley of lark-like notes. The goldfinch alsosings in a level flight, beating the air slowly with its wings broadlyopen, and pouring out its jubilant, ecstatic strain I think itindulges in this wing-song only in the early season. After the motherbird has begun sitting, the male circles about within earshot of her, in that curious undulating flight, uttering his "per-chic-o-pee, per-chic-o-pee, " while the female calls back to him in the tenderesttones, "Yes, lovie; I hear you. " The indigo-bird and the purple finch, when their happiness becomes too full and buoyant for them longer tocontrol it, launch into the air, and sing briefly, ecstatically, in atremulous, hovering flight. The air-song of these birds does notdiffer essentially from the song delivered from the perch, except thatit betrays more excitement, and hence is a more complete lyricalrapture. 

The purple finch is our finest songster among the finches. Its strainis so soft and melodious, and touched with such a childlike gayety andplaintiveness, that I think it might sound well even in a cage insidea room, if the bird would only sing with the same joyous abandonment, which, of course, it would not do. 

It is not generally known that individual birds of the same speciesshow different degrees of musical ability. This is often noticed incaged birds, among which the principle of variation seems more active;but an attentive observer notes the same fact in wild birds. Occasionally he hears one that in powers of song surpasses all itsfellows. I have heard a sparrow, an oriole, and a wood thrush, eachof which had a song of its own that far exceeded any other. I stoodone day by a trout-stream, and suspended my fishing for severalminutes to watch a song sparrow that was singing on a dry limb beforeme. He had five distinct songs, each as markedly different from theothers as any human songs, which he repeated one after the other. Hemay have had a sixth or a seventh, but he bethought himself of somebusiness in the next field, and flew away before he had exhausted hisrepertory. I once had a letter from Robert Louis Stevenson, who saidhe had read an account I had written of the song of the Englishblackbird. He said I might as well talk of the song of man; that everyblackbird had its own song; and then he told me of a remarkable singerhe used to hear somewhere amid the Scottish hills. But his singer was, of course, an exception; twenty-four blackbirds out of everytwenty-five probably sing the same song, with no appreciablevariations: but the twenty-fifth may show extraordinary powers. I toldStevenson that his famous singer had probably been to school to somenightingale on the Continent or in southern England. I might have toldhim of the robin I once heard here that sang with great spirit andaccuracy the song of the brown thrasher, or of another that had thenote of the whip-poor-will interpolated in the regular robin song, orof still another that had the call of the quail. In each case thebird had probably heard the song and learned it while very young. Inthe Trossachs, in Scotland, I followed a song thrush about for a longtime, attracted by its peculiar song. It repeated over and over againthree or four notes of a well-known air, which it might have caughtfrom some shepherd boy whistling to his flock or to his cow. 

The songless birds--why has Nature denied them this gift? But theynearly all have some musical call or impulse that serves them verywell. The quail has his whistle, the woodpecker his drum, the peweehis plaintive cry, the chickadee his exquisitely sweet call, thehighhole his long, repeated "wick, wick, wick, " one of the mostwelcome sounds of spring, the jay his musical gurgle, the hawk hisscream, the crow his sturdy caw. Only one of our pretty birds of theorchard is reduced to an all but inaudible note, and that is thecedar-bird. 

 III

 NATURE WITH CLOSED DOORS

December in our climate is the month when Nature finally shuts uphouse and turns the key. She has been slowly packing up and puttingaway her things and closing a door and a window here and there all thefall. Now she completes the work and puts up the last bar. She isready for winter. The leaves are all off the trees, except that hereand there a beech or an oak or a hickory still clings to a remnant ofits withered foliage. Her streams are full, her new growths of woodare ripened, her saps and juices are quiescent. The muskrat hascompleted his house in the shallow pond or stream, the beaver in thenorthern woods has completed his. The wild mice and the chipmunk havelaid up their winter stores of nuts and grains in their dens in theground and in the cavities of trees. The woodchuck is rolled up in hisburrow in the hillside, sleeping his long winter sleep. The coon hasdeserted his chamber in the old tree and gone into winter quarters inhis den in the rocks. The winter birds have taken on a good coat offat against the coming cold and a possible scarcity of food. Thefrogs and toads are all in their hibernaculums in the ground. 

I saw it stated the other day, in a paper read before some scientificbody, that the wood frogs retreat two feet into the ground beyond thereach of frost. In two instances I have found the wood frog inDecember with a covering of less than two inches of leaves and moss. It had buried itself in the soil and leaf mould only to the depth ofthe thickness of its own body, and for covering had only the ordinarycoat of dry leaves and pine needles to be found in the wood. It wasevidently counting upon the snow for its main protection. In one caseI marked the spot, and returned there in early spring to see how thefrog had wintered. I found it all right. Evidently it had some charmagainst the cold, for while the earth around and beneath it was yetfrozen solid, there was no frost in the frog. It was not a brisk frog, but it was well, and when I came again on a warm day a week later, ithad come forth from its retreat and was headed for the near-by marsh, where in April, with its kith and kin, it helped make the air vocalwith its love-calls. A friend of mine, one mild day late in December, found a wood frog sitting upon the snow in the woods. She took it homeand put it to bed in the soil of one of her flower-pots in the cellar. In the spring she found it in good condition, and in April carried itback to the woods. The hyla, or little piping frog, passes the winterin the ground like the wood frog. I have seen the toad go into theground in the late fall. It is an interesting proceeding. It literallyelbows its way into the soil. It sits on end, and works and presseswith the sharp joints of its folded legs until it has sunk itself at asufficient depth, which is only a few inches beneath the surface. Thewater frogs appear to pass the winter in the mud at the bottom ofponds and marshes. The queen bumblebee and the queen hornet, I think, seek out their winter quarters in holes in the ground in September, while the drones and the workers perish. The honey-bees do nothibernate: they must have food all winter; but our native wild beesare dormant during the cold months, and survive the winter only in theperson of the queen mother. In the spring these queens set uphousekeeping alone, and found new families. 

Insects in all stages of their growth are creatures of the warmth; theheat is the motive power that makes them go; when this fails, they arestill. The katydids rasp away in the fall as long as there is warmthenough to keep them going; as the heat fails, they fail, till from theemphatic "Katy did it" of August they dwindle to a hoarse, dying, "Kate, Kate, " in October. Think of the stillness that falls upon themyriad wood-borers in the dry trees and stumps in the forest as thechill of autumn comes on. All summer have they worked incessantly inoak and hickory and birch and chestnut and spruce, some of themmaking a sound exactly like that of the old-fashioned hand augur, others a fine, snapping, and splintering sound; but as the cold comeson, they go slower and slower, till they finally cease to move. A warmday starts them again, slowly or briskly according to the degree ofheat, but in December they are finally stilled for the season. Thesecreatures, like the big fat grubs of the June beetles which onesometimes finds in the ground or in decayed wood, are full of frost inwinter; cut one of the big grubs in two, and it looks like a lump ofice cream. 

Some time in October the crows begin to collect together in largeflocks and establish their winter quarters. They choose some secludedwood for a roosting-place, and thither all the crows for many squaremiles of country betake themselves at night, and thence they dispersein all directions again in the early morning. The crow is a socialbird, a true American; no hermit or recluse is he. The winter probablybrings them together in these large colonies for purposes ofsociability and for greater warmth. By roosting close together andquite filling a tree-top, there must result some economy of heat. 

I have seen it stated in a rhetorical flight of some writer that thenew buds crowd the old leaves off. But this is not true as a rule. Thenew bud is formed in the axil of the old leaf long before the leavesare ready to fall. With only two species of our trees known to memight the swelling bud push off the old leaf. In the sumach andbutton-ball or plane-tree the new bud is formed immediately under thebase of the old leaf-stalk, by which it is covered like a cap. Examinethe fallen leaves of these trees, and you will see the cavity in thebase of each where the new bud was cradled. Why the beech, the oak, and the hickory cling to their old leaves is not clear. It may besimply a slovenly trait--inability to finish and have done with athing--a fault of so many people. Some oaks and beeches appear to lackdecision of character. It requires strength and vitality, it seems, simply to let go. Kill a tree suddenly, and the leaves wither upon thebranches. How neatly and thoroughly the maples, the ashes, thebirches, the elm clean up. They are tidy, energetic trees, and canturn over a new leaf without hesitation. 

A correspondent, writing to me from one of the colleges, suggests thatour spring really begins in December, because the "annual cycle ofvegetable life" seems to start then. At this time he finds that manyof our wild flowers--the bloodroot, hepatica, columbine, shinleaf, maidenhair fern, etc. --have all made quite a start toward the nextseason's growth, in some cases the new shoot being an inch high. Butthe real start of the next season's vegetable life in this sense islong before December. It is in late summer, when the new buds areformed on the trees. Nature looks ahead, and makes ready for the newseason in the midst of the old. Cut open the terminal hickory buds inthe late fall and you will find the new growth of the coming seasonall snugly packed away there, many times folded up and wrapped aboutby protecting scales. The catkins of the birches, alders, and hazelare fully formed, and as in the case of the buds, are like eggs to behatched by the warmth of spring. The present season is always themother of the next, and the inception takes place long before the sunloses his power. The eggs that hold the coming crop of insect life aremostly laid in the late summer or early fall, and an analogous startis made in the vegetable world. The egg, the seed, the bud, are allalike in many ways, and look to the future. Our earliest springflower, the skunk-cabbage, may be found with its round greenspear-point an inch or two above the mould in December. It is ready towelcome and make the most of the first fitful March warmth. Look atthe elms, too, and see how they swarm with buds. In early April theysuggest a swarm of bees. 

In all cases, before Nature closes her house in the fall, she makesready for its spring opening. 

 IV

 THE WIT OF A DUCK

The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their mostremarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill infinding their way back when removed to a distance. It seems at timesas if they possessed some extra sense--the home sense--which operatesunerringly. I saw this illustrated one spring in the case of a mallarddrake. 

My son had two ducks, and to mate with them he procured a drake of aneighbor who lived two miles south of us. He brought the drake home ina bag. The bird had no opportunity to see the road along which it wascarried, or to get the general direction, except at the time ofstarting, when the boy carried him a few rods openly. 

He was placed with the ducks in a spring run, under a tree in asecluded place on the river slope, about a hundred yards from thehighway. The two ducks treated him very contemptuously. It was easy tosee that the drake was homesick from the first hour, and he soon leftthe presence of the scornful ducks. 

Then we shut the three in the barn together, and kept them there aday and a night. Still the friendship did not ripen; the ducks and thedrake separated the moment we let them out. Left to himself, the drakeat once turned his head homeward, and started up the hill for thehighway. 

Then we shut the trio up together again for a couple of days, but withthe same results as before. There seemed to be but one thought in themind of the drake, and that was home. 

Several times we headed him off and brought him back, till finally onthe third or fourth day I said to my son, "If that drake is reallybound to go home, he shall have an opportunity to make the trial, andI will go with him to see that he has fair play. " We withdrew, and thehomesick mallard started up through the currant patch, then throughthe vineyard toward the highway which he had never seen. 

When he reached the fence, he followed it south till he came to theopen gate, where he took to the road as confidently as if he knew fora certainty that it would lead him straight to his mate. How eagerlyhe paddled along, glancing right and left, and increasing his speed atevery step! I kept about fifty yards behind him. Presently he met adog; he paused and eyed the animal for a moment, and then turned tothe right along a road which diverged just at that point, and whichled to the railroad station. I followed, thinking the drake would soonlose his bearings, and get hopelessly confused in the tangle of roadsthat converged at the station. 

But he seemed to have an exact map of the country in his mind; he soonleft the station road, went around a house, through a vineyard, tillhe struck a stone fence that crossed his course at right angles; thishe followed eastward till it was joined by a barbed wire fence, underwhich he passed and again entered the highway he had first taken. Thendown the road he paddled with renewed confidence: under the trees, down a hill, through a grove, over a bridge, up the hill again towardhome. 

Presently he found his clue cut in two by the railroad track; this wassomething he had never before seen; he paused, glanced up it, thendown it, then at the highway across it, and quickly concluded thislast was his course. On he went again, faster and faster. 

He had now gone half the distance, and was getting tired. A littlepool of water by the roadside caught his eye. Into it he plunged, bathed, drank, preened his plumage for a few moments, and then startedhomeward again. He knew his home was on the upper side of the road, for he kept his eye bent in that direction, scanning the fields. Twicehe stopped, stretched himself up, and scanned the landscape intently;then on again. It seemed as if an invisible cord was attached to him, and he was being pulled down the road. 

Just opposite a farm lane which led up to a group of farm buildings, and which did indeed look like his home lane, he paused and seemed tobe debating with himself. Two women just then came along; they liftedand flirted their skirts, for it was raining, and this disturbed himagain and decided him to take to the farm lane. Up the lane he went, rather doubtingly, I thought. 

In a few moments it brought him into a barn-yard, where a group of henscaught his eye. Evidently he was on good terms with hens at home, forhe made up to these eagerly as if to tell them his troubles; but thehens knew not ducks; they withdrew suspiciously, then assumed athreatening attitude, till one old "dominic" put up her feathers andcharged upon him viciously. 

Again he tried to make up to them, quacking softly, and again he wasrepulsed. Then the cattle in the yard spied this strange creature andcame sniffing toward it, full of curiosity. 

The drake quickly concluded he had got into the wrong place, andturned his face southward again. Through the fence he went into aplowed field. Presently another stone fence crossed his path; alongthis he again turned toward the highway. In a few minutes he foundhimself in a corner formed by the meeting of two stone fences. Then heturned appealingly to me, uttering the soft note of the mallard. Touse his wings never seemed to cross his mind. 

Well, I am bound to confess that I helped the drake over the wall, butI sat him down in the road as impartially as I could. How well hispink feet knew the course! How they flew up the road! His green headand white throat fairly twinkled under the long avenue of oaks andchestnuts. 

At last we came in sight of the home lane, which led up to thefarmhouse one hundred or more yards from the road. I was curious tosee if he would recognize the place. At the gate leading into the lanehe paused. He had just gone up a lane that looked like that and hadbeen disappointed. What should he do now? Truth compels me to say thathe overshot the mark: he kept on hesitatingly along the highway. 

It was now nearly night. I felt sure the duck would soon discover hismistake, but I had not time to watch the experiment further. I wentaround the drake and turned him back. As he neared the lane this timehe seemed suddenly to see some familiar landmark, and he rushed up itat the top of his speed. His joy and eagerness were almost pathetic. 

I followed close. Into the house yard he rushed with uplifted wings, and fell down almost exhausted by the side of his mate. A half hourlater the two were nipping the grass together in the pasture, and he, I have no doubt, was eagerly telling her the story of his adventures. 

 V

 FACTORS IN ANIMAL LIFE

The question that the Californian schoolchildren put to me, "Have thebirds got sense?" still "sticks in my crop. "

Such extraordinary sense has been attributed to most of the wildcreatures by several of our latter day nature-writers, that I havebeen moved to examine the whole question more thoroughly than everbefore, and to find out, as far as I can, just how much and what kindof sense the birds and four-footed beasts have. 

In this and in some following chapters I shall make an effort to usemy own sense to the best advantage in probing that of the animals, which has, as I think, been so vastly overrated. 

When sentiment gets overripe, it becomes sentimentalism. The sentimentfor nature which has been so assiduously cultivated in our times isfast undergoing this change, and is softening into sentimentalismtoward the lower animals. Many a wholesome feeling can be pushed sofar that it becomes a weakness and a sign of disease. Pity for thesufferings of our brute neighbors may be a manly feeling; and thenagain it may be so fostered and cosseted that it becomes maudlin andunworthy. When hospitals are founded for sick or homeless cats anddogs, when all forms of vivisection are cried down, when the animalsare humanized and books are written to show that the wild creatureshave schools and kindergartens, and that their young are instructedand disciplined in quite the human way by their fond parents; when wewant to believe that reason and not instinct guides them, that theyare quite up in some of the simpler arts of surgery, mending oramputating their own broken limbs and salving their wounds, --when, Isay, our attitude toward the natural life about us and our feeling forit have reached the stage implied by these things, then has sentimentdegenerated into sentimentalism, and our appreciation of nature lostits firm edge. 

No doubt there is a considerable number of people in any communitythat are greatly taken with this improved anthropomorphic view of wildnature now current among us. Such a view tickles the fancy and touchesthe emotions. It makes the wild creatures so much more interesting. Shall we deny anything to a bird or beast that makes it moreinteresting, and more worthy of our study and admiration?

This sentimental view of animal life has its good side and its badside. Its good side is its result in making us more considerate andmerciful toward our brute neighbors; its bad side is seen in thedegree to which it leads to a false interpretation of their lives. Thetendency to which I refer is no doubt partly the result of our growinghumanitarianism and feeling of kinship with all the lower orders ofcreation, and partly due to the fact that we live in a time ofimpromptu nature study, when birds and plants and trees are fastbecoming a fad with half the population, and when the "yellow"reporter is abroad in the fields and woods. Never before in my timehave so many exaggerations and misconceptions of the wild life aboutus been current in the popular mind. It is becoming the fashion toascribe to the lower animals nearly all our human motives andattributes, and often to credit them with plans and devices that implyreason and a fair amount of mechanical knowledge. An illustration ofthis is the account of the nest of a pair of orioles, as described inthe "North American Review" for May, 1903, by a writer of popularnature books. These orioles built a nest so extraordinary that it canbe accounted for only on the theory that there _is_ a school of thewoods, and that these two birds had been pupils there and had taken anadvanced course in Strings. Among other things impossible for birds todo, these orioles tied a knot in the end of a string to prevent itsfraying in the wind! If the whole idea were not too preposterous foreven a half-witted child to believe, one might ask, What in the nameof anything and everything but the "Modern School of Nature Study" doorioles know about strings fraying in the wind and the use of knots toprevent it? They have never had occasion to know; they have had noexperience with strings that hang loose and unravel in the wind. Theyoften use strings, to be sure, in building their nests, but they usethem in a sort of haphazard way, weaving them awkwardly into thestructure, and leaving no loose ends that would suffer by fraying inthe wind. Sometimes they use strings in attaching the nest to thelimb, but they never knot or tie them; they simply wind them round andround as a child might. It is possible that a bird might be taught totie a knot with its foot and beak, though I should have to see it doneto be convinced. But the orioles in question not only tied knots; theytied them with a "reversed double hitch, the kind that a man uses incinching his saddle"! More wonderful still, not finding in a NewEngland elm-embowered town a suitable branch from which to suspendtheir nest, the birds went down upon the ground and tied three twigstogether in the form of "a perfectly measured triangle" (no doubtworking from a plan drawn to a scale). They attached to the threesides of this framework four strings of equal length (eight or teninches), all carefully doubled, tied them to a heavier string, carriedthe whole ingenious contrivance to a tree, and tied it fast to a limbin precisely the way you or I would have done it! From this frameworkthey suspended their nest, the whole structure being about two feetlong, and having the effect of a small hanging basket. Still moreastonishing, when the genuineness of the nest is questioned, a man isfound who makes affidavit that he saw the orioles build it! After sucha proceeding, how long will it be before the water-birds are buildinglittle rush cradles for their young, or rush boats to be driven aboutthe ponds and lakes by means of leaf sails, or before Jenny Wren willbe living in a log cabin of her own construction? How long will it bebefore some one makes affidavit that the sparrow with his bow andarrow has actually been seen to kill Cock Robin, and the beetle withhis thread and needle engaged in making the shroud? Birds show thetaste and skill of their kind in building their nests, but rarely anyindividual ingenuity and inventiveness. The nest referred to is on aplane entirely outside of Nature and her processes. It belongs to adifferent order of things, the order of mechanical contrivances, andwas of course "made up, " probably from a real oriole's nest, and thewriter who vouches for its genuineness has been the victim of a cleverpractical joke--a willing victim, no doubt, since he is looking inNature for just this kind of thing, and since he believes there is"absolutely no limit to the variety and adaptiveness of Nature even ina single species. " If there is no such limit, then I suppose we neednot be surprised to meet a winged horse, or a centaur, or a mermaid atany time. 

It is as plain as anything can be that the animals share our emotionalnature in vastly greater measure than they do our intellectual or ourmoral nature; and because they do this, because they show fear, love, joy, anger, sympathy, jealousy, because they suffer and are glad, because they form friendships and local attachments and have the homeand paternal instincts, in short, because their lives run parallel toour own in so many particulars, we come, if we are not careful, toascribe to them the whole human psychology. But it is equally plainthat of what we mean by mind, intellect, they show only a trace nowand then. They do not accumulate a store of knowledge any more thanthey do a store of riches. A store of knowledge is impossible withoutlanguage. Man began to emerge from the lower orders when he invented alanguage of some sort. As the language of animals is little more thanvarious cries expressive of pleasure or pain, or fear or suspicion, they do not think in any proper sense, because they have no terms inwhich to think--no language. I shall have more to say upon this pointin another chapter. One trait they do show which is the first steptoward knowledge--curiosity. Nearly all the animals show at timesvarying degrees of curiosity, but here again an instinctive feeling ofpossible danger probably lies back of it. They even seem to show attimes a kind of altruistic feeling. A correspondent writes me that shepossessed a canary which lived to so great an age that it finallybecame so feeble it could not crack the seeds she gave it, when theother birds, its own progeny, it is true, fed it; and Darwin citescases of blind birds, in a state of nature, being fed by theirfellows. Probably it would be hasty to conclude that such acts showanything more than instinct. I should be slow to ascribe to theanimals any notion of the uses of punishment as we practice it, thoughthe cat will box her kittens when they play too long with her tail, and the mother hen will separate her chickens when they get into afight, and sometimes peck one or both of them on the head, as much asto say, "There, don't you do that again. " The rooster will in the sameway separate two hens when they are fighting. On the surface thisseems like a very human act, but can we say that it is punishment ordiscipline in the human sense, as having for its aim a betterment ofthe manners of the kittens or of the chickens? The cat aims to get ridof an annoyance, and the rooster and the mother hen interfere toprevent an injury to members of their family; they exhibit thepaternal and maternal instinct of protection. More than that wouldimply ethical considerations, of which the lower animals are notcapable. The act of the baboon, mentioned by Darwin, I believe, thatexamined the paws of the cat that had scratched it, and thendeliberately bit off the nails, belongs to a different and to ahigher order of conduct. 

A complete statement of the factors that shape the lives of the lowerorders would include three terms--instinct, imitation (though, doubtless, this is instinctive), and experience. Instinct is, ofcourse, the main factor, and by this term we mean that which promptsan animal or a man to act spontaneously, without instruction orexperience. All creatures are imitative, and man himself not the leastso. I had a visit the other day from a woman who had spent the lasttwo years in London, and her speech betrayed the fact; she had quiteunconsciously caught certain of the English mannerisms of speech. Afew years in the South will give the New Englander the Southernaccent, and vice versa. The young are, of course, more imitative thanthe old. Children imitate their parents; the young writer imitates hisfavorite author. 

Animals of different species closely associated will imitate eachother. A lady writes me that she has a rabbit that lives in a cagewith a monkey, and that it has caught many of the monkey's ways. I canwell believe it. Dogs reared with cats have been known to acquire thecat habit of licking the paws and then washing the ears and face. Wolves reared with dogs learn to bark, and who has not seen a dog drawits face as if trying to laugh as its master does? When a cat has beentaught to sit up for its food, its kittens have been known to imitatethe mother. Darwin tells of a cat that used to put its paw into themouth of a narrow milk-jug and then lick it off, and that its kittenssoon learned the same trick. In all such cases, hasty observers saythe mother taught its young. Certainly the young learned, but therewas no effort to teach on the part of the parent. Unconsciousimitation did it all. Our "Modern School of Nature Study" would saythat the old sow teaches her pigs to root when they follow her afield, rooting in their little ways as she does. But would she not root ifshe had no pigs, and would not the pigs root if they had no mother?All acts necessary to an animal's life and to the continuance of thespecies are instinctive; the creature does not have to be taught them, nor are they acquired by imitation. The bird does not have to betaught to build its nest or to fly, nor the beaver to build its dam orits house, nor the otter or the seal to swim, nor the young of mammalsto suckle, nor the spider to spin its web, nor the grub to weave itscocoon. Nature does not trust these things to chance; they are toovital. The things that an animal acquires by imitation are ofsecondary importance in its life. As soon as the calf, or the lamb, orthe colt can get upon its feet, its first impulse is to find the udderof its dam. It requires no instruction or experience to take thisimportant step. 

How far the different species of song-birds acquire each theirpeculiar songs by imitation is a question that has not yet been fullysettled. That imitation has much to do with it admits of little doubt. The song of a bird is of secondary importance in its life. Birdsreared in captivity, where they have never heard the songs of theirkind, sing at the proper age, but not always the songs of theirparents. Mr. Scott of Princeton proved this with his orioles. Theysang at the proper age, but not the regular oriole song. I am toldthat there is a well-authenticated case of an English sparrow broughtup with canaries that learned to sing like a canary. "The Hon. DainesBarrington placed three young linnets with three differentfoster-parents, the skylark, the woodlark, and the titlark ormeadow-pipit, and each adopted, through imitation, the song of itsfoster-parent. " I have myself heard goldfinches that were reared in acage sing beautifully, but not the regular goldfinch song; it wasclearly the song of a finch, but of what finch I could not have told. I have also heard a robin that sang to perfection the song of thebrown thrasher; it had, no doubt, caught it by imitation. I have heardanother robin that had the call of the quail interpolated into its ownproper robin's song. But I have yet to hear of a robin building a nestlike a brown thrasher, or of an oriole building a nest like a robin, or of kingfishers drilling for grubs in a tree. The hen cannot keepout of the water the ducks she has hatched, nor can the duck coax intothe water the chickens she has hatched. The cowbird hatched andreared by the sparrow, or the warbler, or the vireo does not sing thesong of the foster-parent. Why? Did its parent not try to teach it? Ihave no evidence that young birds sing, except occasionally in a low, tentative kind of way, till they return the following season, and thenbirds of a feather flock together, robins staying with robins, andcowbirds with cowbirds, each singing the song of its species. Thesongs of bobolinks differ in different localities, but those of thesame locality always sing alike. I once had a caged skylark thatimitated the songs of nearly every bird in my neighborhood. 

Mr. Leander S. Keyser, author of "Birds of the Rockies, " relates in"Forest and Stream" the results of his experiments with a variety ofbirds taken from the nest while very young and reared in captivity;among them meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, brown thrashers, bluejays, wood thrushes, catbirds, flickers, woodpeckers, and severalothers. Did they receive any parental instruction? Not a bit of it, and yet at the proper age they flew, perched, called, and sang liketheir wild fellows--all except the robins and the red-wingedblackbirds: these did not sing the songs of their species, but sang amedley made up of curious imitations of human and other sounds. Andthe blue jay never learned to sing "the sweet gurgling roulade of thewild jays, " though it gave the blue jay call correctly. Mr. Keyser'sexperiment was interesting and valuable, but his sagacity fails himwhen interpreting the action of the jay in roosting in an exposedplace after it had been given its liberty. He thinks this showed howlittle instinct can be relied on, and how much the bird neededparental instruction. Could he not see that the artificial life of thebird in the cage had demoralized its instincts, and that acquiredhabits had supplanted native tendencies? The bird had learned to beunafraid in the cage, and why should it be afraid out of the cage?This reminds me of a letter from a correspondent: he had a tame crowthat was not afraid of a gun; therefore he concluded that the oldcrows must instill the fear of guns into their young! Why should thecrow be afraid of a gun, if it had learned not to be afraid of thegunner?

I have seen a young chickadee fly late in the day from the nest in thecavity of a tree straight to a pear-tree, where it perched close tothe trunk and remained unregarded by its parents till next morning. But no doubt its parents had given it minute directions before it leftthe nest how to fly and where to perch!

That animals learn by experience in a limited way is very certain. Yetthat old birds build better nests or sing better than young ones itwould be hard to prove, though it seems reasonable that it should beso. 

Rarely does one see nests of the same species of varying degrees ofexcellence--that is, first nests in the spring. The second nest of anyspecies is likely to be a more hurried and incomplete affair. Somespecies are at all times poor nest-builders, as the cuckoos and thepigeons. Other birds are good nest-builders, as the orioles, thethrushes, the finches, the warblers, the hummingbirds, and one neverfinds an inferior specimen of the nests of any of these birds. Thereis probably no more improvement in this respect among birds than thereis among insects. 

I have no proof that wild birds improve in singing. One does not heara vireo, or a finch, or a thrush, or a warbler that is noticeablyinferior as a songster to its fellows; their songs are all alike, except in the few rare cases when one hears a master songster amongits kind; but whether this mastery is natural or acquired, who shalltell?

What birds learn about migration, if anything, I do not see that wehave any means of finding out. 

It has been observed of birds reared under artificial conditions thatthe young males practice a long time before they sing well. That thisis true of wild birds, there is no proof. What birds and animals learnby experience is greater cunning. Does not even an old trout know moreabout hooks than a young one? Birds of any kind that are much huntedbecome wilder, even though they have not had the experience of beingshot. Ask any duck or grouse or quail hunter if this is not so. Ourruffed grouse learns to fly with a corkscrew motion where it is muchfired at on the wing. How wary and cautious the fox becomes in regionswhere it is much trapped and hunted! Even the woodchuck becomes verywild on the farms where it is much shot at, and this wildness extendsto its young. In his "Wilderness Hunter" President Roosevelt says thesame thing of the big game of the Rockies. Antelope and deer can belured near the concealed hunter by the waving of a small flag tillthey are shot at a few times. Then they see through the trick. "Theburnt child fears the fire. " Animals profit by experience in this way;they learn what not to do. In the accumulation of positive knowledge, so far as we know, they make little or no progress. Birds and beastswill adapt themselves more or less to their environment, but plantsand trees will do that, too. The rats in Jamaica have learned to nestin trees to escape the mongoose, but this is only the triumph of theinstinct of self-preservation. The mongoose has not yet learned toclimb trees; the pressure of need is not yet great enough. It is saidthat in districts subject to floods moor-hens often build in trees. All animals will change their habits under pressure of necessity; manchanges his without this pressure. The Duke of Argyll saw a bald eagleseize a fish in the stream--an unusual proceeding; but the eagle wasdoubtless very hungry, and there was no osprey near upon whom to levytribute. 

Romanes found that rats would get certain semi-liquid foods out of abottle with their tails, as a cat will get milk out of a jar with herpaw, but neither ever progresses so far as to use any sort of tool forthe purpose, or to tip the vessel over. Animals practice concealmentto secure their prey, but not deception, as man does. They do not uselures or disguises, or traps or poison. 

There is, of course, no limit to the variety and adaptiveness ofnature taken as a whole, but each species is hedged about byimpassable limitations. The ouzel is akin to the thrushes, and yet itlives along and in the water. Does it ever take to the fields andwoods, and live on fruit and land-insects, and nest in trees likeother thrushes? So with all birds and beasts. They vary constantly, but not in one lifetime, and the sum of these variations, accumulatedthrough natural selection, as Darwin has shown, gives rise, in thecourse of long periods of time, to new species. 

As I have already said, domestic animals vary more than wild ones. Every farmer and poultry-grower knows that some hens are better withchickens than others--more motherly, more careful--and rear a greaternumber of their brood. The same is true of sows with pigs. Some sowswill eat their pigs, and wild animals in cages often destroy theiryoung. Some ewes will not own their lambs, and occasionally a cow willnot own her calf. (Such cases show perverted or demoralizedinstinct. ) Similar to these are the strange friendships that sometimesoccur among the domestic animals, as that of a sheep with a cow, agoose with a horse, or a hen adopting kittens. In a state of naturethese curious attachments probably never spring up. Instinct is likelyto be more or less demoralized when animal life touches human life. 

With the wild creatures we sometimes see one instinct overcominganother, as when fear drives a bird to desert its nest, or when theinstinct of migration leads a pair of swallows to desert theirunfledged young. 

A great many young birds come to grief by leaving the nest before theycan fly. In such cases, I suppose, they disobey the parentalinstructions! I find it easier to believe that instinct is at fault, or that one instinct has overcome another; something has disturbed oralarmed the young birds, and the fear of danger has led them toattempt flight before their wings were strong enough. Once, when I wasclimbing up to the nest of a broad-winged hawk, the young took frightand launched out in the air, coming to the ground only a few rodsaway. 

Instinct, natural prompting, is the main matter, after all. It makesup at least nine tenths of the lives of all our wild neighbors. Howmuch has fear had to do in shaping their lives and in perpetuatingthem! And "fear of any particular enemy, " says Darwin, "is certainlyan instinctive quality. " It has been said that kittens confined in abox, and which have never known a dog, will spit and put up theirbacks at a hand that has just stroked a dog, --even before their eyesare opened, one authority says, but this I doubt. My son's tame graysquirrel had never seen chestnuts, nor learned about them in theschool of the woods, and yet when he was offered some, he fairlydanced with excitement; he put his paws eagerly around them and drewthem to him, and chattered, and looked threateningly at all about him. Does man know his proper food in the same way? The child has only theinstinct to eat, and will put anything into its mouth. 

How the instinctive wildness of the turkey crops out in the young! Letthe mother turkey while hovering her brood give the danger-signal, andthe young will run from under her and hide in the grass. Why? To giveher a chance to fly and decoy away the enemy. I think young chickenswill do the same. Young partridges hatched under a hen run away atonce. Pheasants in England reared under a domestic fowl are as wild asin a state of nature. Some California quail hatched under a bantam henin the Zoo in New York did not heed the calls of their foster-motherat all the first week, but at her alarm-note they instantly squatted, showing that the danger-cry of a fowl is a kind of universal languagethat all species understand. One may prove this at any time byarousing the fears of any wild bird: how all the other birds catch thealarm! Charles St. John says that in Scotland the stag you arestalking is sure to be put to flight if it hears the alarm-cry of thecock-grouse. You see it is more important that the wild creaturesshould understand the danger-signals of one another than that theyshould understand the rest of their language. 

To what extent animals reason, or show any glimmering of what we callreason, is a much-debated question among animal psychologists, and Ishall have more to say upon the subject later on. Dogs undoubtedlyshow gleams of reason, and other animals in domestication, such as theelephant and the monkey. One does not often feel like questioningDarwin's conclusions, yet the incident of the caged bear which hequotes, that pawed the water in front of its cage to create a currentthat should float within its reach a piece of bread that had beenplaced there, does not, in my judgment, show any reasoning about thelaws of hydrostatics. The bear would doubtless have pawed a cloth inthe same way, vaguely seeking to draw the bread within reach. But whenan elephant blows through his trunk upon the ground _beyond_ an objectwhich he wants, but which is beyond his reach, so that the reboundingair will drive it toward him, he shows something very much likereason. 

Instinct is a kind of natural reason, --reason that acts without proofor experience. The principle of life in organic nature seeks in allways to express and to perpetuate itself. It finds many degrees ofexpression and fulfillment in the vegetable world; it finds higherdegrees of expression and fulfillment in the animal world, reachingits highest development in man. 

That the animals, except those that have been long associated withman, and they only in occasional gleams and hints, are capable of anyof our complex mental processes, that they are capable of an act ofreflection, of connecting cause and effect, of putting this and thattogether, is to me void of proof. Why, there are yet savage tribes inwhich the woman is regarded as the sole parent of the child. When themother is sick at childbirth, the father takes to his bed and feignsthe illness he does not feel, in order to establish his relationshipto the child. It is not at all probable that the males of any speciesof animals, or the females either, are guided or influenced in theiractions by the desire for offspring, or that they possess anythinglike knowledge of the connection between their love-making and theiroffspring. This knowledge comes of reflection, and reflection thelower animals are not capable of. But I shall have more to say uponthis point in another chapter, entitled "What do Animals Know?" I willonly say here that animals are almost as much under the dominion ofabsolute nature, or what we call instinct, innate tendency, habit ofgrowth, as are the plants and trees. Their lives revolve around threewants or needs--the want of food, of safety, and of offspring. It isin securing these ends that all their wit is developed. They have nowants outside of these spheres, as man has. Their social wants andtheir love of beauty, as in some of the birds, are secondary. It isquite certain that the animals that store up food for the winter donot take any thought of the future. Nature takes thought for them andgives them their provident instinct. The jay, by his propensity tocarry away and hide things, plants many of our oak and chestnut trees, but who dares say that he does this on purpose, any more than that theinsects cross-fertilize the flowers on purpose? Sheep do not takethought of the wool upon their backs that is to protect them from thecold of winter, nor does the fox of his fur. In the tropics sheepcease to grow wool in three or four years. 

All the lower animals, so far as I know, swim the first time they findthemselves in the water. They do not have to be taught: it is a matterof instinct. It is what we should expect from our knowledge of theirlives. Not so with man; he must learn to swim as he learns so manyother things. The stimulus of the water does not at once set in motionhis legs and arms in the right way, as it does the animal's legs; hispowers of reason and reflection paralyze him--his brain carries himdown. Not until he has learned to resign himself to the water as theanimal does, and to go on all fours, can he swim. As soon as the boyceases to struggle against his tendency to sink, assumes thehorizontal position, and strikes out as the animal does, with but onethought, and that to apply his powers of locomotion to the mediumabout him, he swims as a matter of course. It is said that childrenhave sometimes been known to swim when thrown into the water. Theiranimal instincts were not thwarted by their powers of reflection. Doubtless this never happened to a grown person. Moreover, is it notprobable that the specific gravity of the hairless human body isgreater than that of the hair-covered animal, and that it sinks, whilethat of the cat or dog floats? This, with the erect position of man, makes swimming with him an art that must be acquired. 

There is no better illustration of the action of instinct as opposedto conscious intelligence than is afforded by the parasiticbirds, --the cuckoo in Europe and the cowbird in this country, --birdsthat lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Darwin speculates asto how this instinct came about, but whatever may have been itsgenesis, it is now a fixed habit among these birds. Moreover, theinstinct of the blind young alien, a day or two after it is hatched, to throw or crowd its foster-brothers out of the nest is a strange andanomalous act, and is as untaught and unreasoned as anything invegetable life. But when our yellow warbler, finding this strange eggof the cowbird in her nest, proceeds to bury it by putting anotherbottom in the nest and carrying up the sides to correspond, she showssomething very much like sense and judgment, though of a clumsy kind. How much simpler and easier it would be to throw out the strange egg!I have known the cowbird herself to carry an egg from a nest in whichshe wished to deposit one of her own. Again, how stupid and ludicrousit seems on the part of the mother sparrow, or warbler, or vireo, whenshe goes about toiling desperately to satisfy the hunger of her bigclamorous bantling of a cowbird, never suspecting that she has beenimposed upon!

Of course the line that divides man from the lower orders is not astraight line. It has many breaks and curves and deep indentations. The man-like apes, as it were, mark where the line rises up into thedomain of man. Furthermore, the elephant and the dog, especially as weknow them in domestication, encroach upon man's territory. 

Men are born with aptitudes for different things, but the art and thescience of them all they have to learn; proficiency comes withpractice. Man must learn to spin his web, to build his house, to singhis song, to know his food, to sail his craft, to find his way--thingsthat the animals know "from the jump. " The animal inherits itsknowledge and its skill: man must acquire his by individual effort;all he inherits is capacity in varying degrees for these things. Theanimal does rational things without an exercise of reason. It isintelligent as nature is intelligent. It does not know that it knows, or how it knows, while man does. Man's knowledge is the light of hismind that shines on many and widely different objects, while theknowledge of animals cannot be symbolized by the term "light" at all. The animal acts blindly so far as any conscious individualillumination or act of judgment is concerned. It does the thingunwittingly, because it must. Confront it with a new condition, and ithas no resources to meet that condition. The animal knows whatnecessity taught its progenitors, and it knows that only as aspontaneous impulse to do certain things. 

Instinct, I say, is a great matter, and often shames reason. It adaptsmeans to an end, it makes few or no mistakes, it takes note of timesand seasons, it delves, it bores, it spins, it weaves, it sews, itbuilds, it makes paper, it constructs a shelter, it navigates the airand the water, it is provident and thrifty, it knows its enemies, itoutwits its foes, it crosses oceans and continents without compass, itforeshadows nearly all the arts and trades and occupations of mankind, it is skilled without practice, and wise without experience. How itarose, what its genesis was, who can tell? Probably natural selectionhas been the chief agent in its development. If natural selection hasdeveloped and sharpened the claws of the cat and the scent of thefox, why should it not develop and sharpen their wits also? The remoteancestors of the fox or of the crow were doubtless less shrewd andcunning than the crows and the foxes of to-day. The instinctiveintelligence of an animal of our time is the sum of the variationstoward greater intelligence of all its ancestors. What man stores inlanguage and in books--the accumulated results of experience--theanimals seem to have stored in instinct. As Darwin says, a man cannot, on his first trial, make a stone hatchet or a canoe through his powerof imitation. "He has to learn his work by practice; a beaver, on theother hand, can make its dam or canal, and a bird its nest, as well ornearly as well, and a spider its wonderful web quite as well, thefirst time it tries as when old and experienced. "

An animal shows intelligence, as distinct from instinct, when it takesadvantage of any circumstance that arises at the moment, when it findsnew ways, whether better or not, as when certain birds desert theirold nesting-sites, and take up with new ones afforded by man. Thisact, at least, shows power of choice. The birds and beasts all quicklyavail themselves of any new source of food supply. Their wits areprobably more keen and active here than in any other direction. It issaid that in Oklahoma the coyotes have learned to tell ripewatermelons from unripe ones by scratching upon them. If they havenot, they probably will. Eating is the one thing that engrosses theattention of all creatures, and the procuring of food has been a greatmeans of education to all. 

I notice that certain of the wood-folk--mice and squirrels andbirds--eat mushrooms. If I would eat them, I must learn how todistinguish the edible from the poisonous ones. I have no specialsense to guide me in the matter, as doubtless the squirrels have. Their instinct is sure where my reason fails. It would be veryinteresting to know if they ever make a mistake in this matter. Domestic animals sometimes make mistakes as to their food becausetheir instinct has been tampered with and is by no means as sure asthat of the wild creatures. It is said that sheep will occasionallyeat laurel and St. John's-wort, which are poisonous to them. In thefar West I was told that the horses sometimes eat a weed called theloco-weed that makes them crazy. I have since learned that thebuffaloes and cattle with a strain of the buffalo blood never eat thisweed. 

The imitation among the lower animals to which I have referred is inno sense akin to teaching. The boy does not learn arithmetic byimitation. To teach is to bring one mind to act upon another mind; itis the result of a conscious effort on the part of both teacher andpupil. The child, says Darwin, has an instinctive tendency to speak, but not to brew, or bake, or write. The child comes to speak byimitation, as does the parrot, and then learns the meaning of words, as the parrot does not. 

I am convinced there is nothing in the notion that animals consciouslyteach their young. Is it probable that a mere animal reflects upon thefuture any more than it does upon the past? Is it solicitous about thefuture well-being of its offspring any more than it is curious aboutits ancestry? Persons who think they see the lower animals trainingtheir young consciously or unconsciously supply something to theirobservations; they read their own thoughts or preconceptions into whatthey see. Yet so trained a naturalist and experienced a hunter asPresident Roosevelt differs with me in this matter. In a letter whichI am permitted to quote, he says:--

"I have not the slightest doubt that there is a large amount of_unconscious_ teaching by wood-folk of their offspring. Inunfrequented places I have had the deer watch me with almost as muchindifference as they do now in the Yellowstone Park. In frequentedplaces, where they are hunted, young deer and young mountain sheep, onthe other hand, --and of course young wolves, bobcats, and thelike, --are exceedingly wary and shy when the sight or smell of man isconcerned. Undoubtedly this is due to the fact that from theirearliest moments of going about they learn to imitate the unflaggingwatchfulness of their parents, and by the exercise of some associativeor imitative quality they grow to imitate and then to share the alarmdisplayed by the older ones at the smell or presence of man. A youngdeer that has never seen a man feels no instinctive alarm at hispresence, or at least very little; but it will undoubtedly learn toassociate extreme alarm with his presence from merely accompanying itsmother, if the latter feels such alarm. I should not regard this asschooling by the parent any more than I should so regard the instantflight of twenty antelope who had not seen a hunter, because thetwenty-first has seen him and has instantly run. Sometimes a deer oran antelope will deliberately give an alarm-cry at sight of somethingstrange. This cry at once puts every deer or antelope on the alert;but they will be just as much on the alert if they witness nothing butan exhibition of fright and flight on the part of the first deer orantelope, without there being any conscious effort on its part toexpress alarm. 

"Moreover, I am inclined to think that on certain occasions, rarethough they may be, there is a conscious effort at teaching. I havemyself known of one setter dog which would thrash its puppy soundly ifthe latter carelessly or stupidly flushed a bird. Something similarmay occur in the wild state among such intelligent beasts as wolvesand foxes. Indeed, I have some reason to believe that with both ofthese animals it does occur--that is, that there is conscious as wellas unconscious teaching of the young in such matters as traps. "

Probably the President and I differ more in the meaning we attach tothe same words than in anything else. In a subsequent letter he says:"I think the chief difference between you and me in the matter is oneof terminology. When I speak of unconscious teaching, I really meansimply acting in a manner which arouses imitation. "

Imitation is no doubt the key to the whole matter. The animalsunconsciously teach their young by their example, and in no other way. But I must leave the discussion of this subject for another chapter. 

 VI

 ANIMAL COMMUNICATION

The notion that animals consciously train and educate their young hasbeen held only tentatively by European writers on natural history. Darwin does not seem to have been of this opinion at all. Wallaceshared it at one time in regard to the birds, --their songs andnest-building, --but abandoned it later, and fell back upon instinct orinherited habit. Some of the German writers, such as Brehm, Büchner, and the Müllers, seem to have held to the notion more decidedly. ButProfessor Groos had not yet opened their eyes to the significance ofthe play of animals. The writers mentioned undoubtedly read theinstinctive play of animals as an attempt on the part of the parentsto teach their young. 

That the examples of the parents in many ways stimulate the imitativeinstincts of the young is quite certain, but that the parents in anysense aim at instruction is an idea no longer held by writers onanimal psychology. 

Of course it all depends upon what we mean by teaching. Do we mean thecommunication of knowledge, or the communication of emotion? It seemsto me that by teaching we mean the former. Man alone communicatesknowledge; the lower animals communicate feeling or emotion. Hencetheir communications always refer to the present, never to the past orto the future. 

That birds and beasts do communicate with each other, who can doubt?But that they impart knowledge, that they have any knowledge toimpart, in the strict meaning of the word, any store of ideas ormental concepts--that is quite another matter. Teaching implies suchstore of ideas and power to impart them. The subconscious self rulesin the animal; the conscious self rules in man, and the conscious selfalone can teach or communicate knowledge. It seems to me that thecases of the deer and the antelope, referred to by President Rooseveltin the letter to me quoted in the last chapter, show the communicationof emotion only. 

Teaching implies reflection and judgment; it implies a thought of, andsolicitude for, the future. "The young will need this knowledge, " saysthe human parent, "and so we will impart it to them now. " But theanimal parent has consciously no knowledge to impart, only fear orsuspicion. One may affirm almost anything of trained dogs and of dogsgenerally. I can well believe that the setter bitch spoken of by thePresident punished her pup when it flushed a bird, --she had beenpunished herself for the same offense, --but that the act wasexpressive of anything more than her present anger, that she was inany sense trying to train and instruct her pup, there is no proof. 

But with animals that have not been to school to man, all ideas ofteaching must be rudimentary indeed. How could a fox or a wolfinstruct its young in such matters as traps? Only in the presence ofthe trap, certainly; and then the fear of the trap would becommunicated to the young through natural instinct. Fear, like joy orcuriosity, is contagious among beasts and birds, as it is among men;the young fox or wolf would instantly share the emotion of its parentin the presence of a trap. It is very important to the wild creaturesthat they have a quick apprehension of danger, and as a matter of factthey have. One wild and suspicious duck in a flock will often defeatthe best laid plans of the duck-hunter. Its suspicions are quicklycommunicated to all its fellows: not through any conscious effort onits part to do so, but through the law of natural contagion abovereferred to. Where any bird or beast is much hunted, fear seems to bein the air, and their fellows come to be conscious of the danger whichthey have not experienced. 

What an animal lacks in wit it makes up in caution. Fear is a goodthing for the wild creatures to have in superabundance. It often savesthem from real danger. But how undiscriminating it is! It is saidthat an iron hoop or wagon-tire placed around a setting hen in thewoods will protect her from the foxes. 

Animals are afraid on general principles. Anything new and strangeexcites their suspicions. In a herd of animals, cattle, or horses, fear quickly becomes a panic and rages like a conflagration. Cattlemenin the West found that any little thing at night might kindle thespark in their herds and sweep the whole mass away in a furiousstampede. Each animal excites every other, and the multiplied fear ofthe herd is something terrible. Panics among men are not muchdifferent. 

In a discussion like the present one, let us use words in their strictlogical sense, if possible. Most of the current misconceptions innatural history, as in other matters, arise from a loose and carelessuse of words. One says teach and train and instruct, when the factspoint to instinctive imitation or unconscious communication. 

That the young of all kinds thrive better and develop more rapidlyunder the care of their parents than when deprived of that care isobvious enough. It would be strange if it were not so. Nothing canquite fill the place of the mother with either man or bird or beast. The mother provides and protects. The young quickly learn of herthrough the natural instinct of imitation. They share her fears, theyfollow in her footsteps, they look to her for protection; it is theorder of nature. They are not trained in the way they should go, as achild is by its human parents--they are not trained at all; but theirnatural instincts doubtless act more promptly and surely with themother than without her. That a young kingfisher or a young ospreywould, in due time, dive for fish, or a young marsh hawk catch miceand birds, or a young fox or wolf or coon hunt for its proper preywithout the parental example, admits of no doubt at all; but theywould each probably do this thing earlier and better in the order ofnature than if that order were interfered with. 

The other day I saw a yellow-bellied woodpecker alight upon a decayingbeech and proceed to drill for a grub. Two of its fully grown youngfollowed it and, alighting near, sidled up to where the parent wasdrilling. A hasty observer would say that the parent was giving itsyoung a lesson in grub-hunting, but I read the incident differently. The parent bird had no thought of its young. It made passes at themwhen they came too near, and drove them away. Presently it left thetree, whereupon one of the young examined the hole its parent had madeand drilled a little on its own account. A parental example like thismay stimulate the young to hunt for grubs earlier than they wouldotherwise do, but this is merely conjecture. There is no proof of it, nor can there be any. 

The mother bird or beast does not have to be instructed in hermaternal duties: they are instinctive with her; it is of vitalimportance to the continuance of the species that they should be. Ifit were a matter of instruction or acquired knowledge, how precariousit would be!

The idea of teaching is an advanced idea, and can come only to a beingthat is capable of returning upon itself in thought, and that can formabstract conceptions--conceptions that float free, so to speak, dissociated from particular concrete objects. 

If a fox, or a wolf, for instance, were capable of reflection and ofdwelling upon the future and upon the past, it might feel the need ofinstructing its young in the matter of traps and hounds, if such athing were possible without language. When the cat brings her kitten alive mouse, she is not thinking about instructing it in the art ofdealing with mice, but is intent solely upon feeding her young. Thekitten already knows, through inheritance, about mice. So when the henleads her brood forth and scratches for them, she has but onepurpose--to provide them with food. If she is confined to the coop, the chickens go forth and soon scratch for themselves and snap up theproper insect food. 

The mother's care and protection count for much, but they do not takethe place of inherited instinct. It has been found that newly hatchedchickens, when left to themselves, do not know the difference betweenedible and non-edible insects, but that they soon learn. In suchmatters the mother hen, no doubt, guides them. 

A writer in "Forest and Stream, " who has since published a book abouthis "wild friends, " pushes this notion that animals train their youngso far that it becomes grotesque. Here are some of the things thatthis keen observer and exposer of "false natural history" reports thathe has seen about his cabin in the woods: He has seen an old crow thathurriedly flew away from his cabin door on his sudden appearance, return and beat its young because they did not follow quickly enough. He has seen a male chewink, while its mate was rearing a second brood, take the first brood and lead them away to a bird-resort (he probablymeant to say to a bird-nursery or kindergarten); and when one of thebirds wandered back to take one more view of the scenes of itsinfancy, he has seen the father bird pounce upon it and give it a"severe whipping and take it to the resort again. "

He has seen swallows teach their young to fly by gathering them uponfences and telegraph wires and then, at intervals (and at the word ofcommand, I suppose), launching out in the air with them, and swoopingand circling about. He has seen a song sparrow, that came to hisdooryard for fourteen years (he omitted to say that he had branded himand so knew his bird), teach _his year-old boy to sing_ (the italicsare mine). This hermit-inclined sparrow wanted to "desert the fieldsfor a life in the woods, " but his "wife would not consent. " Many afeatherless biped has had the same experience with his society-spoiledwife. The puzzle is, how did this masterly observer know that thisstate of affairs existed between this couple? Did the wife tell him, or the husband? "Hermit" often takes his visitors to a wood thrushes'singing-school, where, "as the birds forget their lesson, they dropout one by one. "

He has seen an old rooster teaching a young rooster to crow! At firstthe old rooster crows mostly in the morning, but later in the seasonhe crows throughout the day, at short intervals, to show the young"the proper thing. " "Young birds removed out of hearing will not learnto crow. " He hears the old grouse teaching the young to drum in thefall, though he neglects to tell us that he has seen the young inattendance upon these lessons. He has seen a mother song sparrowhelping her two-year-old daughter build her nest. He has discoveredthat the cat talks to her kittens with her ears: when she points themforward, that means "yes;" when she points them backward, that means"no. " Hence she can tell them whether the wagon they hear approachingis the butcher's cart or not, and thus save them the trouble oflooking out. 

And so on through a long list of wild and domestic creatures. At firstI suspected this writer was covertly ridiculing a certain otherextravagant "observer, " but a careful reading of his letter shows himto be seriously engaged in the worthy task of exposing "false naturalhistory. "

Now the singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, the drumming ofgrouse, are secondary sexual characteristics. They are not necessaryto the lives of the creatures, and are probably more influenced byimitation than are the more important instincts of self-preservationand reproduction. Yet the testimony is overwhelming that birds willsing and roosters crow and turkeys gobble, though they have neverheard these sounds; and, no doubt, the grouse and the woodpeckers drumfrom promptings of the same sexual instinct. 

I do not wish to accuse "Hermit" of willfully perverting the facts ofnatural history. He is one of those persons who read their own fanciesinto whatever they look upon. He is incapable of disinterestedobservation, which means he is incapable of observation at all in thetrue sense. There are no animals that signal to each other with theirears. The movements of the ears follow the movements of the eye. Whenan animal's attention is directed to any object or sound, its earspoint forward; when its attention is relaxed, the ears fall. But withthe cat tribe the ears are habitually erect, as those of the horse areusually relaxed. They depress them and revert them, as do many otheranimals, when angered or afraid. 

Certain things in animal life lead me to suspect that animals havesome means of communication with one another, especially thegregarious animals, that is quite independent of what we mean bylanguage. It is like an interchange or blending of subconsciousstates, and may be analogous to telepathy among human beings. Observewhat a unit a flock of birds becomes when performing their evolutionsin the air. They are not many, but one, turning and flashing in thesun with a unity and a precision that it would be hard to imitate. Onemay see a flock of shore-birds that behave as one body: now they turnto the sun a sheet of silver; then, as their dark backs are presentedto the beholder, they almost disappear against the shore or theclouds. It would seem as if they shared in a communal mind or spirit, and that what one felt they all felt at the same instant. 

In Florida I many times saw large schools of mullets fretting andbreaking the surface of the water with what seemed to be the tips oftheir tails. A large area would be agitated and rippled by the backsor tails of a host of fishes. Then suddenly, while I looked, therewould be one splash and every fish would dive. It was a multitude, again, acting as one body. Hundreds, thousands of tails slapped thewater at the same instant and were gone. 

When the passenger pigeons were numbered by millions, the enormousclans used to migrate from one part of the continent to another. I sawthe last flight of them up the Hudson River valley in the spring of1875. All day they streamed across the sky. One purpose seemed toanimate every flock and every bird. It was as if all had orders tomove to the same point. The pigeons came only when there wasbeech-mast in the woods. How did they know we had had a beech-nutyear? It is true that a few straggling bands were usually seen somedays in advance of the blue myriads: were these the scouts, and didthey return with the news of the beech-nuts? If so, how did theycommunicate the intelligence and set the whole mighty army in motion?

The migrations among the four-footed animals that sometimes occur overa large, part of the country--among the rats, the gray squirrels, thereindeer of the north--seem to be of a similar character. How doesevery individual come to share in the common purpose? An army of menattempting to move without leaders and without a written or spokenlanguage becomes a disorganized mob. Not so the animals. There seemsto be a community of mind among them in a sense that there is notamong men. The pressure of great danger seems to develop in a degreethis community of mind and feeling among men. Under strong excitementwe revert more or less to the animal state, and are ruled by instinct. It may well be that telepathy--the power to project one's mental oremotional state so as to impress a friend at a distance--is a powerwhich we have carried over from our remote animal ancestors. Howeverthis may be, it is certain that the sensitiveness of birds andquadrupeds to the condition of one another, their sense of a commondanger, of food supplies, of the direction of home under allcircumstances, point to the possession of a power which is onlyrudimentary in us. 

Some observers explain these things on the theory that the flocks ofbirds have leaders, and that their surprising evolutions are guided bycalls or signals from these leaders, too quick or too fine for oureyes or ears to catch. I suppose they would explain the movements ofthe schools of fish and the simultaneous movements of a large numberof land animals on the same theory. I cannot accept this explanation. It is harder for me to believe that a flock of birds has a code ofcalls or signals for all its evolutions--now right, now left, nowmount, now swoop--which each individual understands on the instant, orthat the hosts of the wild pigeons had their captains and signals, than to believe that out of the flocking instinct there has grown someother instinct or faculty, less understood, but equally potent, thatputs all the members of a flock in such complete rapport with oneanother that the purpose and the desire of one become the purpose andthe desire of all. There is nothing in this state of things analogousto a military organization. The relation among the members of theflock is rather that of creatures sharing spontaneously the samesubconscious or psychic state, and acted upon by the same hiddeninfluence, in a way and to a degree that never occur among men. 

The faculty or power by which animals find the way home over or acrosslong stretches of country is quite as mysterious and incomprehensibleto us as the spirit of the flock to which I refer. A hive of beesevidently has a collective purpose and plan that does not emanate fromany single individual or group of individuals, and which is understoodby all without outward communication. 

Is there anything which, without great violence to language, may becalled a school of the woods? In the sense in which a playground is aschool--a playground without rules or methods or a director--there isa school of the woods. It is an unkept, an unconscious school orgymnasium, and is entirely instinctive. In play the young of allanimals, no doubt, get a certain amount of training and discipliningthat helps fit them for their future careers; but this school is notpresided over or directed by parents, though they sometimes take partin it. It is spontaneous and haphazard, without rule or system; butis, in every case, along the line of the future struggle for life ofthe particular bird or animal. A young marsh hawk which we reared usedto play at striking leaves or bits of bark with its talons; kittensplay with a ball, or a cob, or a stick, as if it were a mouse, dogsrace and wrestle with one another as in the chase; ducks dive andsport in the water; doves circle and dive in the air as if escapingfrom a hawk; birds pursue and dodge one another in the same way; bearswrestle and box; chickens have mimic battles; colts run and leap;fawns probably do the same thing; squirrels play something like a gameof tag in the trees; lambs butt one another and skip about the rocks;and so on. 

In fact, nearly all play, including much of that of man, takes theform of mock battle, and is to that extent an education for thefuture. Among the carnivora it takes also the form of the chase. Itsspring and motive are, of course, pleasure, and not education; andherein again is revealed the cunning of nature--the power thatconceals purposes of its own in our most thoughtless acts. The cat andthe kitten play with the live mouse, not to indulge the sense ofcruelty, as some have supposed, but to indulge in the pleasure of thechase and unconsciously to practice the feat of capture. The catrarely plays with a live bird, because the recapture would be moredifficult, and might fail. What fisherman would not like to take hisbig fish over and over again, if he could be sure of doing it, notfrom cruelty, but for the pleasure of practicing his art? For furtherlight on the subject of the significance of the play of animals, Irefer the reader to the work of Professor Karl Groos called "The Playof Animals. "

One of my critics has accused me of measuring all things by thestandard of my little farm--of thinking that what is not true ofanimal life there is not true anywhere. Unfortunately my farm _is_small--hardly a score of acres--and its animal life very limited. Ihave never seen even a porcupine upon it; but I have a hill where onemight roll down, should one ever come my way and be in the mood forthat kind of play. [1] I have a few possums, a woodchuck or two, anoccasional skunk, some red squirrels and rabbits, and many kinds ofsong-birds. Foxes occasionally cross my acres; and once, at least, Isaw a bald eagle devouring a fish in one of my apple-trees. Wildducks, geese, and swans in spring and fall pass across the sky aboveme. Quail and grouse invade my premises, and of crows I have, at leastin bird-nesting time, too many. 

 [1] See comment on the story here alluded to on page 244. 

But I have a few times climbed over my pasture wall and wandered intodistant fields. Once upon a time I was a traveler in Asia for thespace of two hours--an experience that ought to have yielded me somestartling discoveries, but did not. Indeed, the wider I have traveledand observed nature, the more I am convinced that the wild creaturesbehave just about the same in all parts of the country; that is, undersimilar conditions. What one observes truly about bird or beast uponhis farm of ten acres, he will not have to unlearn, travel as wide oras far as he will. Where the animals are much hunted, they are ofcourse much wilder and more cunning than where they are not hunted. Inthe Yellowstone National Park we found the elk, deer, and mountainsheep singularly tame; and in the summer, so we were told, the bearsboard at the big hotels. The wild geese and ducks, too, were tame; andthe red-tailed hawk built its nest in a large dead oak that stoodquite alone near the side of the road. With us the same hawk hides itsnest in a tree in the dense woods, because the farmers unwisely huntand destroy it. But the cougars and coyotes and bobcats were no tamerin the park than they are in other places where they are hunted. 

Indeed, if I had elk and deer and caribou and moose and bears andwildcats and beavers and otters and porcupines on my farm, I shouldexpect them to behave just as they do in other parts of the countryunder like conditions: they would be tame and docile if I did notmolest them, and wild and fierce if I did. They would do nothing outof character in either case. 

Your natural history knowledge of the East will avail you in the West. There is no country, says Emerson, in which they do not wash the pansand spank the babies; and there is no country where a dog is not adog, or a fox a fox, or where a hare is ferocious, or a wolf lamblike. The porcupine behaves in the Rockies just as he does in theCatskills; the deer and the moose and the black bear and the beaverof the Pacific slope are almost identical in their habits and traitswith those of the Atlantic slope. 

In my observations of the birds of the far West, I went wrong in myreckoning but once: the Western meadowlark has a new song. How orwhere he got it is a mystery; it seems to be in some way the gift ofthose great, smooth, flowery, treeless, dimpled hills. But the swallowwas familiar, and the robin and the wren and the highhole, while thewoodchuck I saw and heard in Wyoming might have been the "chuck" of mynative hills. The eagle is an eagle the world over. When I was a boy Isaw, one autumn day, an eagle descend with extended talons upon thebacks of a herd of young cattle that were accompanied by acosset-sheep and were feeding upon a high hill. The object of theeagle seemed to be to separate the one sheep from the cattle, or tofrighten them all into breaking their necks in trying to escape him. But neither result did he achieve. In the Yellowstone Park, PresidentRoosevelt and Major Pitcher saw a golden eagle trying the same tacticsupon a herd of elk that contained one yearling. The eagle doubtlesshad his eye upon the yearling, though he would probably have beenquite satisfied to have driven one of the older ones down a precipice. His chances of a dinner would have been equally good. 

There is one particular in which the bird families are much more humanthan our four-footed kindred. I refer to the practice of courtship. The male of all birds, so far as I know, pays suit to the female andseeks to please and attract her. [2] This the quadrupeds do not do;there is no period of courtship among them, and no mating or pairingas among the birds. The male fights for the female, but he does notseek to win her by delicate attentions. If there are any exceptions tothis rule, I do not know them. There seems to be among the birdssomething that is like what is called romantic love. The choice ofmate seems always to rest with the female, [2] while among the mammalsthe female shows no preference at all. 

 [2] Except in the case of certain birds of India and Australia. 

Among our own birds, the prettiest thing I know of attending theperiod of courtship, or preliminary to the match-making, is the springmusical festival and reunion of the goldfinches, which often lasts fordays, through rain and shine. In April or May, apparently all thegoldfinches from a large area collect in the top of an elm or a mapleand unite in a prolonged musical festival. Is it a contest among themales for the favor of the females, or is it the spontaneousexpression of the gladness of the whole clan at the return of theseason of life and love? The birds seem to pair soon after, anddoubtless the concert of voices has some reference to that event. 

There is one other human practice often attributed to the loweranimals that I must briefly consider, and that is the practice, undercertain circumstances, of poisoning their young. One often hears ofcaged young birds being fed by their parents for a few days and thenpoisoned; or of a mother fox poisoning her captive young when shefinds that she cannot liberate him; and such stories obtain readycredence with the public, especially with the young. To make thesestories credible, one must suppose a school of pharmacy, too, in thewoods. 

"The worst thing about these poisoning stories, " writes a friend ofmine, himself a writer of nature-books, "is the implied appreciationof the full effect and object of poison--the comprehension by the fox, for instance, that the poisoned meat she may be supposed to find wasplaced there for the object of killing herself (or some other fox), and that she may apply it to another animal for that purpose. Furthermore, that she understands the nature of death--that it brings'surcease of sorrow, ' and that death is better than captivity for heryoung one. How did she acquire all this knowledge? Where was herexperience of its supposed truth obtained? How could she make so fineand far-seeing a judgment, wholly out of the range of brute affairs, and so purely philosophical and humanly ethical? It violates everyinstinct and canon of natural law, which is for the preservation oflife at all hazards. This is simply the human idea of 'murder. 'Animals kill one another for food, or in rivalry, or in blind ferocityof predatory disposition; but there is not a particle of evidence thatthey 'commit murder' for ulterior ends. It is questionable whetherthey comprehend the condition called death, or its nature, in anyproper sense. "

On another occasion I laughed at a recent nature writer for hiscredulity in half-believing the story told him by a fisherman, thatthe fox catches crabs by using his tail as a bait; and yet I read inRomanes that Olaus, in his account of Norway, says he has seen a foxdo this very thing among the rocks on the sea-coast. [3] One would liketo cross-question Olaus before accepting such a statement. One wouldas soon expect a fox to put his brush in the fire as in the water. When it becomes wet and bedraggled, he is greatly handicapped as tospeed. There is no doubt that rats will put their tails into jars thatcontain liquid food they want, and then lick them off, as Romanesproved; but the rat's tail is not a brush, nor in any sense anornament. Think what the fox-and-crab story implies! Now the fox isentirely a land animal, and lives by preying upon land creatures, which it follows by scent or sight. It can neither see nor smell crabsin the deep water, where crabs are usually found. How should it knowthat there are such things as crabs? How should it know that they canbe taken with bait and line or by fishing for them? When and how didit get this experience? This knowledge belongs to man alone. It comesthrough a process of reasoning that he alone is capable of. Man aloneof land animals sets traps and fishes. There is a fish called theangler (_Lophius piscatorius_), which, it is said on doubtfulauthority, by means of some sort of appendages on its head angles forsmall fish; but no competent observer has reported any land animaldoing so. Again, would a crab lay hold of a mass of fur like a fox'stail?--even if the tail could be thrust deep enough into the water, which is impossible. Crabs, when not caught with hand-nets, areusually taken in water eight or ten feet deep. They are baited andcaught with a piece of meat tied to a string, but cannot be lifted tothe surface till they are eating the meat, and then a dip-net isrequired to secure them. The story, on the whole, is one of the mostpreposterous that ever gained credence in natural history. 

 [3] A book published in London in 1783, entitled _A Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar and the Present State of the Several Kingdoms of the World_, among other astonishing natural history notes, makes this statement about the white and red fox of Norway: "They have a particular way of drawing crabs ashore by dipping their tails in the water, which the crab lays hold of. "

Good observers are probably about as rare as good poets. Accurateseeing, --an eye that takes in the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth, --how rare indeed it is! So few persons know or can tellexactly what they see; so few persons can draw a right inference froman observed fact; so few persons can keep from reading their ownthoughts and preconceptions into what they see; only a person with thescientific habit of mind can be trusted to report things as they are. Most of us, in observing the wild life about us, see more or see lessthan the truth. We see less when our minds are dull, or preoccupied, or blunted by want of interest. This is true of most country people. We see more when we read the lives of the wild creatures about us inthe light of our human experience, and impute to the birds and beastshuman motives and methods. This is too often true of the eager cityman or woman who sallies out into the country to study nature. 

The tendency to sentimentalize nature has, in our time, largely takenthe place of the old tendency to demonize and spiritize it. It isanthropomorphism in another form, less fraught with evil to us, butequally in the way of a clear understanding of the life about us. 

 VII

 DEVIOUS PATHS

There is no better type or epitome of wild nature than thebird's-nest--something built, and yet as if it grew, a part of theground, or of the rock, or of the branch upon which it is placed;beginning so coarsely, so irregularly, and ending so finely andsymmetrically; so unlike the work of hands, and yet the result of askill beyond hands; and when it holds its complement of eggs, howpleasing, how suggestive!

The bird adapts means to an end, and yet so differently from the wayof man, --an end of which it does not know the value or the purpose. Weknow it is prompted to it by the instinct of reproduction. When thewoodpecker in the fall excavates a lodge in a dry limb, we know he isprompted to it by the instinct of self-preservation, but the birdsthemselves obey the behests of nature without knowledge. 

A bird's-nest suggests design, and yet it seems almost haphazard; theresult of a kind of madness, yet with method in it. The hole thewoodpecker drills for its cell is to the eye a perfect circle, andthe rim of most nests is as true as that of a cup. The circle and thesphere exist in nature; they are mother forms and hold all otherforms. They are easily attained; they are spontaneous and inevitable. The bird models her nest about her own breast; she turns round andround in it, and its circular character results as a matter of course. Angles, right lines, measured precision, so characteristic of theworks of man, are rarely met with in organic nature. 

Nature reaches her ends by devious paths; she loiters, she meanders, she plays by the way; she surely "arrives, " but it is always in ablind, hesitating, experimental kind of fashion. Follow the tunnels ofthe ants or the crickets, or of the moles and the weasels, underground, or the courses of the streams or the paths of the animalsabove ground--how they turn and hesitate, how wayward and undecidedthey are! A right line seems out of the question. 

The oriole often weaves strings into her nest; sometimes she binds andoverhands the part of the rim where she alights in going in, to makeit stronger, but it is always done in a hit-or-miss, childish sort ofway, as one would expect it to be; the strings are massed, or snarled, or left dangling at loose ends, or are caught around branches; theweaving and the sewing are effective, and the whole nest is a marvelof blind skill, of untaught intelligence; yet how unmethodical, howdelightfully irregular, how unmistakably a piece of wild nature!

Sometimes the instinct of the bird is tardy, and the egg of the birdgets ripe before the nest is ready; in such a case the egg is ofcourse lost. I once found the nest of the black and white creepingwarbler in a mossy bank in the woods, and under the nest was an egg ofthe bird. The warbler had excavated the site for her nest, dropped heregg into it, and then gone on with her building. Instinct is notalways inerrant. Nature is wasteful, and plays the game with a freehand. Yet what she loses on one side she gains on another; she is likethat least bittern Mr. Frank M. Chapman tells about. Two of thebittern's five eggs had been punctured by the long-billed marsh wren. When the bird returned to her nest and found the two eggs punctured, she made no outcry, showed no emotion, but deliberately proceeded toeat them. Having done this, she dropped the empty shells over the sideof the nest, together with any straws that had become soiled in theprocess, cleaned her bill, and proceeded with her incubation. This wasNature in a nut-shell, --or rather egg-shell, --turning her mishaps tosome good account. If the egg will not make a bird, it will make food;if not food, then fertilizer. 

Among nearly all our birds, the female is the active business memberof the partnership; she has a turn for practical affairs; she choosesthe site of the nest, and usually builds it unaided. The life of themale is more or less a holiday or picnic till the young are hatched, when his real cares begin, for he does his part in feeding them. Onemay see the male cedar-bird attending the female as she is busy withher nest-building, but never, so far as I have observed, assistingher. One spring I observed with much interest a phoebe-bird buildingher nest not far from my cabin in the woods. The male looked onapprovingly, but did not help. He perched most of the time on amullein stalk near the little spring run where Phoebe came for mud. In the early morning hours she made her trips at intervals of a minuteor two. The male flirted his tail and called encouragingly, and whenshe started up the hill with her load he would accompany her part way, to help her over the steepest part, as it were, then return to hisperch and watch and call for her return. For an hour or more Iwitnessed this little play in bird life, in which the female's partwas so primary and the male's so secondary. There is something in suchthings that seems to lend support to Professor Lester F. Ward'scontention, as set forth in his "Pure Sociology, " that in the naturalevolution of the two sexes the female was first and the male second;that he was made from her rib, so to speak, and not she from his. 

With our phalarope and a few Australian birds, the position of the twosexes as indicated above is reversed, the females having theornaments and bright colors and doing the courting, while the maledoes the incubating. In a few cases also the female is much the moremasculine, noisy, and pugnacious. With some of our common birds, suchas the woodpeckers, the chickadee, and the swallows, both sexes takepart in nest-building. 

It is a very pretty sight to witness a pair of wood thrushes buildingtheir nest. Indeed, what is there about the wood thrush that is notpleasing? He is a kind of visible embodied melody. Some birds are sosharp and nervous and emphatic in their movements, as the commonsnowbird or junco, the flashing of whose white tail quills expressesthe character of the bird. But all the ways of the wood thrush aresmooth and gentle, and suggest the melody of its song. It is the onlybird thief I love to see carrying off my cherries. It usually takesonly those dropped upon the ground by other birds, and with the red orgolden globe impaled upon its beak, its flight across the lawn is apicture delightful to behold. One season a pair of them built a nestin a near-by grove; morning after morning, for many mornings, I usedto see the two going to and from the nest, over my vineyard andcurrant patch and pear orchard, in quest of, or bringing material for, the structure. They flew low, the female in the lead, the male justbehind in line with her, timing his motions to hers, the two making abrown, gently undulating line, very pretty to look upon, from myneighbor's field where they obtained the material, to the tree thatheld the nest. A gentle, gliding flight, hurried but hushed, as itwere, and expressive of privacy and loving preoccupation. The malecarried no material; apparently he was simply the escort of his mate;but he had an air of keen and joyous interest. He never failed toattend her each way, keeping about a yard behind her, and flying as ifher thought were his thought and her wish his wish. I have rarely seenanything so pretty in bird life. The movements of all our thrushesexcept the robin give one this same sense of harmony, --nothing sharpor angular or abrupt. Their gestures are as pleasing as their notes. 

One evening, while seated upon my porch, I had convincing proof thatmusical or song contests do take place among the birds. Two woodthrashes who had nests near by sat on the top of a dead tree andpitted themselves against each other in song for over half an hour, contending like champions in a game, and certainly affording therarest treat in wood thrush melody I had ever had. They sang and sangwith unwearied spirit and persistence, now and then changing positionor facing in another direction, but keeping within a few feet of eachother. The rivalry became so obvious and was so interesting that Ifinally made it a point not to take my eyes from the singers. Thetwilight deepened till their forms began to grow dim; then one of thebirds could stand the strain no longer, the limit of fair competitionhad been reached, and seeming to say, "I will silence you, anyhow, " itmade a spiteful dive at its rival, and in hot pursuit the twodisappeared in the bushes beneath the tree. Of course I would not saythat the birds were consciously striving to outdo each other in song;it was the old feud between males in the love season, not a war ofwords or of blows, but of song. Had the birds been birds of brilliantplumage, the rivalry would probably have taken the form of struttingand showing off their bright colors and ornaments. 

An English writer on birds, Edmund Selous; describes a similar songcontest between two nightingales. "Jealousy, " he says, "did not seemto blind them to the merit of each other's performance. Though oftenone, upon hearing the sweet, hostile strains, would burst forthinstantly itself, --and here there was no certain mark ofappreciation, --yet sometimes, perhaps quite as often, it would put itshead on one side and listen with exactly the appearance of a musicalconnoisseur, weighing, testing, and appraising each note as it issuedfrom the rival bill. A curious, half-suppressed expression wouldsteal, or seem to steal (for Fancy may play her part in such matters), over the listening bird, and the idea appear to be, 'How exquisitewould be those strains were they not sung by ----, and yet I mustadmit that they are exquisite. '" Fancy no doubt does play a part insuch matters. It may well be doubted if birds are musicalconnoisseurs, or have anything like human appreciation of their own orof each other's songs. My reason for thinking so is this: I have hearda bobolink with an instrument so defective that its song was brokenand inarticulate in parts, and yet it sang with as much apparent joyand abandon as any of its fellows. I have also heard a hermit thrushwith a similar defect or impediment that appeared to sing entirely toits own satisfaction. It would be very interesting to know if thesepoor singers found mates as readily as their more gifted brothers. Ifthey did, the Darwinian theory of "sexual selection" in such matters, according to which the finer songster would carry off the female, would fall to the ground. Yet it is certain that it is during themating and breeding season that these "song combats" occur, and thefavor of the female would seem to be the matter in dispute. Whether ornot it be expressive of actual jealousy or rivalry, we have no otherwords to apply to it. 

A good deal of light is thrown upon the ways of nature as seen in thelives of our solitary wasps, so skillfully and charmingly depicted byGeorge W. Peckham and his wife in their work on those insects. Sowhimsical, so fickle, so forgetful, so fussy, so wise, and yet sofoolish, as these little people are! such victims of routine and yetso individual, such apparent foresight and yet such thoughtlessness, at such great pains and labor to dig a hole and build a cell, and thenat times sealing it up without storing it with food or laying the egg, half finishing hole after hole, and then abandoning them without anyapparent reason; sometimes killing their spiders, at other times onlyparalyzing them; one species digging its burrow before it captures itsgame, others capturing the game and then digging the hole; some ofthem hanging the spider up in the fork of a weed to keep it away fromthe ants while they work at their nest, and running to it every fewminutes to see that it is safe; others laying the insect on the groundwhile they dig; one species walking backward and dragging its spiderafter it, and when the spider is so small that it carries it in itsmandible, still walking backward as if dragging it, when it would bemuch more convenient to walk forward. A curious little people, leadingtheir solitary lives and greatly differentiated by the solitude, hardly any two alike, one nervous and excitable, another calm andunhurried; one careless in her work, another neat and thorough; thisone suspicious, that one confiding; Ammophila using a pebble to packdown the earth in her burrow, while another species uses the end ofher abdomen, --verily a queer little people, with a lot of wild natureabout them, and a lot of human nature, too. 

I think one can see how this development of individuality among thesolitary wasps comes about. May it not be because the wasps aresolitary? They live alone. They have no one to imitate; they areuninfluenced by their fellows. No community interests override orcheck individual whims or peculiarities. The innate tendency tovariation, active in all forms of life, has with them full sway. Amongthe social bees or wasps one would not expect to find thosedifferences between individuals. The members of a colony all appearalike in habits and in dispositions. Colonies differ, as everybee-keeper knows, but probably the members composing it differ verylittle. The community interests shape all alike. Is it not the same ina degree among men? Does not solitude bring out a man's peculiaritiesand differentiate him from others? The more one lives alone, the morehe becomes unlike his fellows. Hence the original and racy flavor ofwoodsmen, pioneers, lone dwellers in Nature's solitudes. Thus isolatedcommunities develop characteristics of their own. Constantintercommunication, the friction of travel, of streets, of books, ofnewspapers, make us all alike; we are, as it were, all pebbles uponthe same shore, washed by the same waves. 

Among the larger of vertebrate animals, I think, one might reasonablyexpect to find more individuality among those that are solitary thanamong those that are gregarious; more among birds of prey than amongwater-fowl, more among foxes than among prairie-dogs, more amongmoose than among sheep or buffalo, more among grouse than among quail. But I do not know that this is true. 

Yet among none of these would one expect to find the diversity ofindividual types that one finds among men. No two dogs of the samebreed will be found to differ as two men of the same family oftendiffer. An original fox, or wolf, or bear, or beaver, or crow, orcrab, --that is, one not merely different from his fellows, butobviously superior to them, differing from them as a master minddiffers from the ordinary mind, --I think, one need not expect to find. It is quite legitimate for the animal-story writer to make the most ofthe individual differences in habits and disposition among theanimals; he has the same latitude any other story writer has, but heis bound also by the same law of probability, the same need offidelity to nature. If he proceed upon the theory that the wildcreatures have as pronounced individuality as men have, that there aremaster minds among them, inventors and discoverers of new ways, borncaptains and heroes, he will surely "o'erstep the modesty of nature. "

The great diversity of character and capacity among men doubtlessarises from their greater and more complex needs, relations, andaspirations. The animals' needs in comparison are few, their relationssimple, and their aspirations _nil_. One cannot see what could giverise to the individual types and exceptional endowments that areoften claimed for them. The law of variation, as I have said, wouldgive rise to differences, but not to a sudden reversal of race habits, or to animal geniuses. 

The law of variation is everywhere operative--less so now, no doubt, than in the earlier history of organic life on the globe. Yet Natureis still experimenting in her blind way, and hits upon many curiousdifferences and departures. But I suppose if the race of man wereexterminated, man would never arise again. I doubt if the law ofevolution could ever again produce him, or any other species ofanimal. 

This principle of variation was no doubt much more active back ingeologic time, during the early history of animal life upon the globe, than it is in this late age. And for the reason that animal life wasless adapted to its environment than it is now, the struggle for lifewas sharper. Perfect adaptation of any form of life to the conditionssurrounding it seems to check variability. Animal and plant life seemto vary more in this country than in England because the conditions oflife are harder. The extremes of heat and cold, of wet and dry, aremuch greater. It has been found that the eggs of the English sparrowvary in form and color more in the United States than in GreatBritain. Certain American shells are said to be more variable than theEnglish. Among our own birds it has been found that the "migratoryspecies evince a greater amount of individual variation than donon-migrating species" because they are subject to more varyingconditions of food and climate. I think we may say, then, if therewere no struggle for life, if uniformity of temperature and means ofsubsistence everywhere prevailed, there would be little or novariation and no new species would arise. The causes of variation seemto be the inequality and imperfection of things; the pressure of lifeis unequally distributed, and this is one of Nature's ways thataccounts for much that we see about us. 

 VIII

 WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW?

After the discussion carried on in the foregoing chapters touching thegeneral subject of animal life and instinct, we are prepared, I think, to ask with more confidence, What do animals know?

The animals unite such ignorance with such apparent knowledge, suchstupidity with such cleverness, that in our estimate of them we arelikely to rate their wit either too high or too low. With them, knowledge does not fade into ignorance, as it does in man; thecontrast is like that between night and day, with no twilight between. So keen one moment, so blind the next!

Think of the ignorance of the horse after all his long associationwith man; of the trifling things along the street at which he willtake fright, till he rushes off in a wild panic of fear, endangeringhis own neck and the neck of his driver. One would think that if hehad a particle of sense he would know that an old hat or a bit ofpaper was harmless. But fear is deeply implanted in his nature; it hassaved the lives of his ancestors countless times, and it is still oneof his ruling passions. 

I have known a cow to put her head between two trees in the woods--akind of natural stanchion--and not have wit enough to get it outagain, though she could have done so at once by lifting her head to ahorizontal position. But the best instance I know of the grotesqueignorance of a cow is given by Hamerton in his "Chapters on Animals. "The cow would not "give down" her milk unless she had her calf beforeher. But her calf had died, so the herdsman took the skin of the calf, stuffed it with hay, and stood it up before the inconsolable mother. Instantly she proceeded to lick it and to yield her milk. One day, inlicking it, she ripped open the seams, and out rolled the hay. Thisthe mother at once proceeded to eat, without any look of surprise oralarm. She liked hay herself, her acquaintance with it was of longstanding, and what more natural to her than that her calf should turnout to be made of hay! Yet this very cow that did not know her calffrom a bale of hay would have defended her young against the attack ofa bear or a wolf in the most skillful and heroic manner; and the horsethat was nearly frightened out of its skin by a white stone, or by theflutter of a piece of newspaper by the roadside, would find its wayback home over a long stretch of country, or find its way to water inthe desert, with a certainty you or I could not approach. 

The hen-hawk that the farm-boy finds so difficult to approach with hisgun will yet alight upon his steel trap fastened to the top of a polein the fields. The rabbit that can be so easily caught in a snare orin a box-trap will yet conceal its nest and young in the mostingenious manner. Where instinct or inherited knowledge can come intoplay, the animals are very wise, but new conditions, new problems, bring out their ignorance. 

A college girl told me an incident of a red squirrel she had observedat her home in Iowa that illustrates how shallow the wit of a squirrelis when confronted by new conditions. This squirrel carried nuts allday and stored them in the end of a drainpipe that discharged therain-water upon the pavement below. The nuts obeyed the same law thatthe rain-water did, and all rolled through the pipe and fell upon thesidewalk. In the squirrel's experience, and in that of his forbears, all holes upon the ground were stopped at the far end, or they werelike pockets, and if nuts were put in them they stayed there. A hollowtube open at both ends, that would not hold nuts--this was too muchfor the wit of the squirrel. But how wise he is about the nutsthemselves!

Among the lower animals the ignorance of one is the ignorance of all, and the knowledge of one is the knowledge of all, in a sense in whichthe same is not true among men. Of course some are more stupid thanothers of the same species, but probably, on the one hand, there areno idiots among them, and, on the other, none is preëminent in wit. 

Animals take the first step in knowledge--they perceive things anddiscriminate between them; but they do not take the secondstep--combine them, analyze them, and form concepts and judgments. 

So that, whether animals know much or little, I think we are safe insaying that what they know in the human way, that is, from a processof reasoning, is very slight. 

The animals all have in varying degrees perceptive intelligence. Theyknow what they see, hear, smell, feel, so far as it concerns them toknow it. They know their kind, their mates, their enemies, their food, heat from cold, hard from soft, and a thousand other things that it isimportant that they should know, and they know these things just as weknow them, through their perceptive powers. 

We may ascribe intelligence to the animals in the same sense in whichwe ascribe it to a child, as the perception of the differences or ofthe likenesses and the relations of things--that is, perceptiveintelligence, but not reasoning intelligence. When the child begins to"notice things, " to know its mother, to fear strangers, to beattracted by certain objects, we say it begins to show intelligence. Development in this direction goes on for a long time before it canform any proper judgment about things or take the step of reason. 

If we were to subtract from the sum of the intelligence of an animalthat which it owes to nature or inherited knowledge, the amount left, representing its own power of thought, would be very small. Darwintells of a pike in an aquarium separated by plate-glass from fishwhich were its proper food, and that the pike, in trying to capturethe fish, would often dash with such violence against the glass as tobe completely stunned. This the pike did for three months before itlearned caution. After the glass was removed, the pike would notattack those particular fishes, but would devour others that wereintroduced. It did not yet understand the situation, but merelyassociated the punishment it had received with a particular kind offish. 

During the mating season the males of some of our birds may often beseen dashing themselves against a window, and pecking and flutteringagainst the pane for hours at a time, day after day. They take theirown images reflected in the glass to be rival birds, and are bent upondemolishing them. They never comprehend the mystery of the glass, because glass is not found in nature, and neither they nor theirancestors have had any experience with it. 

Contrast these incidents with those which Darwin relates of theAmerican monkeys. When the monkeys had cut themselves once with anysharp tool, they would not touch it again, or else would handle itwith the greatest caution. They evinced the simpler forms of reason, of which monkeys are no doubt capable. 

Animals are wise as Nature is wise; they partake, each in its ownmeasure, of that universal intelligence, or mind-stuff, that isoperative in all things--in the vegetable as well as in the animalworld. Does the body, or the life that fills it, reason when it triesto get rid of, or to neutralize the effects of, a foreign substance, like a bullet, by encysting it? or when it thickens the skin on thehand or on any other part of the body, even forming special padscalled callosities, as a result of the increased wear or friction?This may be called physiological intelligence. 

But how blind this intelligence is at times, or how wanting injudgment, may be seen when it tries to develop a callosity upon thefoot as a result of the friction of the shoe, and overdoes the matterand produces the corn. The corn is a physiological blunder. Or see anunexpected manifestation of this intelligence when we cut off thecentral and leading shoot of a spruce or of a pine tree, andstraightway one of the lateral and horizontal branches rises up, takesthe place of the lost leader, and carries the tree upward; or in theroots of a tree working their way through the ground much like moltenmetal, parting and uniting, taking the form of whatever object theytouch, shaping themselves to the rock, flowing into its seams, thebetter to get a grip upon the earth and thus maintain an uprightposition. 

In the animal world this foresight becomes psychic intelligence, developing in man the highest form of all, reasoned intelligence. Whenan animal solves a new problem or meets a new condition as effectuallyas the tree or the body does in the cases I have just cited, we arewont to ascribe to it powers of reason. Reason we may call it, but itis reason not its own. 

This universal or cosmic intelligence makes up by far the greater partof what animals know. The domestic animals, such as the dog, that havelong been under the tutelage of man, of course show more independentpower of thought than the uneducated beasts of the fields and woods. 

The plant is wise in all ways to reproduce and perpetuate itself; seethe many ingenious devices for scattering seed. In the animal worldthis intelligence is most keen and active in the same direction. Thewit of the animal comes out most clearly in looking out for its foodand safety. We are often ready to ascribe reason to it in feats shownin these directions. 

In man alone does this universal intelligence or mind-stuff reach outbeyond these primary needs and become aware of itself. What the plantor the animal does without thought or rule, man takes thought about. He considers his ways, I noticed that the scallops in the shallowwater on the beach had the power to anchor themselves to stones or tosome other object, by putting out a little tough but elastic cablefrom near the hinge, and that they did so when the water was rough;but I could not look upon It as an act of conscious or individualintelligence on the part of the bivalve. It was as much an act of thegeneral intelligence to which I refer as was its hinge or its form. But when the sailor anchors his ship, that is another matter. Hethinks about it, he reasons from cause to effect, he sees the stormcoming, he has a fund of experience, and his act is a specialindividual act. 

The muskrat builds its house instinctively, and all muskrats buildalike. Man builds his house from reason and forethought. Savages buildas nearly alike as the animals, but civilized man shows an endlessvariety. The higher the intelligence, the greater the diversity. 

The sitting bird that is so solicitous to keep its eggs warm, or tofeed and defend its young, probably shows no more independent andindividual intelligence than the plant that strives so hard to matureand scatter its seed. A plant will grow toward the light; a tree willtry to get from under another tree that overshadows it; a willow willrun its roots toward the water: but these acts are the results ofexternal stimuli alone. 

When I go to pass the winter in a warmer climate, the act is theresult of calculation and of weighing pros and cons. I can go, of Ican refrain from going. Not so with the migrating birds. Nature plansand thinks for them; it is not an individual act on the part of each;it is a race instinct: they must go; the life of the race demands it. Or when the old goose covers up her nest, or the rabbit covers heryoung with a blanket of hair and grass of her own weaving, I do notlook upon these things as independent acts of intelligence: it is thecunning of nature; it is a race instinct. 

Animals, on the whole, know what is necessary for them to know--whatthe conditions of life have taught their ancestors through countlessgenerations. It is very important, for instance, that amphibians shallhave some sense that shall guide them to the water; and they have sucha sense. It is said that young turtles and crocodiles put downanywhere will turn instantly toward the nearest water. It is certainthat the beasts of the field have such a sense much more fullydeveloped than has man. It is of vital importance that birds shouldknow how to fly, how to build their nests, how to find their properfood, and when and where to migrate, without instruction or example, otherwise the race might become extinct. 

Richard Jefferies says that most birds'-nests need a structure aroundthem like a cage to keep the young from falling out or from leavingthe nest prematurely. Now, if such a structure were needed, either therace of birds would have failed, or the structure would have beenadded. Since neither has happened, we are safe in concluding it is notneeded. 

We are not warranted in attributing to any wild, untrained animal adegree of intelligence that its forbears could not have possessed. Theanimals for the most part act upon inherited knowledge, that is, knowledge that does not depend upon instruction or experience. Forinstance, the red squirrels near me seem to know that chestnut-burswill open if cut from the tree and allowed to lie upon the ground. Atleast, they act upon this theory. I do not suppose this fact orknowledge lies in the squirrel's mind as it would in that of a man--asa deduction from facts of experience or of observation. The squirrelcuts off the chestnuts because he is hungry for them, and because hisancestors for long generations have cut them off in the same way. Thatthe air or sun will cause the burs to open is a bit of knowledge thatI do not suppose he possesses in the sense in which we possess it: heis in a hurry for the nuts, and does not by any means always wait forthe burs to open; he frequently chips them up and eats the pale nuts. 

The same squirrel will bite into the limbs of a maple tree in springand suck the sap. What does he know about maple trees and the springflow of sap? Nothing as a mental concept, as a bit of concreteknowledge. He often finds the sap flowing from a crack or other woundin the limbs of a maple, and he sips it and likes it. Then he sinkshis teeth into the limb, as his forbears undoubtedly did. 

When I was a boy and saw, as I often did on my way to school, where asquirrel had stopped on his course through the woods and dug downthrough two or three feet of snow, bringing up a beech-nut or anacorn, I used to wonder how he knew the nut was there. I am nowconvinced that he smelled it. 

Why should he not? It stands the squirrel in hand to smell nuts; theyare his life. He knows a false nut from a good one without biting intoit. Try the experiment upon your tame chipmunk or caged gray squirrel, and see if this is not so. The false or dead nut is lighter, and mostpersons think this fact guides the squirrel. But this, it seems to me, implies an association of ideas beyond the reach of instinct. A youngsquirrel will reject a worthless nut as promptly as an old one will. Again the sense of smell is the guide; the sound-meated nut has anodor which the other has not. All animals are keen and wise inrelation to their food and to their natural enemies. A red squirrelwill chip up green apples and pears for the seeds at the core: can heknow, on general principles, that these fruits contain seeds? Does notsome clue to them reach his senses?

I have known gray squirrels to go many hundred yards in winter acrossfields to a barn that contained grain in the sheaf. They could havehad no other guide to the grain than the sense of smell. Watch achipmunk or any squirrel near at hand: as a friend of mine observed, he seems to be smelling with his whole body; his abdomen fairlypalpitates with the effort. 

The coon knows when the corn is in the milk, gaining that knowledge, no doubt, through his nose. At times he seems to know enough, too, tocut off his foot when caught in a trap, especially if the foot becomesfrozen; but if you tell me he will treat his wound by smearing it withpitch or anything else, or in any way except by licking it, I shalldiscredit you. The practice of the art of healing by the applicationof external or foreign substances is a conception entirely beyond thecapacity of any of the lower animals. If such a practice had beennecessary for the continuance of the species, it would probably havebeen used. The knowledge it implies could not be inherited; it mustneeds come by experience. When a fowl eats gravel or sand, is itprobable that the fowl knows what the practice is for, or has anynotion at all about the matter? It has a craving for the gravel, thatis all. Nature is wise for it. 

The ostrich is described by those who know it intimately as the moststupid and witless of birds, and yet before leaving its eggs exposedto the hot African sun, the parent bird knows enough to put a largepinch of sand on the top of each of them, in order, it is said, toshade and protect the germ, which always rises to the highest point ofthe egg. This act certainly cannot be the result of knowledge, as weuse the term; the young ostrich does it as well as the old. It is theinherited wisdom of the race, or instinct. 

A sitting bird or fowl turns its eggs at regular intervals, which hasthe effect of keeping the yolk from sticking to the shell. Is this actthe result of knowledge or of experience? It is again the result ofthat untaught knowledge called instinct. Some kinds of eggs hatch intwo weeks, some in three, others in four. The mother bird has noknowledge of this period. It is not important that she should have. Ifthe eggs are addled or sterile, she will often continue to sit beyondthe normal period. If the continuance of the species depended upon herknowing the exact time required to hatch her eggs, as it depends uponher having the incubating fever, of course she would know exactly, andwould never sit beyond the required period. 

But what shall we say of Mrs. Annie Martin's story, in her "Home Lifeon an Ostrich Farm, " of the white-necked African crow that, in orderto feast upon the eggs of the ostrich, carries a stone high in the airabove them and breaks them by letting it fall? This looks like reason, a knowledge of the relation of cause and effect. Mrs. Martin says thecrows break tortoise-shells in the same way, and have I not heard ofour own crows and gulls carrying clams and crabs into the air anddropping them upon the rocks?

If Mrs. Martin's statements are literally true, --if she has not thefailing, so common among women observers, of letting her feeling andher fancies color her observations, --then her story shows how thepressure of hunger will develop the wit of a crow. 

But the story goes one step beyond my credence. It virtually makes thecrow a tool-using animal, and Darwin knew of but two animals, theman-like ape and the elephant, that used anything like a tool orweapon to attain their ends. How could the crow gain the knowledge orthe experience which this trick implies? What could induce it to makethe first experiment of breaking an egg with a falling stone but anacquaintance with physical laws such as man alone possesses? The firststep in this chain of causation it is easy to conceive of any animaltaking; namely, the direct application of its own powers or weapons tothe breaking of the shell. But the second step, --the making use of aforeign substance or object in the way described, --that is whatstaggers one. 

Our own crow has great cunning, but it is only cunning. He issuspicious of everything that looks like design, that suggests a trap, even a harmless string stretched around a corn-field. As a naturalphilosopher he makes a poor show, and the egg or the shell that hecannot open with his own beak he leaves behind. Yet even his allegedmethod of dropping clams upon the rocks to break the shells does notseem incredible. He might easily drop a clam by accident, and then, finding the shell broken, repeat the experiment. He is still onlytaking the first step in the sequence of causations. 

A recent English nature-writer, on the whole, I think, a good observerand truthful reporter, Mr. Richard Kearton, tells of an osprey thatdid this incredible thing: to prevent its eggs from being harmed by anenforced exposure to the sun, the bird plunged into the lake, thenrose, and shook its dripping plumage over the nest. The writerapparently reports this story at second-hand. It is incredible to me, because it implies a knowledge that the hawk could not possiblypossess. 

Such an emergency could hardly arise once in a lifetime to it or itsforbears. Hence the act could not have been the result of inheritedhabit, or instinct, and as an original act on the part of the ospreyit is not credible. The bird probably plunged into the lake for afish, and then by accident shook itself above the eggs. In any case, the amount of water that would fall upon the eggs under suchcircumstances would be too slight to temper appreciably the heat. 

There is little doubt that among certain of our common birds the male, during periods of excessive heat, has been known to shade the femalewith his outstretched wings, and the mother bird to shade her young inthe same way. But this is a different matter. This emergency musthave occurred for ages, and it, again, called only for the first stepfrom cause to effect, and called for the use of no intermediate agent. If the robin were to hold a leaf or a branch above his mate at suchtimes, that would imply reflection. 

It is said that elephants in India will besmear themselves with mud asa protection against insects, and that they will break branches fromthe trees and use them to brush away the flies. If this is true, itshows, I think, something beyond instinct in the elephant; it showsreflection. 

All birds are secretive about their nests, and display great cunningin hiding them; but whether they know the value of adaptive material, such as moss, lichens, and dried grass, in helping to conceal them, admits of doubt, because they so often use the results of our ownarts, as paper, rags, strings, tinsel, in such a reckless way. In aperfectly wild state they use natural material because it is thehandiest and there is really no other. The phoebe uses the moss onor near the rocks where she builds; the sparrows, the bobolinks, andthe meadowlarks use the dry grass of the bank or of the meadow bottomwhere the nest is placed. 

The English writer to whom I have referred says that the wren buildsthe outside of its nest of old hay straws when placing it in the sideof a rick, of green moss when it is situated in a mossy bank, and ofdead leaves when in a hedge-row or a bramble-bush, in each case thusrendering the nest very difficult of detection because it harmonizesso perfectly with its surroundings, and the writer wonders if thisharmony is the result of accident or of design. He is inclined tothink that it is unpremeditated, as I myself do. The bird uses thematerial nearest to hand. 

Another case, which this same writer gives at second-hand, of a birdrecognizing the value of protective coloration, is not credible. Afriend of his told him that he had once visited a colony of terns "onan island where the natural breeding accommodation was so limited thatmany of them had conveyed patches of pebbles on to the grass and laidtheir eggs thereon. "

Here is the same difficulty we have encountered before--one more stepof reasoning than the bird is capable of. As a deduction from observedfacts, a bird, of course, knows nothing about protective coloring; itswisdom in this respect is the wisdom of Nature, and Nature in animallife never acts with this kind of foresight. A bird may exercise somechoice about the background of its nest, but it will not make bothnest and background. 

Nature learns by endless experiment. Through a long and expensiveprocess of natural selection she seems to have brought the color ofcertain animals and the color of their environment pretty closetogether, the better to hide the animals from their enemies and fromtheir prey, as we are told; but the animals themselves do not knowthis, though they may act as if they did. Young terns and gullsinstinctively squat upon the beach, where their colors so harmonizewith the sand and pebbles that the birds are virtually invisible. Young partridges do the same in the woods, where the eye cannot tellthe reddish tuft of down from the dry leaves. How many gulls and ternsand partridges were sacrificed before Nature learned this trick!

I regard the lower animals as incapable of taking the step from thefact to the principle. They have perceptions, but not conceptions. They may recognize a certain fact, but any deduction from that fact tobe applied to a different case, or to meet new conditions, is beyondthem. Wolves and foxes soon learn to be afraid of poisoned meat: justwhat gives them the hint it would be hard to say, as the survivorscould not know the poison's deadly effect from experience; their fearof it probably comes from seeing their fellows suffer and die aftereating it, or maybe through that mysterious means of communicationbetween animals to which I have referred in a previous article. Thepoison probably changes the odor of the meat, and this strange smellwould naturally put them on their guard. 

We do not expect rats to succeed in putting a bell on the cat, but ifthey were capable of conceiving such a thing, that would establishtheir claim to be regarded as reasonable beings. I should as soonexpect a fox or a wolf to make use of a trap to capture its prey as tomake use of poison in any way. Why does not the fox take a stick andspring the trap he is so afraid of? Simply because the act wouldinvolve a mental process beyond him. He has not yet learned to useeven the simplest implement to attain his end. Then he would probablybe just as afraid of the trap after it was sprung as before. He insome way associates it with his arch-enemy, man. 

Such stories, too, as a chained fox or a coyote getting possession ofcorn or other grain and baiting the chickens with it--feigning sleeptill the chicken gets within reach, and then seizing it--are of thesame class, incredible because transcending the inherited knowledge ofthose animals. I can believe that a fox might walk in a shallow creekto elude the hound, because he may inherit this kind of cunning, andin his own experience he may have come to associate loss of scent withwater. Animals stalk their prey, or lie in wait for it, instinctively, not from a process of calculation, as man does. If a fox would baitpoultry with corn, why should he not, in his wild state, bait mice andsquirrels with nuts and seeds? Has a cat ever been known to bait a ratwith a piece of cheese?

Animals seem to have a certain association of ideas; one thingsuggests another to them, as with us. This fact is made use of byanimal-trainers. I can easily believe the story Charles St. Johntells of the fox he saw waylaying some hares, and which, to screenhimself the more completely from his quarry, scraped a small hollow inthe ground and threw up the sand about it. But if St. John had saidthat the fox brought weeds or brush to make himself a blind, as thehunter often does, I should have discredited him, just as I discreditthe observation of a man quoted by Romanes, who says that jackals, ambushing deer at the latter's watering-place, deliberately wait tillthe deer have filled themselves with water, knowing that in that statethey are more easily run down and captured!

President Roosevelt, in "The Wilderness Hunter, "--a book, by the way, of even deeper interest to the naturalist than to the sportsman, --saysthat the moose has to the hunter the "very provoking habit of making ahalf or three-quarters circle before lying down, and then crouchingwith its head so turned that it can surely perceive any pursuer whomay follow its trail. " This is the cunning of the moose developedthrough long generations of its hunted and wolf-pursued ancestors, --acunning that does not differ from that of a man under the samecircumstances, though, of course, it is not the result of the sameprocess of reasoning. 

I have known a chipping sparrow to build her nest on a grape-vine justbeneath a bunch of small green grapes. Soon the bunch grew andlengthened and filled the nest, crowding out the bird. If the birdcould have foreseen the danger, she would have shown something likehuman reason. 

Birds that nest along streams, such as the water-thrush and thewater-ouzel, I suppose are rarely ever brought to grief by high water. They have learned through many generations to keep at a safe distance. I have never known a woodpecker to drill its nesting-cavity in abranch or limb that was ready to fall. Not that woodpeckers look thebranch or tree over with a view to its stability, but that they willcut into a tree only of a certain hardness; it is a family instinct. Birds sometimes make the mistake of building their nests on slenderbranches that a summer tempest will turn over, thus causing the eggsor the young to spill upon the ground. Even instinct cannot always getahead of the weather. 

It is almost impossible for us not to interpret the lives of the loweranimals in the terms of our own experience and our own psychology. Ientirely agree with Lloyd Morgan that we err when we do so, when weattribute to them what we call sentiments or any of the emotions thatspring from our moral and æsthetic natures, --the sentiments ofjustice, truth, beauty, altruism, goodness, duty, and thelike, --because these sentiments are the products of concepts and ideasto which the brute natures are strangers. But all the emotions of ouranimal nature--fear, anger, curiosity, local attachment, jealousy, and rivalry--are undoubtedly the same in the lower orders. 

Though almost anything may be affirmed of dogs, for they are nearlyhalf human, yet I doubt if even dogs experience the feeling of shameor guilt or revenge that we so often ascribe to them. These feelingsare all complex and have a deep root. When I was a youth, my fatherhad a big churn-dog that appeared one morning with a small bullet-holein his hip. Day after day the old dog treated his wound with histongue, after the manner of dogs, until it healed, and the incidentwas nearly forgotten. One day a man was going by on horseback, whenthe old dog rushed out, sprang at the man, and came near pulling himfrom the horse. It turned out that this was the person who had shotthe dog, and the dog recognized him. 

This looks like revenge, and it would have been such in you or me, butin the dog it was probably simple anger at the sight of the man whohad hurt him. The incident shows memory and the association ofimpressions, but the complex feeling of vengeance, as we know it, isanother matter. 

If animals do not share our higher intellectual nature, we have nowarrant for attributing to them anything like our higher and morecomplex emotional nature. Musical strains seem to give them painrather than pleasure, and it is quite evident that perfumes have noattraction for them. 

The stories, which seem to be well authenticated, of sheep-killingdogs that have slipped their collars in the night and indulged theirpassion for live mutton, and then returned and thrust their necks intotheir collars before their absence was discovered, do not, to my mind, prove that the dogs were trying to deceive their masters and concealtheir guilt, but rather show how obedient to the chain and collar thedogs had become. They had long been subject to such control anddiscipline, and they returned to them again from the mere force ofhabit. 

I do not believe even the dog to be capable of a sense of guilt. Sucha sense implies a sense of duty, and this is a complex ethical sensethat the animals do not experience. What the dog fears, and what makeshim put on his look of guilt and shame, is his master's anger. A harshword or a severe look will make him assume the air of a culpritwhether he is one or not, and, on the other hand, a kind word and areassuring smile will transform him into a happy beast, no matter ifthe blood of his victim is fresh upon him. 

A dog is to be broken of a bad habit, if at all, not by an appeal tohis conscience or to his sense of duty, for he has neither, but by anappeal to his susceptibility to pain. 

Both Pliny and Plutarch tell the story of an elephant which, havingbeen beaten by its trainer for its poor dancing, was afterward foundall by itself practicing its steps by the light of the moon. This isjust as credible as many of the animal stories one hears nowadays. 

Many of the actions of the lower animals are as automatic as those ofthe tin rooster that serves as a weather-vane. See how intelligentlythe rooster acts, always pointing the direction of the wind without amoment's hesitation. Or behold the vessel anchored in the harbor, howintelligently it adjusts itself to the winds and the tides! I haveseen a log, caught in an eddy in a flooded stream, apparently makesuch struggles to escape that the thing became almost uncanny in itssemblance to life. Man himself often obeys just such unseen currentsof race or history when he thinks he is acting upon his owninitiative. 

When I was in Alaska, I saw precipices down which hundreds of horseshad dashed themselves in their mad and desperate efforts to escapefrom the toil and suffering they underwent on the White Pass trail. Shall we say these horses deliberately committed suicide? Suicide itcertainly was in effect, but of course not in intention. What does orcan a horse know about death, or about self-destruction? These animalswere maddened by their hardships, and blindly plunged down the rocks. 

The tendency to humanize the animals is more and more marked in allrecent nature books that aim at popularity. A recent British book onanimal life has a chapter entitled "Animal Materia Medica. " Thewriter, to make out his case, is forced to treat as medicine the saltwhich the herbivorous animals eat, and the sand and gravel which grainand nut-eating birds take into their gizzards to act as millstones togrind their grist. He might as well treat their food as medicine andbe done with it. So far as I know, animals have no remedies whateverfor their ailments. Even savages have, for the most part, only "fake"medicines. 

A Frenchman has published a book, which has been translated intoEnglish, on the "Industries of Animals. " Some of these Frenchmen couldgive points even to our "Modern School of Nature Study. " It may beremembered that Michelet said the bird floated, and that it could puffitself up so that it was lighter than the air! Not a littlecontemporary natural science can beat the bird in this respect. 

The serious student of nature can have no interest in belittling or inexaggerating the intelligence of animals. What he wants is the truthabout them, and this he will not get from our natural historyromancers, nor from the casual, untrained observers, who are sure tointerpret the lives of the wood-folk in terms of their own motives andexperiences, nor from Indians, trappers, or backwoodsmen, who givesuch free rein to their fancies and superstitions. 

Such a book as Romanes's "Animal Intelligence" is not always a safeguide. It is like a lawyer's plea to the jury for his client. Romaneswas so intent upon making out his case that he allowed himself to beimposed upon by the tales of irresponsible observers. Many of hisstories of the intelligence of birds and beasts are antecedentlyimprobable. He evidently credits the story of the Bishop of Carlisle, who thinks he saw a jackdaw being tried by a jury of rooks for somemisdemeanor. Jack made a speech and the jury cawed back at him, andafter a time appeared to acquit Jack! What a child's fancy to be putin a serious work on "Animal Intelligence"! The dead birds we now andthen find hanging from the nest, or from the limb of a tree, with astring wound around their necks are no doubt criminals upon whom theirfellows have inflicted capital punishment!

Most of the observations upon which Romanes bases his conclusions arelike the incident which he quoted from Jesse, who tells of someswallows that in the spirit of revenge tore down a nest from whichthey had been ejected by the sparrows, in order to destroy the youngof their enemies--a feat impossible for swallows to do. Jesse does notsay he saw the swallows do it, but he "saw the young sparrows deadupon the ground amid the ruins of the nest, " and of course the nestcould get down in no other way!

Not to Romanes or Jesse or Michelet must we go for the truth aboutanimals, but to the patient, honest Darwin, to such calm, keen, andphilosophical investigators as Lloyd Morgan, and to the books of suchsportsmen as Charles St. John, or to our own candid, trained, andmany-sided Theodore Roosevelt, --men capable of disinterestedobservation with no theories about animals to uphold. 

 IX

 DO ANIMALS THINK AND REFLECT?

When we see the animals going about, living their lives in many waysas we live ours, seeking their food, avoiding their enemies, buildingtheir nests, digging their holes, laying up stores, migrating, courting, playing, fighting, showing cunning, courage, fear, joy, anger, rivalry, grief, profiting by experience, following theirleaders, --when we see all this, I say, what more natural than that weshould ascribe to them powers akin to our own, and look upon them asthinking, reasoning, and reflecting. A hasty survey of animal life issure to lead to this conclusion. An animal is not a clod, nor a block, nor a machine. It is alive and self-directing, it has some sort ofpsychic life, yet the more I study the subject, the more I ampersuaded that with the probable exception of the dog on occasions, and of the apes, animals do not think or reflect in any proper senseof those words. As I have before said, animal life shows in an activeand free state that kind of intelligence that pervades and governs thewhole organic world, --intelligence that takes no thought of itself. Here, in front of my window, is a black raspberry bush. A few weeksago its branches curved upward, with their ends swinging fully twofeet above the ground; now those ends are thrust down through theweeds and are fast rooted to the soil. Did the raspberry bush think, or choose what it should do? Did it reflect and say, Now is the timefor me to bend down and thrust my tip into the ground? To all intentsand purposes yes, yet there was no voluntary mental process, as insimilar acts of our own. We say its nature prompts it to act thus andthus, and that is all the explanation we can give. Or take the case ofthe pine or the spruce tree that loses its central and leading shoot. When this happens, does the tree start a new bud and then develop anew shoot to take the place of the lost leader? No, a branch from thefirst ring of branches below, probably the most vigorous of the whorl, is promoted to the leadership. Slowly it rises up, and in two or threeyears it reaches the upright position and is leading the tree upward. This, I suspect, is just as much an act of conscious intelligence andof reason as is much to which we are so inclined to apply those wordsin animal life. I suppose it is all foreordained in the economy of thetree, if we could penetrate that economy. It is in this sense thatNature thinks in the animal, and the vegetable, and the mineralworlds. Her thinking is more flexible and adaptive in the vegetablethan in the mineral, and more so in the animal than in the vegetable, and the most so of all in the mind of man. 

The way the wild apple trees and the red thorn trees in the pasture, as described by Thoreau, triumph over the cattle that year after yearbrowse them down, suggests something almost like human tactics. Thecropped and bruised tree, not being allowed to shoot upward, spreadsmore and more laterally, thus pushing its enemies farther and fartheraway, till, after many years, a shoot starts up from the top of thethorny, knotted cone, and in one season, protected by this_cheval-de-frise_, attains a height beyond the reach of the cattle, and the victory is won. Now the whole push of the large root systemgoes into the central shoot and the tree is rapidly developed. 

This almost looks like a well-laid scheme on the part of the tree todefeat its enemies. But see how inevitable the whole process is. Checkthe direct flow of a current and it will flow out at the sides; checkthe side issues and they will push out on their sides, and so on. Soit is with the tree or seedling. The more it is cropped, the more itbranches and rebranches, pushing out laterally as its vertical growthis checked, till it has surrounded the central stalk on all sides witha dense, thorny hedge. Then as this stalk is no longer cropped, itleads the tree upward. The lateral branches are starved, and in a fewyears the tree stands with little or no evidence of the ordeal it haspassed through. In like manner the nature of the animals prompts themto the deeds they do, and we think of them as the result of a mentalprocess, because similar acts in ourselves are the result of such aprocess. 

See how the mice begin to press into our buildings as the fall comeson. Do they know winter is coming? In the same way the vegetable worldknows it is coming when it prepares for winter, or the insect worldwhen it makes ready, but not as you and I know it. The woodchuck"holes up" in late September; the crows flock and select their rookeryabout the same time, and the small wood newts or salamanders soonbegin to migrate to the marshes. They all know winter is coming, justas much as the tree knows, when in August it forms its new buds forthe next year, or as the flower knows that its color and perfume willattract the insects, and no more. The general intelligence of naturesettles all these and similar things. 

When a bird selects a site for its nest, it seems, on first view, asif it must actually think, reflect, compare, as you and I do when wedecide where to place our house. I saw a little chipping sparrowtrying to decide between two raspberry bushes. She kept going from oneto the other, peering, inspecting, and apparently weighing theadvantages of each. I saw a robin in the woodbine on the side of thehouse trying to decide which particular place was the best site forher nest. She hopped to this tangle of shoots and sat down, then tothat, she turned around, she readjusted herself, she looked about, sheworked her feet beneath her, she was slow in making up her mind. Didshe make up her mind? Did she think, compare, weigh? I do not believeit. When she found the right conditions, she no doubt felt pleasureand satisfaction, and that settled the question. An inward, instinctive want was met and satisfied by an outward materialcondition. In the same way the hermit crab goes from shell to shellupon the beach, seeking one to its liking. Sometimes two crabs fall tofighting over a shell that each wants. Can we believe that the hermitcrab thinks and reasons? It selects the suitable shell instinctively, and not by an individual act of judgment. Instinct is not alwaysinerrant, though it makes fewer mistakes than reason does. The redsquirrel usually knows how to come at the meat in the butternut withthe least gnawing, but now and then he makes a mistake and strikes theedge of the kernel, instead of the flat side. The cliff swallow willstick her mud nest under the eaves of a barn where the boards areplaned so smooth that the nest sooner or later is bound to fall. Sheseems to have no judgment in the matter. Her ancestors built upon theface of high cliffs, where the mud adhered more firmly. 

A wood thrush began a nest in one of my maples, as usual making thefoundation of dry leaves, bits of paper, and dry grass. After thethird day the site on the branch was bare, the wind having swept awayevery vestige of the nest. As I passed beneath the tree I saw thethrush standing where the nest had been, apparently in deep thought. Afew days afterward I looked again, and the nest was completed. Thebird had got ahead of the wind at last. The nesting-instinct hadtriumphed over the weather. 

Take the case of the little yellow warbler when the cowbird drops heregg into its nest--does anything like a process of thought orreflection pass in the bird's mind then? The warbler is much disturbedwhen she discovers the strange egg, and her mate appears to share heragitation. Then after a time, and after the two have apparentlyconsidered the matter together, the mother bird proceeds to bury theegg by building another nest on top of the old one. If anothercowbird's egg is dropped in this one, she will proceed to get rid ofthis in the same way. This all looks very like reflection. But let usconsider the matter a moment. This thing between the cowbird and thewarbler has been going on for innumerable generations. The yellowwarbler seems to be the favorite host of this parasite, and somethinglike a special instinct may have grown up in the warbler withreference to this strange egg. The bird reacts, as the psychologistssay, at sight of it, then she proceeds to dispose of it in the wayabove described. _All yellow warblers act in the same manner_, whichis the way of instinct. Now if this procedure was the result of anindividual thought or calculation on the part of the birds, they wouldnot all do the same thing; different lines of conduct would be hitupon. How much simpler and easier it would be to throw the eggout--how much more like an act of rational intelligence. So far as Iknow, no bird does eject this parasitical egg, and no other birdbesides the yellow warbler gets rid of it in the way I have described. I have found a deserted phoebe's nest with one egg of the phoebeand one of the cowbird in it. 

Some of our wild birds have changed their habits of nesting, comingfrom the woods and the rocks to the protection of our buildings. Thephoebe-bird and the cliff swallow are marked examples. We ascribethe change to the birds' intelligence, but to my mind it shows onlytheir natural adaptiveness. Take the cliff swallow, for instance; ithas largely left the cliffs for the eaves of our buildings. Hownaturally and instinctively this change has come about! In an openfarming country insect life is much more varied and abundant than in awild, unsettled country. This greater food supply naturally attractsthe swallows. Then the protecting eaves of the buildings wouldstimulate their nesting-instincts. The abundance of mud along thehighways and about the farm would also no doubt have its effect, andthe birds would adopt the new sites as a matter of course. Or takethe phoebe, which originally built its nest under ledges, and doesso still to some extent. It, too, would find a more abundant foodsupply in the vicinity of farm-buildings and bridges. The protectednesting-sites afforded by sheds and porches would likewise stimulateits nesting-instincts, and attract the bird as we see it attractedeach spring. 

Nearly everything an animal does is the result of an inborn instinctacted upon by an outward stimulus. The margin wherein intelligentchoice plays a part is very small. But it does at times play apart--perceptive intelligence, but not rational intelligence. Theinsects do many things that look like intelligence, yet how thesethings differ from human intelligence may be seen in the case of oneof our solitary wasps, --the mud-dauber, --which sometimes builds itscell with great labor, then seals it up without laying its egg andstoring it with the accustomed spiders. Intelligence never makes thatkind of a mistake, but instinct does. Instinct acts more in theinvariable way of a machine. Certain of the solitary wasps bring theirgame--spider, or bug, or grasshopper--and place it just at theentrance of their hole, and then go into their den apparently to seethat all is right before they carry it in. 

Fabre, the French naturalist, experimented with one of these wasps, asfollows: While the wasp was in its den he moved its grasshopper a fewinches away. The wasp came out, brought it to the opening as before, and went within a second time; again the game was removed, again thewasp came out and brought it back and entered her nest as before. Thislittle comedy was repeated over and over; each time the wasp feltcompelled to enter her hole before dragging in the grasshopper. Shewas like a machine that would work that way and no other. Step mustfollow step in just such order. Any interruption of the regular methodand she must begin over again. This is instinct, and the incidentshows how widely it differs from conscious intelligence. 

If you have a tame chipmunk, turn him loose in an empty room and givehim some nuts. Finding no place to hide them, he will doubtless carrythem into a corner and pretend to cover them up. You will see his pawsmove quickly about them for an instant as if in the act of pullingleaves or mould over them. His machine, too, must work in that way. After the nuts have been laid down, the next thing in order is tocover them, and he makes the motions all in due form. Intelligencewould have omitted this useless act. 

A canary-bird in its cage will go through all the motions of taking abath in front of the cup that holds its drinking-water when it canonly dip its bill into the liquid. The sight or touch of the waterexcites it and sets it going, and with now and then a drop thrown fromits beak it will keep up the flirting and fluttering motion of itstail and wings precisely as if taking a real instead of an imaginarybath. 

Attempt to thwart the nesting-instinct in a bird and see howpersistent it is, and how blind! One spring a pair of English sparrowstried to build a nest on the plate that upholds the roof of my porch. They were apparently attracted by an opening about an inch wide in thetop of the plate, that ran the whole length of it. The pair were busynearly the whole month of April in carrying nesting-material tovarious points on that plate. That big crack or opening which was notlarge enough to admit their bodies seemed to have a powerfulfascination for them. They carried straws and weed stalks and filledup one portion of it, and then another and another, till the crack waspacked with rubbish from one end of the porch to the other, and theindignant broom of the housekeeper grew tired of sweeping up thelitter. The birds could not effect an entrance into the interior ofthe plate, but they could thrust in their nesting-material, and sothey persisted week after week, stimulated by the presence of a cavitybeyond their reach. The case is a good illustration of the blindworking of instinct. 

Animals have keen perceptions, --keener in many respects than ourown, --but they form no conceptions, have no powers of comparing onething with another. They live entirely in and through their senses. 

It is as if the psychic world were divided into two planes, one abovethe other, --the plane of sense and the plane of spirit. In the planeof sense live the lower animals, only now and then just breaking for amoment into the higher plane. In the world of sense man is immersedalso--this is his start and foundation; but he rises into the plane ofspirit, and here lives his proper life. He is emancipated from sensein a way that beasts are not. 

Thus, I think, the line between animal and human psychology may bepretty clearly drawn. It is not a dead-level line. Instinct isundoubtedly often modified by intelligence, and intelligence is asoften guided or prompted by instinct, but one need not hesitate longas to which side of the line any given act of man or beast belongs. When the fox resorts to various tricks to outwit and delay the hound(if he ever consciously does so), he exercises a kind ofintelligence, --the lower form which we call cunning, --and he isprompted to this by an instinct of self-preservation. When the birdsset up a hue and cry about a hawk or an owl, or boldly attack him, they show intelligence in its simpler form, the intelligence thatrecognizes its enemies, prompted again by the instinct ofself-preservation. When a hawk does not know a man on horseback from ahorse, it shows a want of intelligence. When a crow is kept away froma corn-field by a string stretched around it, the fact shows howmasterful is its fear and how shallow its wit. When a cat or a dog, or a horse or a cow, learns to open a gate or a door, it shows adegree of intelligence--power to imitate, to profit by experience. Amachine could not learn to do this. If the animal were to close thedoor or gate behind it, that would be another step in intelligence. But its direct wants have no relation to the closing of the door, onlyto the opening of it. To close the door involves an after-thought thatan animal is not capable of. A horse will hesitate to go upon thin iceor upon a frail bridge, even though it has never had any experiencewith thin ice or frail bridges. This, no doubt, is an inheritedinstinct, which has arisen in its ancestors from their fund of generalexperience with the world. How much with them has depended upon asecure footing! A pair of house wrens had a nest in my well-curb; whenthe young were partly grown and heard any one come to the curb, theywould set up a clamorous calling for food. When I scratched againstthe sides of the curb beneath them like some animal trying to climbup, their voices instantly hushed; the instinct of fear promptlyovercame the instinct of hunger. Instinct is intelligent, but it isnot the same as acquired individual intelligence; it is untaught. 

When the nuthatch carries a fragment of a hickory-nut to a tree andwedges it into a crevice in the bark, the bird is not showing anindividual act of intelligence: all nuthatches do this; it is a raceinstinct. The act shows intelligence, --that is, it adapts means to anend, --but it is not like human or individual intelligence, whichadapts new means to old ends, or old means to new ends, and whichsprings up on the occasion. Jays and chickadees hold the nut or seedthey would peck under the foot, but the nuthatch makes a vise to holdit of the bark of the tree, and one act is just as intelligent as theother; both are the promptings of instinct. But when man makes a vise, or a wedge, or a bootjack, he uses his individual intelligence. Whenthe jay carries away the corn you put out in winter and hides it inold worms' nests and knot-holes and crevices in trees, he is obeyingthe instinct of all his tribe to pilfer and hide things, --an instinctthat plays its part in the economy of nature, as by its means manyacorns and chestnuts get planted and large seeds widely disseminated. By this greed of the jay the wingless nuts take flight, oaks areplanted amid the pines, and chestnuts amid the hemlocks. 

Speaking of nuts reminds me of an incident I read of the deer orwhite-footed mouse--an incident that throws light on the limitation ofanimal intelligence. The writer gave the mouse hickory-nuts, which itattempted to carry through a crack between the laths in the kitchenwall. The nuts were too large to go through the crack. The mouse wouldtry to push them through; failing in that, he would go through andthen try to pull them after him. All night he or his companion seemsto have kept up this futile attempt, fumbling and dropping the nutevery few minutes. It never occurred to the mouse to gnaw the holelarger, as it would instantly have done had the hole been too small toadmit its own body. It could not project its mind thus far; it couldnot get out of itself sufficiently to regard the nut in its relationto the hole, and it is doubtful if any four-footed animal is capableof that degree of reflection and comparison. Nothing in its own lifeor in the life of its ancestors had prepared it to meet that kind of adifficulty with nuts. And yet the writer who made the aboveobservation says that when confined in a box, the sides of which areof unequal thickness, the deer mouse, on attempting to gnaw out, almost invariably attacks the thinnest side. How does he know which isthe thinnest side? Probably by a delicate and trained sense of feelingor hearing. In gnawing through obstructions from within, or fromwithout, he and his kind have had ample experience. 

Now when we come to insects, we find that the above inferences do nothold. It has been observed that when a solitary wasp finds its hole inthe ground too small to admit the spider or other insect which it hasbrought, it falls to and enlarges it. In this and in other respectscertain insects seem to take the step of reason that quadrupeds areincapable of. 

Lloyd Morgan relates at some length the experiments he tried with hisfox terrier, Tony, seeking to teach him how to bring a stick through afence with vertical palings. The spaces would allow the dog to passthrough, but the palings caught the ends of the stick which the dogcarried in his mouth. When his master encouraged him, he pushed andstruggled vigorously. Not succeeding, he went back, lay down, andbegan gnawing the stick. Then he tried again, and stuck as before, butby a chance movement of his head to one side finally got the stickthrough. His master patted him approvingly and sent him for the stickagain. Again he seized it by the middle, and of course brought upagainst the palings. After some struggles he dropped it and camethrough without it. Then, encouraged by his master, he put his headthrough, seized the stick, and tried to pull it through, dancing upand down in his endeavors. Time after time and day after day theexperiment was repeated with practically the same results. The dognever mastered the problem. He could not see the relation of thatstick to the opening in the fence. At one time he worked and tuggedthree minutes trying to pull the stick through. Of course, if he hadhad any mental conception of the problem or had thought about it atall, a single trial would have convinced him as well as would a dozentrials. Mr. Morgan tried the experiment with other dogs with likeresult. When they did get the stick through, it was always by chance. 

It has never been necessary that the dog or his ancestors should knowhow to fetch long sticks through a narrow opening in a fence. Hence hedoes not know the trick of it. But we have a little bird that knowsthe trick. The house wren will carry a twig three inches long througha hole of half that diameter. She knows how to manage it because thewren tribe have handled twigs so long in building their nests thatthis knowledge has become a family instinct. 

What we call the intelligence of animals is limited for the most partto sense perception and sense memory. We teach them certain things, train them to do tricks quite beyond the range of their naturalintelligence, not because we enlighten their minds or develop theirreason, but mainly by the force of habit. Through repetition the actbecomes automatic. Who ever saw a trained animal, unless it be theelephant, do anything that betrayed the least spark of consciousintelligence? The trained pig, or the trained dog, or the trained liondoes its "stunt" precisely as a machine would do it--without any moreappreciation of what it is doing. The trainer and public performerfind that things must always be done in the same fixed order; anychange, anything unusual, any strange sound, light, color, ormovement, and trouble at once ensues. 

I read of a beaver that cut down a tree which was held in such a waythat it did not fall, but simply dropped down the height of the stump. The beaver cut it off again; again it dropped and refused to fall; hecut it off a third and a fourth time: still the tree stood. Then hegave it up. Now, so far as I can see, the only independentintelligence the animal showed was when it ceased to cut off the tree. Had it been a complete automaton, it would have gone on cutting--wouldit not?--till it made stove-wood of the whole tree. It was confrontedby a new problem, and after a while it took the hint. Of course it didnot understand what was the matter, as you and I would have, but itevidently concluded that something was wrong. Was this of itself anact of intelligence? Though it may be that its ceasing to cut off thetree was simply the result of discouragement, and involved no mentalconclusion at all. It is a new problem, a new condition, that tests ananimal's intelligence. How long it takes a caged bird or beast tolearn that it cannot escape! What a man would see at a glance it takesweeks or months to pound into the captive bird, or squirrel, or coon. When the prisoner ceases to struggle, it is probably not because ithas at last come to understand the situation, but because it isdiscouraged. It is checked, but not enlightened. 

Even so careful an observer as Gilbert White credits the swallow withan act of judgment to which it is not entitled. He says that in orderthat the mud nest may not advance too rapidly and so fall of its ownweight, the bird works at it only in the morning, and plays and feedsthe rest of the day, thus giving the mud a chance to harden. Had notthe genial parson observed that this is the practice of all birdsduring nest-building--that they work in the early morning hours andfeed and amuse themselves the rest of the day? In the case of themud-builders, this interim of course gives the mud a chance to harden, but are we justified in crediting them with this forethought?

Such skill and intelligence as a bird seems to display in the buildingof its nest, and yet at times such stupidity! I have known aphoebe-bird to start four nests at once, and work more or less uponall of them. She had deserted the ancestral sites under the shelvingrocks and come to a new porch, upon the plate of which she started herfour nests. She blundered because her race had had little or noexperience with porches. There were four or more places upon the platejust alike, and whichever one of these she chanced to strike with herloaded beak she regarded as the right one. Her instinct served her upto a certain point, but it did not enable her to discriminate betweenthose rafters. Where a little original intelligence should have comeinto play she was deficient. Her progenitors Had built under rockswhere there was little chance for mistakes of this sort, and they hadlearned through ages of experience to blend the nest with itssurroundings, by the use of moss, the better to conceal it. Myphoebe brought her moss to the new timbers of the porch, where ithad precisely the opposite effect to what it had under the gray mossyrocks. 

I was amused at the case of a robin that recently came to myknowledge. The bird built its nest in the south end of a rude shedthat covered a table at a railroad terminus upon which a locomotivewas frequently turned. When her end of the shed was turned to thenorth she built another nest in the temporary south end, and as thereversal of the shed ends continued from day to day, she soon had twonests with two sets of eggs. When I last heard from her, she wasconsistently sitting on that particular nest which happened to be forthe time being in the end of the shed facing toward the south. Thebewildered bird evidently had had no experience with the tricks ofturn-tables!

An intelligent man once told me that crabs could reason, and this washis proof: In hunting for crabs in shallow water, he found one thathad just cast its shell, but the crab put up just as brave a fight asever, though of course it was powerless to inflict any pain; as soonas the creature found that its bluff game did not work, it offered nofurther resistance. Now I should as soon say a wasp reasoned becausea stingless drone, or male, when you capture him, will make all themotions with its body, curving and thrusting, that its sting-equippedfellows do. This action is from an inherited instinct, and is purelyautomatic. The wasp is not putting up a bluff game; it is reallytrying to sting you, but has not the weapon. The shell-less crabquickly reacts at your approach, as is its nature to do, and thenquickly ceases its defense because in its enfeebled condition theimpulse of defense is feeble also. Its surrender was on physiological, not upon rational grounds. 

Thus do we without thinking impute the higher faculties to even thelowest forms of animal life. Much in our own lives is purelyautomatic--the quick reaction to appropriate stimuli, as when we wardoff a blow, or dodge a missile, or make ourselves agreeable to theopposite sex; and much also is inherited or unconsciously imitative. 

Because man, then, is half animal, shall we say that the animal ishalf man? This seems to be the logic of some people. The animal man, while retaining much of his animality, has evolved from it higherfaculties and attributes, while our four-footed kindred have not thusprogressed. 

Man is undoubtedly of animal origin, but his rise occurred when theprinciple of variation was much more active, when the forms and forcesof nature were much more youthful and plastic, when the seething andfermenting of the vital fluids were at a high pitch in the far past, and it was high tide with the creative impulse. The world is aging, and, no doubt, the power of initiative in Nature is becoming less andless. I think it safe to say that the worm no longer aspires to be man. 

 X

 A PINCH OF SALT

Probably I have become unusually cautious of late about acceptingoffhand all I read in print on subjects of natural history. I takemuch of it with a liberal pinch of salt. Newspaper reading tends tomake one cautious--and who does not read newspapers in these days? Oneof my critics says, apropos of certain recent strictures of mine uponsome current nature writers, that I discredit whatever I have notmyself seen; that I belong to that class of observers "whoseview-point is narrowed to the limit of their own personal experience. "This were a grievous fault if it were true, so much we have to takeupon trust in natural history as well as in other history, and in lifein general. "Mr. Burroughs might have remembered, " says another criticdiscussing the same subject, "that nobody has seen quite so manythings as everybody. " How true! If I have ever been guilty of denyingthe truth of what everybody has seen, my critic has just ground forcomplaint. I was conscious, in the paper referred to, [4] of denyingonly the truth of certain things that one man alone had reportedhaving seen, --things so at variance not only with my own observations, but with those of all other observers and with the fundamentalprinciples of animal psychology, that my "will to believe, " alwayseasy to move, balked and refused to take a step. 

 [4] _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1903. 

In matters of belief in any field, it is certain that the scientificmethod, the method of proof, is not of equal favor with all minds. Some persons believe what they can or must, others what they would. One person accepts what agrees with his reason and experience, anotherwhat is agreeable to his or her fancy. The grounds of probabilitycount much with me; the tone and quality of the witness count formuch. Does he ring true? Is his eye single? Does he see out of theback of his head?--that is, does he see on more than one side of athing? Is he in love with the truth, or with the strange, the bizarre?Last of all, my own experience comes in to correct or to modify theobservations of others. If what you report is antecedently improbable, I shall want concrete proof before accepting it, and I shallcross-question your witness sharply. If you tell me you have seenapples and acorns, or pears and plums, growing upon the same tree, Ishall discredit you. The thing has never been known and is contrary tonature. But if you tell me you have seen a peach tree bearingnectarines, or have known a nectarine-stone to produce a peach tree, Ishall still want to cross-question you sharply, but I may believeyou. Such things have happened. Or if you tell me that you have seenan old doe with horns, or a hen with spurs, or a male bird incubatingand singing on the nest, unusual as the last occurrence is, I shallnot dispute you. I will concede that you may have seen a white crow ora white blackbird or a white robin, or a black chipmunk or a black redsquirrel, and many other departures from the usual in animal life; butI cannot share the conviction of the man who told me he had seen a redsquirrel curing rye before storing it up in its den, or of the writerwho believes the fox will ride upon the back of a sheep to escape thehound, or of another writer that he has seen the blue heron chummingfor fish. Even if you aver that you have seen a woodpecker runningdown the trunk of a tree as well as up, I shall be sure you have notseen correctly. It is the nuthatch and not the woodpecker that hops upand down and around the trees. It is easy to transcend any man'sexperience; not so easy to transcend his reason. "Nobody has seen somany things as everybody, " yet a dozen men cannot see any farther thanone, and the truth is not often a matter of majorities. If you tell meany incident in the life of bird or beast that implies the possessionof what we mean by reason, I shall be very skeptical. 

Am I guilty, then, as has been charged, of preferring the deductivemethod of reasoning to the more modern and more scientific inductivemethod? But I doubt if the inductive method would avail one in tryingto prove that the old cow really jumped over the moon. We do denycertain things upon general principles, and affirm others. I do notbelieve that a rooster ever laid an egg, or that a male tiger evergave milk. If your alleged fact contradicts fundamental principles, Ishall beware of it; if it contradicts universal experience, I shallprobe it thoroughly. A college professor wrote me that he had seen acrow blackbird catch a small fish and fly away with it in its beak. Now I have never seen anything of the kind, but I know of no principleupon which I should feel disposed to question the truth of such anassertion. I have myself seen a crow blackbird kill an Englishsparrow. Both proceedings I think are very unusual, but neither isantecedently improbable. If the professor had said that he saw theblackbird dive head first into the water for the fish, after themanner of the kingfisher, I should have been very skeptical. He onlysaw the bird rise up from the edge of the water with the wrigglingfish in its mouth. It had doubtless seized it in shallow water nearthe shore. But I should discredit upon general principles thestatement of the woman who related with much detail how she and herwhole family had seen a pair "of small brown birds" carry theirhalf-fledged young from their nest in a low bush, where there wasdanger from cats, to a new nest which they had just finished in thetop of a near-by tree! Could any person who knows the birds creditsuch a tale? The bank-teller throws out the counterfeit coin or billbecause his practiced eye and touch detect the fraud at once. Onsimilar grounds the experienced observer rejects all such stories asthe above. Darwin quotes an authority for the statement that ourruffed grouse makes its drumming sound by striking its wings togetherover its back. A recent writer says the sound is not made with thewings at all, but is made with the voice, just as a rooster crows. Every woodsman knows that neither statement is true, and he knows it, not on general principles, but from experience--he has seen the grousedrum. 

Birds that are not flycatchers sometimes take insects in the air; theydo it clumsily, but they get the bug. On the other hand, flycatcherssometimes eat fruit. I have seen the kingbird carry off raspberries. All such facts are matters of observation. In the search for truth weemploy both the deductive and the inductive methods; we deduceprinciples from facts, and we test alleged facts by principles. 

The other day an intelligent woman told me this about a canary-bird:The bird had a nest with young in the corner of her cage; near by weresome other birds in a cage--I forget what they were; they had a fullview of all the domestic affairs of the canary. This publicity sheevidently did not like, for she tore out of the paper that covered thebottom of her cage a piece as large as one's hand and wove it into thewires so as to make a screen against her inquisitive neighbors. Myinformant evidently believed this story. It was agreeable to herfancies and feelings. But see the difficulties in the way. How couldthe bird with its beak tear out a broad piece of paper? then, howcould it weave it into the wires of its cage? Furthermore, the familyof birds to which the canary belongs are not weavers; they buildcup-shaped nests, and they have had no use for screens or covers, andthey never have made them. Just what was the truth about the matter Icannot say, but if we know anything about animal psychology, we knowthat was not the truth. It is always risky to attribute to an animalany act its ancestors could not have performed. 

Again, things are reported as facts that are not so much contrary toreason as contrary to all experience, and with these, too, I have mydifficulties. A recent writer upon our wild life says he hasdiscovered that the cowbird watches over its young and assists thefoster-parents in providing food for them--an observation so contraryto all that we know of parasitical birds, both at home and abroad, that no real observer can credit the statement. Our cowbird has beenunder observation for a hundred years or more; every dweller in thecountry must see one or more young cowbirds being fed by theirfoster-parents every season, yet no competent observer has everreported any care of the young bird by its real parent. If this weretrue, it would make the cowbird only half parasitical--an unheard-ofphenomenon. 

The same writer tells this incident about a grouse that had a nestnear his cabin. One morning he heard a strange cry in the direction ofthe nest, and taking the path that led to it, he met the grouserunning toward him with one wing pressed close to her side, andfighting off two robber crows with the other. Under the closed wingthe grouse was carrying an egg, which she had managed to save from theruin of her nest. The bird was coming to the hermit for succor. Now, am I skeptical about such a story, put down in apparent good faith ina book of natural history as a real occurrence, because I have neverseen the like? No; I am skeptical because the incident is so contraryto all that we know about grouse and all other wild birds. Our beliefin nearly all matters takes the line of least resistance, and it iseasier for me to believe that the writer deceived himself, than thatsuch a thing ever happened. In the first place, a grouse could notpick up an egg with her wing when crows were trying to rob her, and, in the second place, she would not think far enough to do it if shehad the power. What was she going to do with the egg? Bring it to thehermit for his breakfast? This last supposition is just as reasonableas any part of the story. A grouse will not readily leave herunfledged young, but she will leave her eggs when disturbed by man orbeast with apparent unconcern. 

It is the rarest thing in the world that real observers see any ofthese startling and exceptional things in nature. Thoreau saw none. White saw none. Charles St. John saw none. John Muir reports none, Audubon none. It is always your untrained observer that has his poser, his shower of frogs or lizards, or his hoop snakes, and the like. Theimpossible things that country people see or hear of would make a bookof wonders. In some places fishermen believe that the loon carries itsegg under its wing till it hatches, and one would say that they are ina position to know. So they are. But opportunity is only half theproblem; the verifying mind is the other half. One of our writers ofpopular nature books relates this curious incident of "animal surgery"among wild ducks. He discovered two eider ducks swimming about afresh-water pond and acting queerly, "dipping their heads under waterand keeping them there for a minute or more at a time. " He laterdiscovered that the ducks had large mussels attached to their tongues, and that they were trying to get rid of them by drowning them. Thebirds had discovered that the salt-water mussel cannot live in freshwater. Now am I to accept this story without question because I findit printed in a book? In the first place, is it not most remarkablethat if the ducks had discovered that the bivalves could not live infresh water, they should not also have discovered that they could notlive in the air? In fact, that they would die as soon in the air as inthe fresh water?[5] See how much trouble the ducks could have savedthemselves by going and sitting quietly upon the beach, or puttingtheir heads under their wings and going to sleep on the wave. Oystersare often laid down in fresh water to "fatten" before being sent tomarket, and probably mussels would thrive for a short time in freshwater equally well. In the second place, a duck's tongue is a veryshort and stiff affair, and is fixed in the lower mandible as in atrough. Ducks do not protrude the tongue when they feed; they cannotprotrude it; and if a duck can crush a mussel-shell with its beak, what better position could it have the bivalve in than fast to thetongue between the upper and the lower mandible? The story iscertainly a very "fishy" one. In all such cases the mind follows theline of least resistance. If the ducks were deliberately holding theirbills under water, it is easier to believe that they did it becausethey thereby found some relief from pain, than that they knew thebivalves would let go their hold sooner in fresh water than in salt orthan in the air. A duck's mouth held open and the tongue pinched by ashell-fish would doubtless soon be in a feverish and abnormalcondition, which cool water would tend to alleviate. One is unable tosee how the ducks could have acquired the kind of human experimentalknowledge attributed to them. A person might learn such a secret, butsurely not a duck. In discovering and in eluding its enemies, and inmany other ways, the duck's wits are very sharp, but to attribute tothem a knowledge of the virtues of fresh water over salt in a certainunusual emergency--an emergency that could not have occurred to therace of ducks, much less to individuals often enough for a specialinstinct to have been developed to meet it--is to make them entirelyhuman. 

 [5] I have tried the experiment on two ordinary clams, and they both died on the third day. 

The whole idea of animal surgery which the incident implies--such asmending broken legs with clay, salving wounds with pitch, or resortingto bandages or amputations--is preposterous. Sick or wounded animalswill often seek relief from pain by taking to the water or to the mud, or maybe to the snow, just as cows will seek the pond or the bushes toescape the heat and the flies, and that is about the extent of theirsurgery. The dog licks his wound; it no doubt soothes and relieves it. The cow licks her calf; she licks him into shape; it is her instinctto do so. That tongue of hers is a currycomb, plus warmth and moistureand flexibility. The cat always carries her kittens by the back ofthe neck; it is her best way to carry them, though I do not supposethis act is the result of experiment on her part. 

A chimney swift has taken up her abode in my study chimney. Atintervals, day or night, when she hears me in the room, she makes asudden flapping and drumming sound with her wings to scare me away. Itis a very pretty little trick and quite amusing. If you appear abovethe opening of the top of a chimney where a swift is sitting on hernest, she will try to drum you away in the same manner. I do notsuppose there is any thought or calculation in her behavior, any morethan there is in her nest-building, or any other of her instinctivedoings. It is probably as much a reflex act as that of a bird when sheturns her eggs, or feigns lameness or paralysis, to lure you away fromher nest, or as the "playing possum" of a rose-bug or potato-bug whenit is disturbed. 

One of the writers referred to above relates with much detail thisastonishing thing of the Canada lynx: He saw a pack of them trailingtheir game--a hare--through the winter woods, not only hunting inconcert, but tracking their quarry. Now any candid and informed readerwill balk at this story, for two reasons: (1) the cat tribe do nothunt by scent, but by sight, --they stalk or waylay their game; (2)they hunt singly, they are all solitary in their habits, they areprobably the most unsocial of the carnivora, --they prowl, theylisten, they bide their time. Wolves often hunt in packs. I have noevidence that foxes do, and if the cats ever do, it is a mostextraordinary departure. A statement of such an exceptional occurrenceshould always put one on his guard. In the same story the lynx isrepresented as making curious antics in the air to excite thecuriosity of a band of caribou, and thus lure one of them to its deathat the teeth and claws of the waiting hidden pack. This also is souncatlike a proceeding that no woodsman could ever credit it. Hunterson the plains sometimes "flag" deer and antelope, and I have seen evena loon drawn very near to a bather in the water who was waving a smallred flag. But none of our wild creatures use lures, or decoys, ordisguises. This would involve a process of reasoning quite beyondthem. 

Many instances have been recorded of animals seeking the protection ofman when pursued by their deadly enemies. I heard of a rat which, whenhunted by a weasel, rushed into a room where a man was sleeping, andtook refuge in the bed at his feet. I heard Mr. Thompson Seton tell ofa young pronghorn buck that was vanquished by a rival, and so hotlypursued by its antagonist that it sought shelter amid his horses andwagons. On another occasion Mr. Seton said a jack rabbit pursued by aweasel upon the snow sought safety under his sled. In all such cases, if the frightened animal really rushed to man for protection, thatact would show a degree of reason. The animal must think, and weighthe _pros_ and _cons_. But I am convinced that the truth about suchcases is this: The greater fear drives out the lesser fear; the animalloses its head, and becomes oblivious to everything but the enemy thatis pursuing it. The rat was so terrified at the demon of a weasel thatit had but one impulse, and that was to hide somewhere. Doubtless hadthe bed been empty, it would have taken refuge there just the same. How could an animal know that a man will protect it on specialoccasions, when ordinarily it has exactly the opposite feeling? A deerhotly pursued by a hound might rush into the barn-yard or into theopen door of the barn in sheer desperation of uncontrollable terror. Then we should say the creature knew the farmer would protect it, andevery woman who read the incident, and half the men, would believethat that thought was in the deer's mind. When the hunted deer rushesinto the lake or pond, it does so, of course, with a view to escapeits pursuers, and wherever it seeks refuge this is its sole purpose. Ican easily fancy a bird pursued by a hawk darting into an open door orwindow, not with the thought that the inmates of the house willprotect it, but in a panic of absolute terror. Its fear is thencentred upon something behind it, not in front of it. 

When an animal does something necessary to its self-preservation, orto the continuance of its species, it probably does not think about itas a person would, any more than the plant or tree thinks about thelight when it bends toward it, or about the moisture when it sendsdown its tap-root. Touch the tail of a porcupine ever so lightly, andit springs up like a trap and your hand is stuck with quills. I do notsuppose there is any more thinking about the act, or any moreconscious exercise of will-power, than there is in a trap. An outwardstimulus is applied and the reaction is quick. Does not man wink, anddodge, and sneeze, and laugh, and cry, and blush, and fall in love, and do many other things without thought or will? I do not suppose thebirds think about migrating, as man does when he migrates; they simplyobey an inborn impulse to move south or north, as the case may be. They do not think about the great lights upon the coast that blaze outwith a fatal fascination in their midnight paths. If they hadindependent powers of thought, they would avoid them. But thelighthouse is comparatively a new thing in the life of birds, andinstinct has not yet taught them to avoid it. To adapt means to an endis an act of intelligence, but that intelligence may be inborn andinstinctive as in the animals, or it may be acquired and thereforerational as in man. 

"Surely, " said a woman to me, "when a cat sits watching at amouse-hole, she has some image in her mind of the mouse in its hole?"Not in any such sense as we have when we think of the same subject. The cat has either seen the mouse go into the hole, or else she smellshim; she knows he is there through her senses, and she reacts to thatimpression. Her instinct prompts her to hunt and to catch mice; shedoesn't need to think about them as we do about the game we hunt;Nature has done that for her in the shape of an inborn impulse that isawakened by the sight or smell of mice. We have no ready way todescribe her act as she sits intently by the hole but to say, "The catthinks there is a mouse there, " while she is not thinking at all, butsimply watching, prompted to it by her inborn instinct for mice. 

The cow's mouth will water at the sight of her food when she ishungry. Is she thinking about it? No more than you are when your mouthwaters as your full dinner-plate is set down before you. Certaindesires and appetites are aroused through sight and smell without anymental cognition. The sexual relations of the animals also illustratethis fact. 

We know that the animals do not think in any proper sense as we do, orhave concepts and ideas, because they have no language. To be sure, adeaf mute thinks without language because a human being has theintelligence which language implies, or which was begotten in hisancestors by its use through long ages. Not so with the lower animals. They are like very young children in this respect; they haveimpressions, perceptions, emotions, but not ideas. The childperceives things, discriminates things, knows its mother from astranger, is angry, or glad, or afraid, long before it has anylanguage or any proper concepts. Animals know only through theirsenses, and this "knowledge is restricted to things present in timeand space. " Reflection, or a return upon themselves in thought, ofthis they are not capable. Their only language consists of variouscries and calls, expressions of pain, alarm, joy, love, anger. Theycommunicate with one another, and come to share one another's mentalor emotional states, through these cries and calls. A dog barks invarious tones and keys, each of which expresses a different feeling inthe dog. I can always tell when my dog is barking at a snake; there issomething peculiar in the tone. The hunter knows when his hound hasdriven the fox to hole by a change in his baying. The lowing andbellowing of horned cattle are expressions of several differentthings. The crow has many caws, that no doubt convey various meanings. The cries of alarm and distress of the birds are understood by all thewild creatures that hear them; a feeling of alarm is conveyed tothem--an emotion, not an idea. 

How could a crow tell his fellows of some future event, or of someexperience of the day? How could he tell him this thing is dangerous, this is harmless, save by his actions in the presence of those things?Or how tell of a newly found food supply save by flying eagerly toit? A fox or a wolf could warn its fellow of the danger of poisonedmeat by showing alarm in the presence of the meat. Such meat would nodoubt have a peculiar odor to the keen scent of the fox or the wolf. Animals that live in communities, such as bees and beavers, coöperatewith each other without language, because they form a sort of organicunity, and what one feels all the others feel. One spirit, onepurpose, fills the community. 

It is said on good authority that prairie-dogs will not permit weedsor tall grass to grow about their burrows, as these afford cover forcoyotes and other enemies to stalk them. If they cannot remove thesescreens, they will leave the place. And yet they will sometimes allowa weed such as the Norse nettle or the Mexican poppy to grow on themound at the mouth of the den where it will afford shade and notobstruct the view. At first thought this conduct may look like amatter of calculation and forethought, but it is doubtless the resultof an instinct that has been developed in the tribe by the strugglefor existence, and with any given rodent is quite independent ofexperience. It is an inherited fear of every weed or tuft of grassthat might conceal an enemy. 

I am told that prairie wolves will dig up and eat meat that has beenpoisoned and then buried, when they will not touch it if left on thesurface. In such a case the ranchmen think the wolf has beenoutwitted; but the truth probably is that there was no calculation inthe matter; the soil drew out or dulled the smell of the poison and ofthe man's hand, and so allayed the wolf's suspicions. 

I suppose that when an animal practices deception, as when a birdfeigns lameness or a broken wing to decoy you away from her nest orher young, it is quite unconscious of the act. It takes no thoughtabout the matter. In trying to call a hen to his side, a rooster willoften make believe he has food in his beak, when the pretended grainor insect may be only a pebble or a bit of stick. He picks it up andthen drops it in sight of the hen, and calls her in his mostpersuasive manner. I do not suppose that in such cases the rooster isconscious of the fraud he is practicing. His instinct, under suchcircumstances, is to pick up food and call the attention of the hen toit, and when no food is present, he instinctively picks up a pebble ora stick. His main purpose is to get the hen near him, and not to feedher. When he is intent only on feeding her, he never offers her astone instead of bread. 

We have only to think of the animals as habitually in a conditionanalogous to, or identical with, the unthinking and involuntarycharacter of much of our own lives. They are creatures of routine. They are wholly immersed in the unconscious, involuntary nature out ofwhich we rise, and above which our higher lives go on. 

 XI

 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF NATURE

The literary treatment of natural history themes is, of course, quitedifferent from the scientific treatment, and should be so. The former, compared with the latter, is like free-hand drawing compared withmechanical drawing. Literature aims to give us the truth in a way totouch our emotions, and in some degree to satisfy the enjoyment wehave in the living reality. The literary artist is just as much inlove with the fact as is his scientific brother, only he makes adifferent use of the fact, and his interest in it is often of anon-scientific character. His method is synthetic rather thananalytic. He deals in general, and not in technical truths, --truthsthat he arrives at in the fields and woods, and not in the laboratory. 

The essay-naturalist observes and admires; the scientific naturalistcollects. One brings home a bouquet from the woods; the other, specimens for his herbarium. The former would enlist your sympathiesand arouse your enthusiasm; the latter would add to your store ofexact knowledge. The one is just as shy of over-coloring orfalsifying his facts as the other, only he gives more than facts, --hegives impressions and analogies, and, as far as possible, shows youthe live bird on the bough. 

The literary and the scientific treatment of the dog, for instance, will differ widely, not to say radically, but they will not differ inone being true and the other false. Each will be true in its own way. One will be suggestive and the other exact; one will be strictlyobjective, but literature is always more or less subjective. Literature aims to invest its subject with a human interest, and tothis end stirs our sympathies and emotions. Pure science aims toconvince the reason and the understanding alone. Note Maeterlinck'streatment of the dog in a late magazine article, probably the bestthing on our four-footed comrade that English literature has to show. It gives one pleasure, not because it is all true as science is true, but because it is so tender, human, and sympathetic, without beingfalse to the essential dog nature; it does not make the dog _do_impossible things. It is not natural history, it is literature; it isnot a record of observations upon the manners and habits of the dog, but reflections upon him and his relations to man, and upon the manyproblems, from the human point of view, that the dog must master in abrief time: the distinctions he must figure out, the mistakes he mustavoid, the riddles of life he must read in his dumb dog way. Ofcourse, as a matter of fact, the dog is not compelled "in less thanfive or six weeks to get into his mind, taking shape within it, animage and a satisfactory conception of the universe. " No, nor in fiveor six years. Strictly speaking, he is not capable of conceptions atall, but only of sense impressions; his sure guide is instinct--notblundering reason. The dog starts with a fund of knowledge, which manacquires slowly and painfully. But all this does not trouble one inreading of Maeterlinck's dog. Our interest is awakened, and oursympathies are moved, by seeing the world presented to the dog as itpresents itself to us, or by putting ourselves in the dog's place. Itis not false natural history, it is a fund of true human sentimentawakened by the contemplation of the dog's life and character. 

Maeterlinck does not ascribe human powers and capacities to his dumbfriend, the dog; he has no incredible tales of its sagacity and wit torelate; it is only an ordinary bull pup that he describes, but hemakes us love it, and, through it, all other dogs, by his lovinganalysis of its trials and tribulations, and its devotion to its god, man. In like manner, in John Muir's story of his dog Stickeen, --astory to go with "Rab and his Friends, "--our credulity is not oncechallenged. Our sympathies are deeply moved because our reason is notin the least outraged. It is true that Muir makes his dog act like ahuman being under the press of great danger; but the action is notthe kind that involves reason; it only implies sense perception, andthe instinct of self-preservation. Stickeen does as his master bidshim, and he is human only in the human emotions of fear, despair, joy, that he shows. 

In Mr. Egerton Young's book, called "My Dogs of the Northland, " I findmuch that is interesting and several vivid dog portraits, but Mr. Young humanizes his dogs to a greater extent than does either Muir orMaeterlinck. For instance, he makes his dog Jack take special delightin teasing the Indian servant girl by walking or lying upon herkitchen floor when she had just cleaned it, all in revenge for theslights the girl had put upon him; and he gives several instances ofthe conduct of the dog which he thus interprets. Now one can believealmost anything of dogs in the way of wit about their food, theirsafety, and the like, but one cannot make them so entirely human asdeliberately to plan and execute the kind of revenge here imputed toJack. No animal could appreciate a woman's pride in a clean kitchenfloor, or see any relation between the tracks which he makes upon thefloor and her state of feeling toward himself. Mr. Young's facts aredoubtless all right; it is his interpretation of them that is wrong. 

It is perfectly legitimate for the animal story writer to put himselfinside the animal he wishes to portray, and tell how life and theworld look from that point of view; but he must always be true to thefacts of the case, and to the limited intelligence for which hespeaks. 

In the humanization of the animals, and of the facts of naturalhistory which is supposed to be the province of literature in thisfield, we must recognize certain limits. Your facts are sufficientlyhumanized the moment they become interesting, and they becomeinteresting the moment you relate them in any way to our lives, ormake them suggestive of what we know to be true in other fields and inour own experience. Thoreau made his battle of the ants interestingbecause he made it illustrate all the human traits of courage, fortitude, heroism, self-sacrifice. Burns's mouse at once strikes asympathetic chord in us without ceasing to be a mouse; we seeourselves in it. To attribute human motives and faculties to theanimals is to caricature them; but to put us in such relation withthem that we feel their kinship, that we see their lives embosomed inthe same iron necessity as our own, that we see in their minds ahumbler manifestation of the same psychic power and intelligence thatculminates and is conscious of itself in man, --that, I take it, is thetrue humanization. 

We like to see ourselves in the nature around us. We want in some wayto translate these facts and laws of outward nature into our ownexperiences; to relate our observations of bird or beast to our ownlives. Unless they beget some human emotion in me, --the emotion of thebeautiful, the sublime, --or appeal to my sense of the fit, thepermanent, --unless what you learn in the fields and the woodscorresponds in some way with what I know of my fellows, I shall notlong be deeply interested in it. I do not want the animals humanizedin any other sense. They all have human traits and ways; let those bebrought out--their mirth, their joy, their curiosity, their cunning, their thrift, their relations, their wars, their loves--and all thesprings of their actions laid bare as far as possible; but I do notexpect my natural history to back up the Ten Commandments, or to be anillustration of the value of training-schools and kindergartens, or toafford a commentary upon the vanity of human wishes. Humanize yourfacts to the extent of making them interesting, if you have the art todo it, but leave the dog a dog, and the straddle-bug a straddle-bug. 

Interpretation is a favorite word with some recent nature writers. Itis claimed for the literary naturalist that he interprets naturalhistory. The ways and doings of the wild creatures are exaggerated andmisread under the plea of interpretation. Now, if by interpretation wemean an answer to the question, "What does this mean?" or, "What isthe exact truth about it?" then there is but one interpretation ofnature, and that is the scientific. What is the meaning of the fossilsin the rocks? or of the carving and sculpturing of the landscape? orof a thousand and one other things in the organic and inorganic worldabout us? Science alone can answer. But if we mean by interpretationan answer to the inquiry, "What does this scene or incident suggest toyou? how do you feel about it?" then we come to what is called theliterary or poetic interpretation of nature, which, strictly speaking, is no interpretation of nature at all, but an interpretation of thewriter or the poet himself. The poet or the essayist tells what thebird, or the tree, or the cloud means to him. It is himself, therefore, that is being interpreted. What do Ruskin's writings uponnature interpret? They interpret Ruskin--his wealth of moral andethical ideas, and his wonderful imagination. Richard Jefferies tellsus how the flower, or the bird, or the cloud is related to hissubjective life and experience. It means this or that to him; it maymean something entirely different to another, because he may be boundto it by a different tie of association. The poet fills the lap ofEarth with treasures not her own--the riches of his own spirit;science reveals the treasures that are her own, and arranges andappraises them. 

Strictly speaking, there is not much in natural history that needsinterpreting. We explain a fact, we interpret an oracle; we explainthe action and relation of physical laws and forces, we interpret, aswell as we can, the geologic record. Darwin sought to explain theorigin of species, and to interpret many palæontological phenomena. Weaccount for animal behavior on rational grounds of animal psychology, there is little to interpret. Natural history is not a cryptograph tobe deciphered, it is a series of facts and incidents to be observedand recorded. If two wild animals, such as the beaver and the otter, are deadly enemies, there is good reason for it; and when we havefound that reason, we have got hold of a fact in natural history. Therobins are at enmity with the jays and the crow blackbirds and thecuckoos in the spring, and the reason is, these birds eat the robins'eggs. When we seek to interpret the actions of the animals, we are, Imust repeat, in danger of running into all kinds of anthropomorphicabsurdities, by reading their lives in terms of our own thinking andconsciousness. 

A man sees a flock of crows in a tree in a state of commotion; nowthey all caw, then only one master voice is heard, presently two orthree crows fall upon one of their number and fell him to the ground. The spectator examines the victim and finds him dead, with his eyespecked out. He interprets what he has seen as a court of justice; thecrows were trying a criminal, and, having found him guilty, theyproceeded to execute him. The curious instinct which often promptsanimals to fall upon and destroy a member of the flock that is sick, or hurt, or blind, is difficult of explanation, but we may be quitesure that, whatever the reason is, the act is not the outcome of ajudicial proceeding in which judge and jury and executioner all playtheir proper part. Wild crows will chase and maltreat a tame crowwhenever they get a chance, just why, it would be hard to say. But thetame crow has evidently lost caste among them. I have what I considergood proof that a number of skunks that were wintering together intheir den in the ground fell upon and killed and then partly devouredone of their number that had lost a foot in a trap. 

Another man sees a fox lead a hound over a long railroad trestle, whenthe hound is caught and killed by a passing train. He interprets thefact as a cunning trick on the part of the fox to destroy his enemy! Acaptive fox, held to his kennel by a long chain, was seen to pick upan ear of corn that had fallen from a passing load, chew it up, scattering the kernels about, and then retire into his kennel. Presently a fat hen, attracted by the corn, approached the hidden fox, whereupon he rushed out and seized her. This was a shrewd trick on thepart of the fox to capture a hen for his dinner! In this, and in theforegoing cases, the observer supplies something from his own mind. That is what he or she would do under like conditions. True, a foxdoes not eat corn; but an idle one, tied by a chain, might bite thekernels from an ear in a mere spirit of mischief and restlessness, asa dog or puppy might, and drop them upon the ground; a hen would verylikely be attracted by them, when the fox would be quick to see hischance. 

Some of the older entomologists believed that in a colony of ants andof bees the members recognized one another by means of some secretsign or password. In all cases a stranger from another colony isinstantly detected, and a home member as instantly known. This sign orpassword, says Burmeister, as quoted by Lubbock, "serves to preventany strange bee from entering into the same hive without beingimmediately detected and killed. It, however, sometimes happens thatseveral hives have the same signs, when their several members rob eachother with impunity. In these cases the bees whose hives suffer mostalter their signs, and then can immediately detect their enemy. " Thesame thing was thought to be true of a colony of ants. Others heldthat the bees and the ants knew one another individually, as men ofthe same town do! Would not any serious student of nature in our dayknow in advance of experiment that all this was childish and absurd?Lubbock showed by numerous experiments that bees and ants did notrecognize their friends or their enemies by either of these methods. Just how they did do it he could not clearly settle, though it seemsas if they were guided more by the sense of smell than by anythingelse. Maeterlinck in his "Life of the Bee" has much to say about the"spirit of the hive, " and it does seem as if there were somemysterious agent or power at work there that cannot be located ordefined. 

This current effort to interpret nature has led one of the well-knownprophets of the art to say that in this act of interpretation one"must struggle against fact and law to develop or keep his ownindividuality. " This is certainly a curious notion, and I think anunsafe one, that the student of nature must struggle against fact andlaw, must ignore or override them, in order to give full swing to hisown individuality. Is it himself, then, and not the truth that he isseeking to exploit? In the field of natural history we have been ledto think the point at issue is not man's individuality, but correctobservation--a true report of the wild life about us. Is one to givefree rein to his fancy or imagination; to see animal life with his"vision, " and not with his corporeal eyesight; to hear with histranscendental ear, and not through his auditory nerve? This may beall right in fiction or romance or fable, but why call the outcomenatural history? Why set it down as a record of actual observation?Why penetrate the wilderness to interview Indians, trappers, guides, woodsmen, and thus seek to confirm your observations, if you have allthe while been "struggling against fact and law, " and do not want orneed confirmation? If nature study is only to exploit your ownindividuality, why bother about what other people have or have notseen or heard? Why, in fact, go to the woods at all? Why not sit inyour study and invent your facts to suit your fancyings?

My sole objection to the nature books that are the outcome of thisproceeding is that they are put forth as veritable natural history, and thus mislead their readers. They are the result of a successful"struggle against fact and law" in a field where fact and law shouldbe supreme. No doubt that, in the practical affairs of life, one oftenhas a struggle with the fact. If one's bank balance gets on thenegative side of the account, he must struggle to get it back where itbelongs; he may even have the help of the bank's attorney to get itthere. If one has a besetting sin of any kind, he has to struggleagainst that. Life is a struggle anyhow, and we are allstrugglers--struggling to put the facts upon our side. But the onlystruggle the real nature student has with facts is to see them as theyare, and to read them aright. He is just as zealous for the truth asis the man of science. In fact, nature study is only science out ofschool, happy in the fields and woods, loving the flower and theanimal which it observes, and finding in them something for thesentiments and the emotions as well as for the understanding. 

With the nature student, the human interest in the wild creatures--bywhich I mean our interest in them as living, strugglingbeings--dominates the scientific interest, or our interest in themmerely as subjects for comparison and classification. 

Gilbert White was a rare combination of the nature student and the manof science, and his book is one of the minor English classics. RichardJefferies was a true nature lover, but his interests rarely take ascientific turn. Our Thoreau was in love with the natural, but stillmore in love with the supernatural; yet he prized the fact, and hisbooks abound in delightful natural history observations. We have ahost of nature students in our own day, bent on plucking out the heartof every mystery in the fields and woods. Some are dryly scientific, some are dull and prosy, some are sentimental, some are sensational, and a few are altogether admirable. Mr. Thompson Seton, as an artistand _raconteur_, ranks by far the highest in this field, but inreading his works as natural history, one has to be constantly onguard against his romantic tendencies. 

The structure of animals, their colors, their ornaments, theirdistribution, their migrations, all have a significance that sciencemay interpret for us if it can, but it is the business of everyobserver to report truthfully what he sees, and not to confound hisfacts with his theories. 

Why does the cowbird lay its egg in another bird's nest? Why arethese parasitical birds found the world over? Who knows? Only thereseems to be a parasitical principle in Nature that runs all throughher works, in the vegetable as well as in the animal kingdom. Why isthe porcupine so tame and stupid? Because it does not have to hunt forits game, and is self-armed against all comers. The struggle of lifehas not developed its wits. Why are robins so abundant? Because theyare so adaptive, both as regards their food and their nesting-habits. They eat both fruit and insects, and will nest anywhere--in trees, sheds, walls, and on the ground. Why is the fox so cunning? Becausethe discipline of life has made him cunning. Man has probably alwaysbeen after his fur; and his subsistence has not been easily obtained. If you ask me why the crow is so cunning, I shall be put to it for anadequate answer. It seems as if nobody could ever have wanted his skinor his carcass, and his diet does not compel him to outwit live game, as does that of the fox. His jet black plumage exposes him alikewinter and summer. This drawback he has had to meet by added wit, butI can think of no other way in which he is handicapped. I do not knowthat he has any natural enemies; yet he is one of the most suspiciousof the fowls of the air. Why is the Canada jay so much tamer than areother jays? They belong farther north, where they see less of man;they are birds of the wilderness; they are often, no doubt, hard putto it for food; their color does not make them conspicuous, --all thesethings, no doubt, tend to make them more familiar than theircongeners. Why, again, the chickadee can be induced to perch upon yourhand, and take food from it, more readily than can the nuthatch or thewoodpecker, is a question not so easily answered. It being a lesserbird, it probably has fewer enemies than either of the others, and itsfear would be less in proportion. 

Why does the dog, the world over, use his nose in covering the bone heis hiding, and not his paw? Is it because his foot would leave a scentthat would give his secret away, while his nose does not? He uses hispaw in digging the hole for the bone, but its scent in this case wouldbe obliterated by his subsequent procedure. 

The foregoing is one way to interpret or explain natural facts. Everything has its reason. To hit upon this reason is to interpret itto the understanding. To interpret it to the emotions, or to the moralor to the æsthetic sense, that is another matter. 

I would not be unjust or unsympathetic toward this current tendency toexalt the lower animals into the human sphere. I would only help myreader to see things as they are, and to stimulate him to love theanimals as animals, and not as men. Nothing is gained byself-deception. The best discipline of life is that which prepares usto face the facts, no matter what they are. Such sweet companionshipas one may have with a dog, simply because he is a dog, and does notinvade your own exclusive sphere! He is, in a way, like your youthcome back to you, and taking form--all instinct and joy and adventure. You can ignore him, and he is not offended; you can reprove him, andhe still loves you; you can hail him, and he bounds with joy; you cancamp and tramp and ride with him, and his interest and curiosity andadventurous spirit give to the days and the nights the true holidayatmosphere. With him you are alone and not alone; you have bothcompanionship and solitude. Who would have him more human or lesscanine? He divines your thought through his love, and feels your willin the glance of your eye. He is not a rational being, yet he is avery susceptible one, and touches us at so many points that we come tolook upon him with a fraternal regard. 

I suppose we should not care much for natural history, as I havebefore said, or for the study of nature generally, if we did not insome way find ourselves there; that is, something that is akin to ourown feelings, methods, and intelligence. We have traveled that road, we find tokens of ourselves on every hand; we are "stuccoed withquadrupeds and birds all over, " as Whitman says. The life-history ofthe humblest animal, if truly told, is profoundly interesting. If wecould know all that befalls the slow moving turtle in the fields, orthe toad that stumbles and fumbles along the roadside, our sympathieswould be touched, and some spark of real knowledge imparted. We shouldnot want the lives of those humble creatures "interpreted" after themanner of our sentimental "School of Nature Study, " for that were tolose fact in fable; that were to give us a stone when we had asked forbread; we should want only a truthful record from the point of view ofa wise, loving, human eye, such a record as, say, Gilbert White orHenry Thoreau might have given us. How interesting White makes his oldturtle, hurrying to shelter when it rains, or seeking the shade of acabbage leaf when the sun is too hot, or prancing about the garden ontiptoe in the spring by five in the morning, when the mating instinctbegins to stir within him! Surely we may see ourselves in the oldtortoise. 

In fact, the problem of the essay-naturalist always is to make hissubject interesting, and yet keep strictly within the bounds of truth. 

It is always an artist's privilege to heighten or deepen naturaleffects. He may paint us a more beautiful woman, or a more beautifulhorse, or a more beautiful landscape, than we ever saw; we are notdeceived even though he outdo nature. We know where we stand and wherehe stands; we know that this is the power of art. If he is writing ananimal romance like Kipling's story of the "White Seal, " or like his"Jungle Book, " there will be nothing equivocal about it, no mixtureof fact and fiction, nothing to confuse or mislead the reader. 

We know that here is the light that never was on sea or land, thelight of the spirit. The facts are not falsified; they are transmuted. The aim of art is the beautiful, not _over_ but _through_ the true. The aim of the literary naturalist is the true, not over but throughthe beautiful; you shall find the exact facts in his pages, and youshall find them possessed of some of the allurement and suggestivenessthat they had in the fields and woods. Only thus does his work attainto the rank of literature. 

 XII

 A BEAVER'S REASON

One of our well-known natural historians thinks that there is nodifference between a man's reason and a beaver's reason because, hesays, when a man builds a dam, he first looks the ground over, andafter due deliberation decides upon his plan, and a beaver, he avers, does the same. But the difference is obvious. Beavers, under the sameconditions, build the same kind of dams and lodges; and all beavers asa rule do the same. Instinct is uniform in its workings; it runs in agroove. Reason varies endlessly and makes endless mistakes. Men buildvarious kinds of dams and in various kinds of places, with variouskinds of material and for various kinds of uses. They exerciseindividual judgment, they invent new ways and seek new ends, and ofcourse often fail. 

Every man has his own measure of reason, be it more or less. It islargely personal and original with him, and frequent failure is thepenalty he pays for this gift. 

But the individual beaver has only the inherited intelligence of hiskind, with such slight addition as his experience may have given him. He learns to avoid traps, but he does not learn to improve upon hisdam or lodge building, because he does not need to; they answer hispurpose. If he had new and growing wants and aspirations like man, why, then he would no longer be a beaver. He reacts to outwardconditions, where man reflects and takes thought of things. Hisreason, if we prefer to call it such, is practically inerrant. It isblind, inasmuch as it is unconscious, but it is sure, inasmuch as itis adequate. It is a part of living nature in a sense that man's isnot. If it makes a mistake, it is such a mistake as nature makes when, for instance, a hen produces an egg within an egg, or an egg without ayolk, or when more seeds germinate in the soil than can grow intoplants. 

A lower animal's intelligence, I say, compared with man's is blind. Itdoes not grasp the subject perceived as ours does. When instinctperceives an object, it reacts to it, or not, just as the object is, or is not, related to its needs of one kind or another. In many waysan animal is like a child. What comes first in the child is simpleperception and memory and association of memories, and these make upthe main sum of an animal's intelligence. The child goes on developingtill it reaches the power of reflection and of generalization--a stageof mentality that the animal never attains to. 

All animal life is specialized; each animal is an expert in its ownline of work--the work of its tribe. Beavers do the work of beavers, they cut down trees and build dams, and all beavers do it alike andwith the same degree of untaught skill. This is instinct, orunthinking nature. 

Of a hot day a dog will often dig down to fresh earth to get coolersoil to lie on. Or he will go and lie in the creek. All dogs do thesethings. Now if the dog were seen to carry stones and sods to dam upthe creek to make a deeper pool to lie in, then he would in a measurebe imitating the beavers, and this, in the dog, could fairly be calledan act of reason, because it is not a necessity of the conditions ofhis life; it would be of the nature of an afterthought. 

All animals of a given species are wise in their own way, but not inthe way of another species. The robin could not build the oriole'snest, nor the oriole build the robin's nor the swallow's. The cunningof the fox is not the cunning of the coon. The squirrel knows a gooddeal more about nuts than the rabbit does, but the rabbit would livewhere the squirrel would die. The muskrat and the beaver build lodgesmuch alike, that is, with the entrance under water and an innerchamber above the water, and this because they are both water-animalswith necessities much the same. 

Now, the mark of reason is that it is endlessly adaptive, that it canapply itself to all kinds of problems, that it can adapt old means tonew ends, or new means to old ends, and is capable of progressivedevelopment. It holds what it gets, and uses that as a fulcrum to getmore. But this is not at all the way of animal instinct, which beginsand ends as instinct and is non-progressive. 

A large part of our own lives is instinctive and void of thought. Wego instinctively toward the warmth and away from the cold. All ouraffections are instinctive, and do not wait upon the reason. Ouraffinities are as independent of our reflection as gravity is. Ourinherited traits, the ties of race, the spirit of the times in whichwe live, the impressions of youth, of climate, of soil, of oursurroundings, --all influence our acts and often determine them withoutany conscious exercise of judgment or reason on our part. Then habitis all-potent with us, temperament is potent, health and disease arepotent. Indeed, the amount of conscious reason that an ordinary manuses in his life, compared with the great unreason or blind impulseand inborn tendency that impel him, is like his artificial lights, compared with the light of day--indispensable on special occasions, but a feeble matter, after all. Reason is an artificial light in thesense that it is not one with the light of nature, and in the sensethat men possess it in varying degrees. The lower animals have only agleam of it now and then. They are wise as the plants and trees arewise, and are guided by their inborn tendencies. 

Is instinct resourceful? Can it meet new conditions? Can it solve anew problem? If so, how does it differ from free intelligence orjudgment? I am inclined to think that up to a certain point instinctis resourceful. Thus a Western correspondent writes: "At threedifferent times I have pursued the common jack-rabbit from a levelfield, when the rabbit, coming to a furrow that ran at right angles tohis course, jumped into it, and crouching down, slowly crept away tothe end of the furrow, when it jumped out and ran at full speedagain. " This is a good example of the resourcefulness of instinct--theinstinct to escape from an enemy--an old problem met by takingadvantage of an unusual opportunity. To run, to double, to crouch, tohide, are probably all reflex acts with certain animals when hunted. The bird when pursued by a hawk rushes to cover in a tree or a bush, or beneath some object. Last summer I saw a bald eagle pursuing a fishhawk that held a fish in its talons. The hawk had a long start of theeagle, and began mounting upward, screaming in protest or defiance asit mounted. The pirate circled far beneath it for a few minutes, andthen, seeing how he was distanced, turned back toward the ocean, sothat I did not witness the little drama in the air that I had so longwished to see. 

A wounded wild duck suddenly develops much cunning in escaping fromthe gunner--swimming under water, hiding by the shore with only theend of the bill in the air, or diving and seizing upon some object atthe bottom, where it sometimes remains till life is extinct. 

I once saw some farm-hands try to capture a fatted calf that had runall summer in a partly wooded field, till it had become rather wild. As the calf refused to be cornered, the farmer shot it with his rifle, but only inflicted a severe wound in the head. The calf then became aswild as a deer, and scaled fences in much the manner of the deer. Whencornered, it turned and broke through the line in sheer desperation, and showed wonderful resources in eluding its pursuers. It coursedover the hills and gained the mountain, where it baffled its pursuersfor two days before it was run down and caught. All such cases showthe resources of instinct, the instinct of fear. 

The skill of a bird in hiding its nest is very great, as is thecunning displayed in keeping the secret afterward. How careful it isnot to betray the precious locality to the supposed enemy! Even thedomestic turkey, when she hides her nest in the bush, if watched, approaches it by all manner of delays and indirections, and when sheleaves it to feed, usually does so on the wing. I look upon these andkindred acts as exhibiting only the resourcefulness of instinct. 

We are not to forget that the resourcefulness and flexibility ofinstinct which all animals show, some more and some less, is notreason, though it is doubtless the first step toward it. Out of it theconscious reason and intelligence of man probably have been evolved. Ido not object to hearing this variability and plasticity of instinctcalled the twilight of mind or rudimentary mentality. It is that, orsomething like that. What I object to is hearing those things inanimal life ascribed to reason that can be easier accounted for on thetheory of instinct. 

I must differ from the ornithologist of the New York Zoölogical Parkwhen he says in a recent paper that a bird's affection for her youngis not an instinct, an uncontrollable emotion, but I quite agree withhim that it does not differ, in kind at least, from the emotion of thehuman mother. In both cases the affection is instinctive, and not amatter of reason, or forethought, or afterthought at all. The twoaffections differ in this: that one is brief and transient, and theother is deep and lasting. Under stress of circumstances the bird willabandon her helpless young, while the human mother will not. When thefood supply fails, the lower animal will not share the last morselwith its young; its fierce hunger makes it forget them. During thecold, wet summer of 1903 a vast number of half-fledged birds--orioles, finches, warblers--perished in the nest, probably from scarcity ofinsect food and the neglect of the mothers to hover them. 

In interpreting the action of the animals, we so often do the thinkingand reasoning ourselves which we attribute to them. Thus Mr. Beebe inthe paper referred to says: "Birds have early learned to take clams ormussels in their beaks or claws at low tide and carry them out of thereach of the water, so that at the death of the mollusk, therelaxation of the adductor muscle would permit the shell to springopen and afford easy access to the inmate. " No doubt the advancingtide would cause the bird to carry the shell-fish back out of thereach of the waves, where it might hope to get at its meat, but whereit would be compelled to leave the shell unopened. But that the birdknew the fish would die there and that its shell would then open--itis in such particulars that the observer does the thinking. 

Two other writers upon our birds have stated that pelicans will gatherin flocks along the shore, and by manoeuvring and beating the waterwith their wings, will drive the fish into the shallows, where theyeasily capture them. Here again the observer thinks for the observed. The pelicans see the fish and pursue them, without any plan to cornerthem in shoal water, but the inevitable result is that they are socornered and captured. The fish are foolish, but the pelicans are notwise. The wisdom here attributed to them is human wisdom and notanimal wisdom. 

To observe the actions of the lower animals without reading our ownthoughts into them is not an easy matter. Mr. Beebe thinks that whenin early spring the peacock, in the Zoölogical Park, timidly erectsits plumes before an unappreciative crow, it is merely practicing theart of showing off its gay plumes in anticipation of the time when itshall compete with its rivals before the females; in other words, thatit is rehearsing its part. But I should say that the peacock strutsbefore the crow or before spectators because it can't help it. Thesexual instinct begins to flame up and master it. The fowl can no morecontrol it than it can control its appetite for food. To practicebeforehand is human. Animal practice takes the form of spontaneousplay. The mock battles of two dogs or of other animals are notconscious practice on their part, but are play pure and simple, thesame as human games, though their value as training is obvious enough. 

Animals do not have general ideas; they receive impressions throughtheir various senses, to which they respond. I recently read inmanuscript a very clear and concise paper on the subject of animalthinking compared with that of man, in which the writer says: "Thereis a rudimentary abstraction before language. All the higher animalshave general ideas of 'good-for-eating' and 'not-good-for-eating, 'quite apart from any particular objects of which either of thesequalities happens to be characteristic. " It is at this point, Ithink, that the writer referred to goes wrong. The animal has no ideaat all about what is good to eat and what is not good; it is guidedentirely by its senses. It reacts to the stimuli that reach it throughthe sight or smell, usually the latter. There is no mental process atall in the matter, not the most rudimentary; there is simple reactionto stimuli, as strictly so as when we sneeze on taking snuff. Manalone has ideas of what is good to eat and what is not good. When afox prowls about a farmhouse, he has no general idea that there areeatable things there, as the essayist above referred to alleges. He issimply following his nose; he smells something to which he responds. We think for him when we attribute to him general ideas of what he islikely to find at the farmhouse. But when a man goes to a restaurant, he follows an idea and not his nose, he compares the different viandsin his mind, and often decides beforehand what he will have. There isno agreement in the two cases at all. If, when the bird chooses thesite for its nest, or the chipmunk or the woodchuck the place for itshole, or the beaver the spot for its dam, we make these animals think, compare, weigh, we are simply putting ourselves in their place andmaking them do as we would do under like conditions. 

Animal life parallels human life at many points, but it is in anotherplane. Something guides the lower animals, but it is not thought;something restrains them, but it is not judgment; they are providentwithout prudence; they are active without industry; they are skillfulwithout practice; they are wise without knowledge; they are rationalwithout reason; they are deceptive without guile. They cross seaswithout a compass, they return home without guidance, they communicatewithout language, their flocks act as a unit without signals orleaders. When they are joyful, they sing or they play; when they aredistressed, they moan or they cry; when they are jealous, they bite orthey claw, or they strike or they gore, --and yet I do not suppose theyexperience the emotions of joy or sorrow, or anger or love, as we do, because these feelings in them do not involve reflection, memory, andwhat we call the higher nature, as with us. 

The animals do not have to consult the almanac to know when to migrateor to go into winter quarters. At a certain time in the fall, I seethe newts all making for the marshes; at a certain time in the spring, I see them all returning to the woods again. At one place where Iwalk, I see them on the railroad track wandering up and down betweenthe rails, trying to get across. I often lend them a hand. They knowwhen and in what direction to go, but not in the way I should knowunder the same circumstances. I should have to learn or be told; theyknow instinctively. 

We marvel at what we call the wisdom of Nature, but how unlike ourown! How blind, and yet in the end how sure! How wasteful, and yet howconserving! How helter-skelter she sows her seed, yet behold theforest or the flowery plain. Her springs leap out everywhere, yet howinevitably their waters find their way into streams, the streams intorivers, and the rivers to the sea. Nature is an engineer withoutscience, and a builder without rules. 

The animals follow the tides and the seasons; they find their own; thefittest and the luckiest survive; the struggle for life is sharp withthem all; birds of a feather flock together; the young cowbirds rearedby many different foster-parents all gather in flocks in the fall;they know their kind--at least, they are attracted by their kind. 

A correspondent asks me if I do not think the minds of animals capableof improvement. Not in the strict sense. When we teach an animalanything, we make an impression upon its senses and repeat thisimpression over and over, till we establish a habit. We do not bringabout any mental development as we do in the child; we mould and stampits sense memory. It is like bending or compressing a vegetable growthtill it takes a certain form. 

The human animal sees through the trick, he comprehends it and doesnot need the endless repetition. When repetition has worn a path inour minds, then we, too, act automatically, or without consciousthought, as we do, for instance, in forming the letters when we write. 

Wild animals are trained, but not educated. We multiply impressionsupon them without adding to their store of knowledge, because theycannot evolve general ideas from these sense impressions. Here wereach their limitations. A bluebird or a robin will fight itsreflected image in the window-pane of a darkened room day after day, and never master the delusion. It can take no step beyond the evidenceof its senses--a hard step even for man to take. You may train yourdog so that he will bound around you when he greets you withoutputting his feet upon you. But do you suppose the fond creature evercomes to know why you do not want his feet upon you? If he does, thenhe takes the step in general knowledge to which I have referred. Yourcow, tethered by a long rope upon the lawn, learns many things aboutthat rope and how to manage it that she did not know when she wasfirst tied, but she can never know why she is tethered, or why she isnot to crop the shrubbery, or paw up the turf, or reach the corn onthe edge of the garden. This would imply general ideas or power ofreflection. You might punish her until she was afraid to do any ofthese things, but you could never enlighten her on the subject. Therudest savage can, in a measure, be enlightened, he can be taught thereason why of things, but an animal cannot. We can make its impulsesfollow a rut, so to speak, but we cannot make them free andself-directing. Animals are the victims of habits inherited oracquired. 

I was told of a fox that came nightly prowling about some deadfallsset for other game. The new-fallen snow each night showed themovements of the suspicious animal; it dared not approach nearer thanseveral feet to the deadfalls. Then one day a red-shouldered hawkseized the bait in one of the traps, and was caught. That night a fox, presumably the same one, came and ate such parts of the body of thehawk as protruded from beneath the stone. Now, how did the fox knowthat the trap was sprung and was now harmless? Did not its act implysomething more than instinct? We have the cunning and suspicion of thefox to start with; these are factors already in the problem that donot have to be accounted for. To the fox, as to the crow, anythingthat looks like design or a trap, anything that does not match withthe haphazard look and general disarray of objects in nature, will putit on its guard. A deadfall is a contrivance that is not in keepingwith the usual fortuitous disarray of sticks and stones in the fieldsand woods. The odor of the man's hand would also be there, and this ofitself would put the fox on its guard. But a hawk or any other animalcrushed by a stone, with part of its body protruding from beneath thestone, has quite a different air. It at least does not lookthreatening; the rock is not impending; the open jaws are closed. Morethan that, the smell of the man's hand would be less apparent, if notentirely absent. The fox drew no rational conclusions; its instinctivefear was allayed by the changed conditions of the trap. The hawk hasnot the fox's cunning, hence it fell an easy victim. I do not thinkthat the cunning of the fox is any more akin to reason than is thepower of smell of the hound that pursues him. Both are inborn, and arequite independent of experience. If a fox were deliberately to seek toelude the hound by running through a flock of sheep, or by followingthe bed of a shallow stream, or by taking to the public highway, thenI think we should have to credit him with powers of reflection. It istrue he often does all these things, but whether he does them bychance, or of set purpose, admits of doubt. 

The cunning of a fox is as much a part of his inherited nature as ishis fleetness of foot. All the more notable fur-bearing animals, asthe fox, the beaver, the otter, have doubtless been persecuted by manand his savage ancestors for tens of thousands of years, and theirsuspicion of traps and lures, and their skill in eluding them, are theaccumulated inheritance of ages. 

In denying what we mean by thought or free intelligence to animals, anexception should undoubtedly be made in favor of the dog. I have elsewhere said that the dog is almost a human product; he has been thecompanion of man so long, and has been so loved by him, that he hascome to partake, in a measure at least, of his master's nature. If thedog does not at times think, reflect, he does something so like itthat I can find no other name for it. Take so simple an incident asthis, which is of common occurrence: A collie dog is going along thestreet in advance of its master's team. It comes to a point where theroad forks; the dog takes, say, the road to the left and trots alongit a few rods, and then, half turning, suddenly pauses and looks backat the team. Has he not been struck by the thought, "I do not knowwhich way my master is going: I will wait and see"? If the dog in suchcases does not reflect, what does he do? Can we find any other wordfor his act? To ask a question by word or deed involves some sort of amental process, however rudimentary. Is there any other animal thatwould act as the collie did under like circumstances?

A Western physician writes me that he has on three different occasionsseen his pointer dog behave as follows: He had pointed a flock ofquail, that would not sit to be flushed, but kept running. Then thedog, without a word or sign from his master, made a long détour to theright or to the left around the retreating birds, headed them off, andthen slowly advanced, facing the gunner, till he came to a pointagain, with the quail in a position to be flushed. After crediting theinstinct and the training of the dog to the full, such an act, Ithink, shows a degree of independent judgment. The dog had not beentrained to do that particular thing, and took the initiative of hisown accord. 

Many authentic stories are told of cats which seem to show that theytoo have profited in the way of added intelligence by their longintercourse with man. A lady writing to me from New York makes thefollowing discriminating remarks upon the cat:--

"It seems to me that the reason which you ascribe for thesemi-humanizing of the dog, his long intercourse with man, might applyin some degree to the cat. But it is necessary to be very fond of catsin order to perceive their qualities. The dog is 'up in every one'sface, ' so to speak; always in evidence; always on deck. But the cat isa shy, reserved, exclusive creature. The dog is the humble friend, follower, imitator, and slave of man. He will lick the foot that kickshim. The cat, instead, will scratch. The dog begs for notice. The catmust be loved much and courted assiduously before she will blossom outand humanize under the atmosphere of affection. The dog seems to me tohave the typical qualities of the negro, the cat of the Indian. She isindifferent to man, cares nothing for him unless he wins her byspecial and consistent kindness, and throughout her long domesticationhas kept her wild independence, and ability to forage for herself whenturned loose, whether in forest or city street. It is when she is muchloved and petted that her intelligence manifests itself, in such quietways that an indifferent observer will never notice them. But shealways knows who is fond of her, and which member of the family isfondest of her. "

The correspondent who had the experience with his pointer dog relatesthis incident about his blooded mare: A drove of horses were pasturingin a forty-acre lot. The horses had paired off, as horses usually dounder such circumstances. The doctor's thoroughbred mare had pairedwith another mare that was totally blind, and had been so since acolt. Through the field "ran a little creek which could not well becrossed by the horses except at a bridge at one end. " One day when thefarmer went to salt the animals, they all came galloping over thebridge and up to the gate, except the blind one; she could not findthe bridge, and remained on the other side, whinnying and stamping, while the others were getting their salt a quarter of a mile away. Presently the blooded mare suddenly left her salt, made her waythrough the herd, and went at a flying gallop down across the bridgeto the blind animal. Then she turned and came back, followed by theblind one. The doctor is convinced that his mare deliberately wentback to conduct her blind companion over the bridge and down to thesalt-lick. But the act may be more simply explained. How could themare have known her companion was blind? What could any horse knowabout such a disability? The only thing implied in the incident is theattachment of one animal for another. The mare heard her mate calling, probably in tones of excitement or distress, and she flew back to her. Finding her all right, she turned toward the salt again and wasfollowed by her fellow. Instinct did it all. 

My own observation of the wild creatures has revealed nothing so nearto human thought and reflection as is seen in the cases of the collieand pointer dogs above referred to. The nearest to them of anything Ican now recall is an incident related by an English writer, Mr. Kearton. In one of his books, Mr. Kearton relates how he hasfrequently fooled sitting birds with wooden eggs. He put hiscounterfeits, painted and marked like the originals, into the nests ofthe song thrush, the blackbird, and the grasshopper warbler, and in nocase was the imposition detected. In the warbler's nest he placeddummy eggs twice the size of her own, and the bird proceeded to broodthem without the slightest sign of suspicion that they were not of herown laying. 

But when Mr. Kearton tried his counterfeits upon a ring plover, thefraud was detected. The plover hammered the shams with her bill "inthe most skeptical fashion, " and refused to sit down upon them. Whentwo of the bird's own eggs were returned to the nest and left therewith two wooden ones, the plover tried to throw out the shams, butfailing to do this, "reluctantly sat down and covered good and badalike. "

Now, can the action of the plover in this case be explained on thetheory of instinct alone? The bird could hardly have had such anexperience before. It was offered a counterfeit, and it behaved muchas you or I would have done under like conditions, although we havethe general idea of counterfeits, which the plover could not have had. Of course, everything that pertains to the nest and eggs of a bird isvery vital to it. The bird is wise about these things from instinct. Yet the other birds were easily fooled. We do not know how nearlyperfect Mr. Kearton's imitation eggs were, but evidently there wassome defect in them which arrested the bird's attention. If theincident does not show powers of reflection in the bird, it certainlyshows keen powers of perception; and that birds, and indeed allanimals, show varying degrees of this power, is a matter of commonobservation. I hesitate, therefore, to say that Mr. Kearton's plovershowed anything more than very keen instincts. Among our own birdsthere is only one, so far as I know that detects the egg of thecowbird when it is laid in the bird's nest, and that is the yellowwarbler. All the other birds accept it as their own, but this warblerdetects the imposition, and proceeds to get rid of the strange egg byburying it under a new nest bottom. 

Man is undoubtedly of animal origin. The road by which he has come outof the dim past lies through the lower animals. The germ andpotentiality of all that he has become or can become was sleepingthere in his humble origins. Of this I have no doubt. Yet I think weare justified in saying that the difference between animalintelligence and human reason is one of kind and not merely of degree. Flying and walking are both modes of locomotion, and yet may we notfairly say they differ in kind? Reason and instinct are bothmanifestations of intelligence, yet do they not belong to differentplanes? Intensify animal instinct ever so much, and you have notreached the plane of reason. The homing instinct of certain animals isfar beyond any gift of the kind possessed by man, and yet it seems inno way akin to reason. Reason heeds the points of the compass andtakes note of the topography of the country, but what can animals knowof these things?

And yet I say the animal is father of the man. Without the lowerorders, there could have been no higher. In my opinion, no miracle orspecial creation is required to account for man. The transformationof force, as of heat into light or electricity, is as great a leap andas mysterious as the transformation of animal intelligence into humanreason. 

 XIII

 READING THE BOOK OF NATURE

In studying Nature, the important thing is not so much what we see ashow we interpret what we see. Do we get at the true meaning of thefacts? Do we draw the right inference? The fossils in the rocks werelong observed before men drew the right inference from them. So with ahundred other things in nature and life. 

During May and a part of June of 1903, a drouth of unusual severityprevailed throughout the land. The pools and marshes nearly all driedup. Late in June the rains came again and filled them up. Then anunusual thing happened: suddenly, for two or three days and nights, the marshes about me were again vocal with the many voices of thehyla, the "peepers" of early spring. That is the fact. Now, what isthe interpretation? With me the peepers become silent in early May, and, I suppose, leave the marshes for their life in the woods. Did thedrouth destroy all their eggs and young, and did they know this and socome back to try again? How else shall one explain their secondappearance in the marshes? But how did they know of the destructionof their young, and how can we account for their concerted action?These are difficulties not easily overcome. A more rationalexplanation to me is this, namely, that the extreme dryness of thewoods--nearly two months without rain--drove the little frogs to seekfor moisture in their spring haunts, where in places a little waterwould be pretty certain to be found. Here they were holding out, probably hibernating again, as such creatures do in the tropics duringthe dry season, when the rains came, and here again they sent up theirspring chorus of voices, and, for aught I know, once more depositedtheir eggs. This to me is much more like the ways of Nature with hercreatures than is the theory of the frogs' voluntary return to theswamps and pools to start the season over again. 

The birds at least show little or no wit when a new problem ispresented to them. They have no power of initiative. Instinct runs ina groove, and cannot take a step outside of it. One May day we starteda meadowlark from her nest. There were three just hatched young in thenest, and one egg lying on the ground about two inches from the nest. I suspected that this egg was infertile and that the bird had had thesense to throw it out, but on examination it was found to contain anearly grown bird. The inference was, then, that the egg had beenaccidentally carried out of the nest some time when the sitting birdhad taken a sudden flight, and that she did not have the sense toroll or carry it back to its place. 

There is another view of the case which no doubt the sentimental"School of Nature Study" would eagerly adopt: A very severe drouthreigned throughout the land; food was probably scarce, and wasbecoming scarcer; the bird foresaw her inability to care for fouryoung ones, and so reduced the possible number by ejecting one of theeggs from the nest. This sounds pretty and plausible, and so creditsthe bird with the wisdom that the public is so fond of believing itpossesses. Something like this wisdom often occurs among the hive beesin seasons of scarcity; they will destroy the unhatched queens. Butbirds have no such foresight, and make no such calculations. In cold, backward seasons, I think, birds lay fewer eggs than when the seasonis early and warm, but that is not a matter of calculation on theirpart; it is the result of outward conditions. 

A great many observers and nature students at the present time arepossessed of the notion that the birds and beasts instruct theiryoung, train them and tutor them, much after the human manner. In thefamiliar sight of a pair of crows foraging with their young about afield in summer, one of our nature writers sees the old birds givingtheir young a lesson in flying. She says that the most important thingthat the elders had to do was to teach the youngsters how to fly. This they did by circling about the pasture, giving a peculiar callwhile they were followed by their flock--all but one. This was abobtailed crow, and he did not obey the word of command. His mothertook note of his disobedience and proceeded to discipline him. Hestood upon a big stone, and she came down upon him and knocked him offhis perch. "He squawked and fluttered his wings to keep from falling, but the blow came so suddenly that he had not time to save himself, and he fell flat on the ground. In a minute he clambered back upon hisstone, and I watched him closely. The next time the call came to flyhe did not linger, but went with the rest, and so long as I couldwatch him he never disobeyed again. " I should interpret this fact ofthe old and young crows flying about a field in summer quitedifferently. The young are fully fledged, and are already strongflyers, when this occurs. They do not leave the nest until they canfly well and need no tutoring. What the writer really saw was what anyone may see on the farm in June and July: she saw the parent crowsforaging with their young in a field The old birds flew about, followed by their brood, clamorous for the food which their parentsfound. The bobtailed bird, which had probably met with some accident, did not follow, and the mother returned to feed it; the young crowlifted its wings and flapped them, and in its eagerness probably felloff its perch; then when its parent flew away, it followed. 

I think it highly probable that the sense or faculty by which animalsfind their way home over long stretches of country, and which keepsthem from ever being lost as man so often is, is a faculty entirelyunlike anything man now possesses. The same may be said of the facultythat guides the birds back a thousand miles or more to their oldbreeding-haunts. In caged or housed animals I fancy this faculty soonbecomes blunted. President Roosevelt tells in his "Ranch Life" of ahorse he owned that ran away two hundred miles across the plains, swimming rivers on the way to its old home. It is very certain, Ithink, that this homing feat is not accomplished by the aid of eithersight or scent, for usually the returning animal seems to follow acomparatively straight line. It is, or seems to be, a consciousness ofdirection that is as unerring as the magnetic needle. Reason, calculation, and judgment err, but these primary instincts of theanimal seem almost infallible. 

In Bronx Park in New York a grebe and a loon lived together in aninclosure in which was a large pool of water. The two birds becamemuch attached to each other and were never long separated. One winterday on which the pool was frozen over, except a small opening in oneend of it, the grebe dived under the ice and made its way to the farend of the pool, where it remained swimming about aimlessly for somemoments. Presently the loon missed its companion, and with an apparentlook of concern dived under the ice and joined it at the closed end ofthe pool. The grebe seemed to be in distress for want of air. Then theloon settled upon the bottom, and with lifted beak sprang up with muchforce against the ice, piercing it with its dagger-like bill, but notbreaking it. Down to the bottom it went again, and again hurled itselfup against the ice, this time shattering it and rising to the surface, where the grebe was quick to follow. Now it looked as if the loon hadgone under the ice to rescue its friend from a dangerous situation, for had not the grebe soon found the air, it must have perished, andpersons who witnessed the incident interpreted it in this way. It isin such cases that we are so apt to read our human motives andemotions into the acts of the lower animals. I do not suppose the loonrealized the danger of its companion, nor went under the ice to rescueit. It followed the grebe because it wanted to be with it, or to sharein any food that might be detaining it there, and then, finding noair-hole, it proceeded to make one, as it and its ancestors must oftenhave done before. All our northern divers must be more or lessacquainted with ice, and must know how to break it. The grebe itselfcould doubtless have broken the ice had it desired to. The birds andthe beasts often show much intelligence, or what looks likeintelligence, but, as Hamerton says, "the moment we think of them as_human_, we are lost. "

A farmer had a yearling that sucked the cows. To prevent this, he puton the yearling a muzzle set full of sharpened nails. These of coursepricked the cows, and they would not stand to be drained of theirmilk. The next day the farmer saw the yearling rubbing the nailsagainst a rock in order, as he thought, to dull them so they would notprick the cows! How much easier to believe that the beast was simplytrying to get rid of the awkward incumbrance upon its nose. What can acalf or a cow know about sharpened nails, and the use of a rock todull them? This is a kind of outside knowledge--outside of their needsand experiences--that they could not possess. 

An Arizona friend of mine lately told me this interesting incidentabout the gophers that infested his cabin when he was a miner. Thegophers ate up his bread. He could not hide it from them or put itbeyond their reach. Finally, he bethought him to stick his loaf on theend of a long iron poker that he had, and then stand up the poker inthe middle of his floor. Still, when he came back to his cabin, hewould find his loaf eaten full of holes. One day, having nothing todo, he concluded to watch and see how the gophers reached the bread, and this was what he saw: The animals climbed up the side of his logcabin, ran along one of the logs to a point opposite the bread, andthen sprang out sidewise toward the loaf, which each one struck, butupon which only one seemed able to effect a lodgment. Then this onewould cling to the loaf and act as a stop to his fellows when theytried a second time, his body affording them the barrier theyrequired. My friend felt sure that this leader deliberately andconsciously aided the others in securing a footing on the loaf. But Iread the incident differently. This successful jumper aided hisfellows without designing it. The exigencies of the situationcompelled him to the course he pursued. Having effected a lodgmentupon the impaled loaf, he would of course cling to it when the othersjumped so as not to be dislodged, thereby, willy nilly, helping themto secure a foothold. The coöperation was inevitable, and not theresult of design. 

The power to see straight is the rarest of gifts; to see no more andno less than is actually before you; to be able to detach yourself andsee the thing as it actually is, uncolored or unmodified by your ownsentiments or prepossessions. In short, to see with your reason aswell as with your perceptions, that is to be an observer and to readthe book of nature aright. 

 XIV

 GATHERED BY THE WAY

 I. THE TRAINING OF WILD ANIMALS

I was reminded afresh of how prone we all are to regard the actions ofthe lower animals in the light of our own psychology on reading "TheTraining of Wild Animals, " by Bostock, a well-known animal-trainer. Bostock evidently knows well the art of training animals, but of thescience of it he seems to know very little. That is, while he is asuccessful trainer, his notions of animal psychology are very crude. For instance, on one page he speaks of the lion as if it were endowedwith a fair measure of human intelligence, and had notions, feelings, and thoughts like our own; on the next page, when he gets down to realbusiness, he lays bare its utter want of these things. He says a lionborn and bred in captivity is more difficult to train than one caughtfrom the jungle. Then he gives rein to his fancy. "Such a lion doesnot fear man; he knows his own power. He regards man as an inferior, with an attitude of disdain and silent hauteur. " "He accepts his foodas tribute, and his care as homage due. " "He is aristocratic in hisindependence. " "Deep in him--so deep that he barely realizes itsexistence--slumbers a desire for freedom and an unutterable longingfor the blue sky and the free air. " When his training is begun, "hemeets it with a reserved majesty and silent indifference, as though hehad a dumb realization of his wrongs. " All this is a very human way oflooking at the matter, and is typical of the way we all--most ofus--speak of the lower animals, defining them to ourselves in terms ofour own mentality, but it leads to false notions about them. We lookupon an animal fretting and struggling in its cage as longing forfreedom, picturing to itself the joy of the open air and the freehills and sky, when the truth of the matter undoubtedly is that thefluttering bird or restless fox or lion simply feels discomfort inconfinement. Its sufferings are physical, and not mental. Itsinstincts lead it to struggle for freedom. It reacts strongly againstthe barriers that hold it, and tries in every way to overcome them. Freedom, as an idea, or a conception of a condition of life, is, ofcourse, beyond its capacity. 

Bostock shows how the animal learns entirely by association, and notat all by the exercise of thought or reason, and yet a moment latersays: "The animal is becoming amenable to the mastery of man, and indoing so his own reason is being developed, " which is much like sayingthat when a man is practicing on the flying trapeze his wings arebeing developed. The lion learns slowly through association--throughrepeated sense impressions. First a long stick is put into his cage. If this is destroyed, it is replaced by another, until he gets used toit and tolerates its presence. Then he is gently rubbed with it at thehands of his keeper. He gets used to this and comes to like it. Thenthe stick is baited with a piece of meat, and in taking the meat theanimal gets still better acquainted with the stick, and so ceases tofear it. When this stage is reached, the stick is shortened day byday, "until finally it is not much longer than the hand. " The nextstep is to let the hand take the place of the stick in the strokingprocess. "This is a great step taken, for one of the most difficultthings is to get any wild animal to allow himself to be touched withthe human hand. " After a time a collar with a chain attached isslipped around the lion's neck when he is asleep. He is now chained toone end of the cage. Then a chair is introduced into the cage;whereupon this king of beasts, whose reason is being developed, andwho has such clear notions of inferior and superior, and who knows hisown powers, usually springs for the chair, seeking to demolish it. Histether prevents his reaching it, and so in time he tolerates thechair. Then the trainer, after some preliminary feints, walks into thecage and seats himself in the chair. And so, inch by inch, as it were, the trainer gets control of the animal and subdues him to hispurposes, not by appealing to his mind, for he has none, but byimpressions upon his senses. 

"Leopards, panthers, and jaguars are all trained in much the samemanner, " and in putting them through their tricks one invariable ordermust be observed: "Each thing done one day must be done the next dayin exactly the same way; there must be no deviation from the rule. "Now we do not see in this fact the way of a thinking or reflectingbeing, but rather the way of a creature governed by instinct orunthinking intelligence. An animal never _learns_ a trick in the sensethat man learns it, never sees through it or comprehends it, has noimage of it in its mind, and no idea of the relations of the parts ofit to one another; it does it by reason of repetition, as a creekwears its channel, and probably has no more self-knowledge orself-thought than the creek has. This, I think, is quite contrary tothe popular notion of animal life and mentality, but it is theconclusion that I, at least, cannot avoid after making a study of thesubject. 

 II. AN ASTONISHED PORCUPINE

One summer, while three young people and I were spending an afternoonupon a mountain-top, our dogs treed a porcupine. At my suggestion theyoung man climbed the tree--not a large one--to shake the animal down. I wished to see what the dogs would do with him, and what the"quill-pig" would do with the dogs. As the climber advanced therodent went higher, till the limb he clung to was no larger than one'swrist. This the young man seized and shook vigorously. I expected tosee the slow, stupid porcupine drop, but he did not. He only tightenedhis hold. The climber tightened his hold, too, and shook the harder. Still the bundle of quills did not come down, and no amount of shakingcould bring it down. Then I handed a long pole up to the climber, andhe tried to punch the animal down. This attack in the rear wasevidently a surprise; it produced an impression different from that ofthe shaking. The porcupine struck the pole with his tail, put up theshield of quills upon his back, and assumed his best attitude ofdefense. Still the pole persisted in its persecution, regardless ofthe quills; evidently the animal was astonished: he had never had anexperience like this before; he had now met a foe that despised histerrible quills. Then he began to back rapidly down the tree in theface of his enemy. The young man's sweetheart stood below, a highlyinterested spectator. "Look out, Sam, he's coming down!" "Be quick, he's gaining on you!" "Hurry, Sam!" Sam came as fast as he could, buthe had to look out for his footing, and his antagonist did not. Still, he reached the ground first, and his sweetheart breathed more easily. It looked as if the porcupine reasoned thus: "My quills are uselessagainst a foe so far away; I must come to close quarters with him. "But, of course, the stupid creature had no such mental process, andformed no such purpose. He had found the tree unsafe, and his instinctnow was to get to the ground as quickly as possible and take refugeamong the rocks. As he came down I hit him a slight blow over the nosewith a rotten stick, hoping only to confuse him a little, but much tomy surprise and mortification he dropped to the ground and rolled downthe hill dead, having succumbed to a blow that a woodchuck or a coonwould hardly have regarded at all. Thus does the easy, passive mode ofdefense of the porcupine not only dull his wits, but it makes frailand brittle the thread of his life. He has had no struggles or battlesto harden and toughen him. 

That blunt nose of his is as tender as a baby's, and he is snuffed outby a blow that would hardly bewilder for a moment any other forestanimal, unless it be the skunk, another sluggish non-combatant of ourwoodlands. Immunity from foes, from effort, from struggle is alwayspurchased with a price. 

Certain of our natural history romancers have taken liberties with theporcupine in one respect: they have shown him made up into a ball androlling down a hill. One writer makes him do this in a sportive mood;he rolls down a long hill in the woods, and at the bottom he is aragged mass of leaves which his quills have impaled--: an apparitionthat nearly frightened a rabbit out of its wits. Let any one whoknows the porcupine try to fancy it performing a feat like this!

Another romancer makes his porcupine roll himself into a ball whenattacked by a panther, and then on a nudge from his enemy roll down asnowy incline into the water. I believe the little European hedgehogcan roll itself up into something like a ball, but our porcupine doesnot. I have tried all sorts of tricks with him, and made all sorts ofassaults upon him, at different times, and I have never yet seen himassume the globular form. It would not be the best form for him toassume, because it would partly expose his vulnerable under side. Theone thing the porcupine seems bent upon doing at all times is to keepright side up with care. His attitude of defense is crouching close tothe ground, head drawn in and pressed down, the circular shield oflarge quills upon his back opened and extended as far as possible, andthe tail stretched back rigid and held close upon the ground. "Nowcome on, " he says, "if you want to. " The tail is his weapon of activedefense; with it he strikes upward like lightning, and drives thequills into whatever they touch. In his chapter called "In Panoply ofSpears, " Mr. Roberts paints the porcupine without taking any libertieswith the creature's known habits. He portrays one characteristic ofthe porcupine very felicitously: "As the porcupine made his resoluteway through the woods, the manner of his going differed from that ofall the other kindreds of the wild. He went not furtively. He had noparticular objection to making a noise. He did not consider itnecessary to stop every little while, stiffen himself to a monument ofimmobility, cast wary glances about the gloom, and sniff the air forthe taint of enemies. He did not care who knew of his coming, and hedid not greatly care who came. Behind his panoply of biting spears hefelt himself secure, and in that security he moved as if he held infee the whole green, shadowy, perilous woodland world. "

 III. BIRDS AND STRINGS

A college professor writes me as follows:--

"Watching this morning a robin attempting to carry off a string, oneend of which was caught in a tree, I was much impressed by his utterlack of sense. He could not realize that the string was fast, or thatit must be loosened before it could be carried off, and in his effortsto get it all in his bill he wound it about a neighboring limb. If aslittle sense were displayed in using other material for nests, therewould be no robins' nests. It impressed me more than ever with theimportant part played by instinct. "

Who ever saw any of our common birds display any sense or judgment inthe handling of strings? Strings are comparatively a new thing withbirds; they are not a natural product, and as a matter of coursebirds blunder in handling them. The oriole uses them the mostsuccessfully, often attaching her pensile nest to the branch by theiraid. But she uses them in a blind, childish way, winding them roundand round the branch, often getting them looped over a twig orhopelessly tangled, and now and then hanging herself with them, as isthe case with other birds. I have seen a sparrow, a cedar-bird, and arobin each hung by a string it was using in the building of its nest. Last spring, in Spokane, a boy brought me a desiccated robin, whosefeet were held together by a long thread hopelessly snarled. The boyhad found it hanging to a tree. 

I have seen in a bird magazine a photograph of an oriole's nest thathad a string carried around a branch apparently a foot or more away, and then brought back and the end woven into the nest. It was given asa sample of a well-guyed nest, the discoverer no doubt looking upon itas proof of an oriole's forethought in providing against winds andstorms. I have seen an oriole's nest with a string carried around aleaf, and another with a long looped string hanging free. All suchcases simply show that the bird was not master of her material; shebungled; the trailing string caught over the leaf or branch, and shedrew both ends in and fastened them regardless of what had happened. The incident only shows how blindly instinct works. 

Twice I have seen cedar-birds, in their quest for nesting-material, trying to carry away the strings that orioles had attached tobranches. According to our sentimental "School of Nature Study, " thebirds should have untied and unsnarled the strings in a human way, butthey did not; they simply tugged at them, bringing their weight tobear, and tried to fly away with the loose end. 

In view of the ignorance of birds with regard to strings, how can wecredit the story told by one of our popular nature writers of a pairof orioles that deliberately impaled a piece of cloth upon a thorn inorder that it might be held firmly while they pulled out the threads?When it came loose, they refastened it. The story is incredible fortwo reasons: (1) the male oriole does not assist the female inbuilding the nest; he only furnishes the music; (2) the wholeproceeding implies an amount of reflection and skill in dealing with anew problem that none of our birds possess. What experience has therace of orioles had with cloth, that any member of it should know howto unravel it in that way? The whole idea is absurd. 

 IV. MIMICRY

To what lengths the protective resemblance theory is pushed by some ofits expounders! Thus, in the neighborhood of Rio Janeiro there are twospecies of hawks that closely resemble each other, but one eats onlyinsects and the other eats birds. Mr. Wallace thinks that thebird-eater mimics the insect-eater, so as to deceive the birds, whichare not afraid of the latter. But if the two hawks look alike, wouldnot the birds come to regard them both as bird-eaters, since one ofthem does eat birds? Would they not at once identify the harmless onewith their real enemy and thus fear them both alike? If the latterwere newcomers and vastly in the minority, then the ruse might workfor a while. But if there were ten harmless hawks around to onedangerous one, the former would quickly suffer from the character ofthe latter in the estimation of the birds. Birds are instinctivelyafraid of all hawk kind. 

Wallace thinks it may be an advantage to cuckoos, a rather feebleclass of birds, to resemble the hawks, but this seems to mefar-fetched. True it is, if the sheep could imitate the wolf, itsenemies might keep clear of it. Why, then, has not this resemblancebeen brought about? Our cuckoo is a feeble and defenseless bird also, but it bears no resemblance to the hawk. The same can be said ofscores of other birds. 

Many of these close resemblances among different species of animalsare no doubt purely accidental, or the result of the same law ofvariation acting under similar conditions. We have a hummingbird moththat so closely in its form and flight and manner resembles ahummingbird, that if this resemblance brought it any immunity fromdanger it would be set down as a clear case of mimicry. There is sucha moth in England, too, where no hummingbird is found. Why should notNature repeat herself in this way? This moth feeds upon the nectar offlowers like the hummingbird, and why should it not have thehummingbird's form and manner?

Then there are accidental resemblances in nature, such as theoften-seen resemblance of knots of trees and of vegetables to thehuman form, and of a certain fungus to a part of man's anatomy. Wehave a fly that resembles a honey-bee. In my bee-hunting days I usedto call it the "mock honey-bee. " It would come up the wind on thescent of my bee box and hum about it precisely like a real bee. Ofcourse it was here before the honey-bee, and has been evolved quiteindependently of it. It feeds upon the pollen and nectar of flowerslike the true bee, and is, therefore, of similar form and color. Thehoney-bee has its enemies; the toads and tree-frogs feed upon it, andthe kingbird captures the slow drone. 

When an edible butterfly mimics an inedible or noxious one, as isfrequently the case in the tropics, the mimicker is no doubt thegainer. 

It makes a big difference whether the mimicker is seeking to escapefrom an enemy, or seeking to deceive its prey. I fail to see how, inthe latter case, any disguise of form or color could be brought about. 

Our shrike, at times, murders little birds and eats out their brains, and it has not the form, or the color, or the eye of a bird of prey, and thus probably deceives its victims, but there is no reason tobelieve that this guise is the result of any sort of mimicry. 

 V. THE COLORS OF FRUITS

Mr. Wallace even looks upon the nuts as protectively colored, becausethey are not to be eaten. But without the agency of the birds and thesquirrels, how are the heavy nuts, such as the chestnut, beechnut, acorn, butternut, and the like, to be scattered? The blue jay is oftenbusy hours at a time in the fall, planting chestnuts and acorns, andred squirrels carry butternuts and walnuts far from the parent trees, and place them in forked limbs and holes for future use. Of course, many of these fall to the ground and take root. If the protectivecoloration of the nuts, then, were effective, it would defeat apurpose which every tree and shrub and plant has at heart, namely, thescattering of its seed. I notice that the button-balls on thesycamores are protectively colored also, and certainly they do notcrave concealment. It is true that they hang on the naked trees tillspring, when no concealment is possible. It is also true that the jaysand the crows carry away the chestnuts from the open burrs on thetrees where no color scheme would conceal them. But the squirrels findthem upon the ground even beneath the snow, being guided, no doubt, bythe sense of smell. 

The hickory nut is almost white; why does it not seek concealmentalso? It is just as helpless as the others, and is just assweet-meated. It occurs to me that birds can do nothing with it onaccount of its thick shell; it needs, therefore, to attract somefour-footed creature that will carry it away from the parent tree, andthis is done by the mice and the squirrels. But if this is the reasonof its whiteness, there is the dusky butternut and the black walnut, both more or less concealed by their color, and yet having the sameneed of some creature to scatter them. 

The seeds of the maple, and of the ash and the linden, are obscurelycolored, and they are winged; hence they do not need the aid of anycreature in their dissemination. To say that this is the reason oftheir dull, unattractive tints would be an explanation on a par withmuch that one hears about the significance of animal and vegetablecoloration. Why is corn so bright colored, and wheat and barley sodull, and rice so white? No doubt there is a reason in each case, butI doubt if that reason has any relation to the surrounding animallife. 

The new Botany teaches that the flowers have color and perfume toattract the insects to aid in their fertilization--a need so paramountwith all plants, because plants that are fertilized by aid of the windhave very inconspicuous flowers. Is it equally true that the highcolor of most fruits is to attract some hungry creature to come andeat them and thus scatter the seeds? From the dwarf cornel, orbunch-berry, in the woods, to the red thorn in the fields, everyfruit-bearing plant and shrub and tree seems to advertise itself tothe passer-by in its bright hues. Apparently there is no other use tothe plant of the fleshy pericarp than to serve as a bait or wage forsome animal to come and sow its seed. Why, then, should it not take onthese alluring colors to help along this end? And yet there comes thethought, may not this scarlet and gold of the berries and tree fruitsbe the inevitable result of the chemistry of ripening, as it is withthe autumn foliage? What benefit to the tree, directly or indirectly, is all this wealth of color of the autumn? Many of the toadstools arehighly colored also; how do they profit by it? Many of the shells uponthe beach are very showy; to what end? The cherry-birds find the paleox-hearts as readily as they do the brilliant Murillos, and the dullblue cedar berries and the duller drupes of the lotus are notconcealed from them nor from the robins. But it is true that thegreenish white grapes in the vineyard do not suffer from the attacksof the birds as do the blue and red ones. The reason probably is thatthe birds regard them as unripe. The white grape is quite recent, andthe birds have not yet "caught on. "

Poisonous fruits are also highly colored; to what end? In Bermuda Isaw on low bushes great masses of what they called "pigeon-berries" ofa brilliant yellow color and very tempting, yet I was assured theywere poisonous. It would be interesting to know if anything eats thered berries of our wild turnip or arum. I doubt if any bird or beastcould stand them. Wherefore, then, are they so brightly colored? I amalso equally curious to know if anything eats the fruit of the red andwhite baneberry and the blue cohosh. 

The seeds of some wild fruit, such as the climbing bitter-sweet, areso soft that it seems impossible they should pass through the gizzardof a bird and not be destroyed. 

The fruit of the sumac comes the nearest to being a cheat of anythingI know of in nature--a collection of seeds covered with a flannel coatwith just a perceptible acid taste, and all highly colored. Unless theseed itself is digested, what is there to tempt the bird to devour it, or to reward it for so doing?

In the tropics one sees fruits that do not become bright colored onripening, such as the breadfruit, the custard apple, the naseberry, the mango. And tropical foliage never colors up as does the foliage ofnorthern trees. 

 VI. INSTINCT

Many false notions seem to be current in the popular mind aboutinstinct. Apparently, some of our writers on natural history themeswould like to discard the word entirely. Now instinct is not opposedto intelligence; it is intelligence of the unlearned, unconsciouskind, --the intelligence innate in nature. We use the word todistinguish a gift or faculty which animals possess, and which isindependent of instruction and experience, from the mental equipmentof man which depends mainly upon instruction and experience. A man hasto be taught to do that which the lower animals do from nature. Hencethe animals do not progress in knowledge, while man's progress isalmost limitless. A man is an animal born again into a higherspiritual plane. He has lost or shed many of his animal instincts inthe process, but he has gained the capacity for great and wonderfulimprovement. 

Instinct is opposed to reason, to reflection, to thought, --to thatkind of intelligence which knows and takes cognizance of itself. Instinct is that lower form of intelligence which acts through thesenses, --sense perception, sense association, sense memory, --which weshare with the animals, though their eyes and ears and noses are oftenquicker and keener than ours. Hence the animals know only the present, visible, objective world, while man through his gift of reason andthought knows the inward world of ideas and ideal relations. 

An animal for the most part knows all that it is necessary for it toknow as soon as it reaches maturity; what it learns beyond that, whatit learns at the hands of the animal-trainer, for instance, it learnsslowly, through a long repetition of the process of trial andfailure. Man also achieves many things through practice alone, orthrough the same process of trial and failure. Much of his manualskill comes in this way, but he learns certain things through theexercise of his reason; he sees how the thing is done, and therelation of the elements of the problem to one another. The trainedanimal never sees _how_ the thing is done, it simply does itautomatically, because certain sense impressions have been stampedupon it till a habit has been formed, just as a man will often windhis watch before going to bed, or do some other accustomed act, without thinking of it. 

The bird builds her nest and builds it intelligently, that is, sheadapts means to an end; but there is no reason to suppose that she_thinks_ about it in the sense that man does when he builds his house. The nest-building instinct is stimulated into activity by outwardconditions of place and climate and food supply as truly as the growthof a plant is thus stimulated. 

As I look upon the matter, the most wonderful and ingenious nests inthe world, as those of the weaver-birds and orioles, show no moreindependent self-directed and self-originated thought than does therude nest of the pigeon or the cuckoo. They evince a higher grade ofintelligent instinct, and that is all. Both are equally the result ofnatural promptings, and not of acquired skill, or the lack of it. Onespecies of bird will occasionally learn the song of another species, but the song impulse must be there to begin with, and this must bestimulated in the right way at the right time. A caged English sparrowhas been known to learn the song of the canary caged with or near it, but the sparrow certainly inherits the song impulse. One has proof ofthis when he hears a company of these sparrows sitting in a tree inspring chattering and chirping in unison, and almost reaching anutterance that is song-like. Our cedar-bird does not seem to have thesong impulse, and I doubt if it could ever be taught to sing. In likemanner our ruffed grouse has but feeble vocal powers, and I do notsuppose it would learn to crow or cackle if brought up in thebarn-yard. It expresses its joy at the return of spring and the matingseason in its drum, as do the woodpeckers. 

The recent English writer Richard Kearton says there is "no such deadlevel of unreasoning instinct" in the animal world as is popularlysupposed, and he seems to base the remark upon the fact that he foundcertain of the cavities or holes in a hay-rick where sparrows roostedlined with feathers, while others were not lined. Such departures froma level line of habit as this are common enough among all creatures. Instinct is not something as rigid as cast iron; it does notinvariably act like a machine, always the same. The animal issomething alive, and is subject to the law of variation. Instinct mayact more strongly in one kind than in another, just as reason may actmore strongly in one man than in another, or as one animal may havegreater speed or courage than another of the same species. It would behard to find two live creatures, very far up in the scale, exactlyalike. A thrush may use much mud in the construction of its nest, orit may use little or none at all; the oriole may weave strings intoits nest, or it may use only dry grasses and horse-hairs; such casesonly show variations in the action of instinct. But if an orioleshould build a nest like a robin, or a robin build like a cliffswallow, that would be a departure from instinct to take note of. 

Some birds show a much higher degree of variability than others; somespecies vary much in song, others in nesting and in feeding habits. Ihave never noticed much variation in the songs of robins, but in theirnesting-habits they vary constantly. Thus one nest will be almostdestitute of mud, while another will be composed almost mainly of mud;one will have a large mass of dry grass and weeds as its foundation, while the next one will have little or no foundation of the kind. Thesites chosen vary still more, ranging from the ground all the way tothe tops of trees. I have seen a robin's nest built in the centre of asmall box that held a clump of ferns, which stood by the roadside onthe top of a low post near a house, and without cover or shield ofany sort. The robin had welded her nest so completely to the soil inthe box that the whole could be lifted by the rim of the nest. She hadgiven a very pretty and unique effect to the nest by a border of finedark rootlets skillfully woven together. The song sparrow shows a highdegree of variability both in its song and in its nesting-habits, eachbird having several songs of its own, while one may nest upon theground and another in a low bush, or in the vines on the side of yourhouse. The vesper sparrow, on the other hand, shows a much lowerdegree of variability, the individuals rarely differing in theirsongs, while all the nests I have ever found of this sparrow were inopen grassy fields upon the ground. The chipping or social sparrow isusually very constant in its song and its nesting-habits, and yet oneseason a chippy built her nest in an old robin's nest in the vines onmy porch. It was a very pretty instance of adaptation on the part ofthe little bird. Another chippy that I knew had an original song, onethat resembled the sound of a small tin whistle. The bush sparrow, too, is pretty constant in choosing a bush in which to place its nest, yet I once found the nest of this sparrow upon the ground in an openfield with suitable bushes within a few yards of it. The woodpeckers, the jays, the cuckoos, the pewees, the warblers, and other wood birdsshow only a low degree of variability in song, feeding, and nestinghabits. The Baltimore oriole makes free use of strings in itsnest-building, and the songs of different birds of this species varygreatly, while the orchard oriole makes no use of strings, so far as Ihave observed, and its song is always and everywhere the same. Hencewe may say that the lives of some birds run much more in ruts than dothose of others; they show less plasticity of instinct, and areperhaps for that reason less near the state of free intelligence. 

Organic life in all its forms is flexible; instinct is flexible; thehabits of all the animals change more or less with changed conditions, but the range of the fluctuations in the lives of the wild creaturesis very limited, and is always determined by surroundingcircumstances, and not by individual volition, as it so often is inthe case of man. In a treeless country birds that sing on the perchelsewhere will sing on the wing. The black bear in the Southern States"holes up" for a much shorter period than in Canada or the Rockies. Why is the spruce grouse so stupid compared with most other species?Why is the Canada jay so tame and familiar about your camp in thenorthern woods or in the Rockies, and the other jays so wary? Suchvariations, of course, have their natural explanation, whatever it maybe. In New Zealand there is a parrot, the kea, that once lived uponhoney and fruit, but that now lives upon the sheep, tearing its waydown to the kidney fat. 

This is a wide departure in instinct, but it is not to be read as adevelopment of reason in its place. It is a modified instinct, --theinstinct for food seeking new sources of supply. Exactly how it cameabout would be interesting to know. Our oriole is an insectivorousbird, but in some localities it is very destructive in the Augustvineyards. It does not become a fruit-eater like the robin, but ajuice-sucker; it punctures the grapes for their unfermented wine. Here, again, we have a case of modified and adaptive instinct. Allanimals are more or less adaptive, and avail themselves of new sourcesof food supply. When the southern savannas were planted with rice, thebobolinks soon found that this food suited them. A few years ago wehad a great visitation in the Hudson River Valley of crossbills fromthe north. They lingered till the fruit of the peach orchards had set, when they discovered that here was a new source of food supply, andthey became very destructive to the promised crop by deftly cuttingout the embryo peaches. All such cases show how plastic and adaptiveinstinct is, at least in relation to food supplies. Let me again saythat instinct is native, untaught intelligence, directed outward, butnever inward as in man. 

 VII. THE ROBIN

Probably, with us, no other bird is so closely associated with countrylife as the robin; most of the time pleasantly, but for a briefseason, during cherry time, unpleasantly. His life touches or mingleswith ours at many points--in the dooryard, in the garden, in theorchard, along the road, in the groves, in the woods. He is everywhereexcept in the depths of the primitive forests, and he is always verymuch at home. He does not hang timidly upon the skirts of our rurallife, like, say, the thrasher or the chewink; he plunges in boldly andtakes his chances, and his share, and often more than his share, ofwhatever is going. What vigor, what cheer, how persistent, howprolific, how adaptive; pugnacious, but cheery, pilfering, butcompanionable!

When one first sees his ruddy breast upon the lawn in spring, or hispert form outlined against a patch of lingering snow in the brownfields, or hears his simple carol from the top of a leafless tree atsundown, what a vernal thrill it gives one! What a train of pleasantassociations is quickened into life!

What pictures he makes upon the lawn! What attitudes he strikes! Seehim seize a worm and yank it from its burrow!

I recently observed a robin boring for grubs in a country dooryard. Itis a common enough sight to witness one seize an angle-worm and dragit from its burrow in the turf, but I am not sure that I ever beforesaw one drill for grubs and bring the big white morsel to the surface. The robin I am speaking of had a nest of young in a maple near by, and she worked the neighborhood very industriously for food. She wouldrun along over the short grass after the manner of robins, stoppingevery few feet, her form stiff and erect. Now and then she wouldsuddenly bend her head toward the ground and bring eye or ear for amoment to bear intently upon it. Then she would spring to boring theturf vigorously with her bill, changing her attitude at each stroke, alert and watchful, throwing up the grass roots and little jets ofsoil, stabbing deeper and deeper, growing every moment more and moreexcited, till finally a fat grub was seized and brought forth. Timeafter time, during several days, I saw her mine for grubs in this wayand drag them forth. How did she know where to drill? The insect wasin every case an inch below the surface. Did she hear it gnawing theroots of the grasses, or did she see a movement in the turf beneathwhich the grub was at work? I know not. I only know that she struckher game unerringly each time. Only twice did I see her make a fewthrusts and then desist, as if she had been for the moment deceived. 

How pugnacious the robin is! With what spunk and spirit he defendshimself against his enemies! Every spring I see the robins mobbing theblue jays that go sneaking through the trees looking for eggs. Thecrow blackbirds nest in my evergreens, and there is perpetual warbetween them and the robins. The blackbirds devour the robins' eggs, and the robins never cease to utter their protest, often backing it upwith blows. I saw two robins attack a young blackbird in the air, andthey tweaked out his feathers at a lively rate. 

One spring a pack of robins killed a cuckoo near me that they foundrobbing a nest. I did not witness the killing, but I havecross-questioned a number of people who did see it, and I am convincedof the fact. They set upon him when he was on the robin's nest, andleft him so bruised and helpless beneath it that he soon died. It wasthe first intimation I had ever had that the cuckoo devoured the eggsof other birds. 

Two other well-authenticated cases have come to my knowledge of robinskilling cuckoos (the black-billed) in May. The robin knows itsenemies, and it is quite certain, I think, that the cuckoo is one ofthem. 

What a hustler the robin is! No wonder he gets on in the world. He isearly, he is handy, he is adaptive, he is tenacious. Before the leavesare out in April the female begins her nest, concealing it as much asshe can in a tree-crotch, or placing it under a shed or porch, or evenunder an overhanging bank upon the ground. One spring a robin builther nest upon the ladder that was hung up beneath the eaves of thewagon-shed. Having occasion to use the ladder, we placed the nest on abox that stood beneath it. The robin was disturbed at first, but soonwent on with her incubating in the new and more exposed position. Thesame spring one built her nest upon a beam in a half-finished fruithouse, going out and in through the unshingled roof. One day, just asthe eggs were hatched, we completed the roof, and kept up a hammeringabout the place till near night; the mother robin scolded a good deal, but she did not desert her young, and soon found her way in and outthe door. 

If a robin makes up her mind to build upon your porch, and you make upyour mind that you do not want her there, there is likely to beconsiderable trouble on both sides before the matter is settled. Therobin gets the start of you in the morning, and has her heap of drygrass and straws in place before the jealous broom is stirring, andshe persists after you have cleaned out her rubbish half a dozentimes. Before you have discouraged her, you may have to shunt her offof every plate or other "coign of vantage" with boards or shingles. Astrenuous bird indeed, and a hustler. 

 VIII. THE CROW

One very cold winter's morning, after a fall of nearly two feet ofsnow, as I came out of my door three crows were perched in an appletree but a few rods away. One of them uttered a peculiar caw as theysaw me, but they did not fly away. It was not the usual high-keyednote of alarm. It may have meant "Look out!" yet it seemed to me likethe asking of alms: "Here we are, three hungry neighbors of yours;give us food. " So I brought out the entrails and legs of a chicken, and placed them upon the snow. The crows very soon discovered what Ihad done, and with the usual suspicious movement of the closed wingswhich has the effect of emphasizing the birds' alertness, approachedand devoured the food or carried it away. But there, was not the leaststrife or dispute among them over the food. Indeed, each seemed readyto give precedence to the others. In fact, the crow is a courtly, fine-mannered bird. Birds of prey will rend one another over theirfood; even buzzards will make some show of mauling one another withtheir wings; but I have yet to see anything of the kind with thatgentle freebooter, the crow. Yet suspicion is his dominant trait. Anything that looks like design puts him on his guard. The simplestdevice in a cornfield usually suffices to keep him away. He suspects atrap. His wit is not deep, but it is quick, and ever on the alert. 

One of our natural history romancers makes the crows flock in June. But the truth is, they do not flock till September. Through the summerthe different families keep pretty well together. You may see the oldones with their young foraging about the fields, the young often beingfed by their parents. 

From my boyhood I have seen the yearly meeting of the crows inSeptember or October, on a high grassy hill or a wooded ridge. Apparently, all the crows from a large area assemble at these times;you may see them coming, singly or in loose bands, from all directionsto the rendezvous, till there are hundreds of them together. They makeblack an acre or two of ground. At intervals they all rise in the air, and wheel about, all cawing at once. Then to the ground again, or tothe tree-tops, as the case may be; then, rising again, they send forththe voice of the multitude. What does it all mean? I notice that thisrally is always preliminary to their going into winter quarters. Itwould be interesting to know just the nature of the communication thattakes place between them. Not long afterwards, or early in October, they may be seen morning and evening going to and from theirrookeries. The matter seems to be settled in these Septembergatherings of the clan. Was the spot agreed upon beforehand and noticeserved upon all the members of the tribe? Our "school-of-the-woods"professors would probably infer something of the kind. I suspect it isall brought about as naturally as any other aggregation of animals. Afew crows meet on the hill; they attract others and still others. Therising of a body of them in the air, the circling and cawing, may bean instinctive act to advertise the meeting to all the crows withinsight or hearing. At any rate, it has this effect, and they comehurrying from all points. 

What their various calls mean, who shall tell? That lusty _caw-aw, caw-aw_ that one hears in spring and summer, like the voice ofauthority or command, what does it mean? I never could find out. It isdoubtless from the male. A crow will utter it while sitting alone onthe fence in the pasture, as well as when flying through the air. Thecrow's cry of alarm is easily distinguished; all the other birds andwild creatures know it, and the hunter who is stalking his game is aptto swear when he hears it. I have heard two crows in the spring, seated on a limb close together, give utterance to many curious, guttural, gurgling, ventriloquial sounds. What were they saying? Itwas probably some form of the language of love. 

I venture to say that no one has ever yet heard the crow utter acomplaining or a disconsolate note. He is always cheery, he is alwaysself-possessed, he is a great success. Nothing in Bermuda made me feelso much at home as a flock of half a dozen of our crows which I sawand heard there. At one time they were very numerous on the island, but they have been persecuted till only a remnant of the tribe remains. 

 I

 My friend and neighbor through the year, Self-appointed overseer

 Of my crops of fruit and grain, Of my woods and furrowed plain, Claim thy tithings right and left, I shall never call it theft. 

 Nature wisely made the law, And I fail to find a flaw

 In thy title to the earth, And all it holds of any worth. 

 I like thy self-complacent air, I like thy ways so free from care, Thy landlord stroll about my fields, Quickly noting what each yields;

 Thy courtly mien and bearing bold, As if thy claim were bought with gold;

 Thy floating shape against the sky, When days are calm and clouds sail high;

 Thy thrifty flight ere rise of sun, Thy homing clans when day is done. 

 Hues protective are not thine, So sleek thy coat each quill doth shine. 

 Diamond black to end of toe, Thy counter-point the crystal snow. 

 II

 Never plaintive nor appealing, Quite at home when thou art stealing, Always groomed to tip of feather, Calm and trim in every weather, Morn till night my woods policing, Every sound thy watch increasing. 

 Hawk and owl in tree-top hiding Feel the shame of thy deriding. 

 Naught escapes thy observation, None but dread thy accusation. 

 Hunters, prowlers, woodland lovers Vainly seek the leafy covers. 

 III

 Noisy, scheming, and predacious, With demeanor almost gracious, Dowered with leisure, void of hurry, Void of fuss and void of worry, Friendly bandit, Robin Hood, Judge and jury of the wood, Or Captain Kidd of sable quill, Hiding treasures in the hill, Nature made thee for each season, Gave thee wit for ample reason, Good crow wit that's always burnished Like the coat her care has furnished. 

 May thy numbers ne'er diminish, I'll befriend thee till life's finish. 

 May I never cease to meet thee, May I never have to eat thee. 

 And mayest thou never have to fare so That thou playest the part of scarecrow. 

 INDEX

 Adder, blowing, 17. 

 Altruism among animals, 23. 

 Ammophila, 117. 

 Angler (_Lophius piscatorius_), 107. 

 Animals, the author's attitude in regard to the intelligence of, v, vi; nature of the intelligence of, 1-3; sources of the intelligence of, 4; the sentimental attitude towards, 59-61; emotions and intellect of, 64; language of, 64; curiosity of, 64; altruism of, 65; punishment and discipline among, 65; the three factors that shape their lives, 66; imitation among, 66-70; learning by experience, 70-73; variation in, 73; instinct in, 73-83; incapable of reflection, 77, 78; their knowledge compared with man's, 80, 81; imitation among, not akin to teaching, 83-86; belief in regard to teaching among, 87; play of, 87, 99, 100; communication among, 87-98; fear in, 89, 90; ears of, 95; telepathy among, 96-98; their habits the same everywhere, 101-103; courtship among, 104; stories of poisoning among, 105, 106; stories of trapping and fishing among, 106, 107; individuality among, 118, 119; variation in, 120, 121; ignorance of, 123-125; perceptive intelligence of, 126; partakers of the universal intelligence, 128-130; know what is necessary for them to know, 131; their knowledge inherited, 132; wise in relation to their food and their enemies, 133; and the art of healing, 134; protective coloration of, 138-140; their fear of poison, 140; association of ideas in, 141, 142; emotions of, 143; no ethical sense in, 144, 145; automatism of, 146; and the use of medicine, 147; the truth about them what is wanted, 147-149; the thinking of, instinct in, 151-170; have perceptions but no conceptions, 160; first steps of intelligence in, 161, 162; limitations of intelligence in, 163-168; automatism of trained animals, 166; incredible stories of, 175-184; stories of surgery among, 180-182; true interpretation of seeming acts of reason in, 184-187, 189, 190; absence of language among, 187-189; creatures of routine, 190; the humanization of, 195, 196; nature of their intelligence, 209-230; their minds incapable of improvement, 220-222; the victims of habits, 222; popular notion of teaching among, 233, 234; nature of the homing faculty of, 235; Bostock on the training of wild, 239-242; mimicry among, 248-250; instinct in, 255-261. 

 Antelope, 85. 

 Apple trees, protecting themselves from cattle, 153. 

 Argyll, Duke of, 72. 

 "Atlantic Monthly, The, " article in, v, vi, 173. 

 Baboon, 65. 

 Barrington, Daines, 68. 

 Barrus, Dr. Clara, her description of the woodcock's song and song flight, 43. 

 Bean, the, intelligence of, 1, 2. 

 Bear, a caged, 76. 

 Bear, black, 260. 

 Beaver, 166, 167; nature of his intelligence, 209-211. 

 Beebe, C. William, on instinct and reason in birds, 215-217. 

 Bees, 24. 

 Belief, scientific grounds for, 173-179. 

 Birds, mistakes of, 4-6; their nest-building, 4, 5, 70, 71; fighting their reflections, 5, 6; taking advantage of man's protection for their nests, 6, 7; probably make no improvement in nest-building or singing, 70, 71; learn cunning by experience, 71; instincts connected with parasitism, 79, 80; communication in flocks of, 96-98; courtship of, 103, 104; activities of the two sexes among, 111-114; song contests among, 114, 115; and glass, 127; incubating-habits of, 135; shading mate and young from sun, 137, 138; their knowledge of the value of protective coloration, 138-140; migration of, 186; their affection for their young, 215; and shell-fish, 216; have no power of initiative, 232, 233; their handling of strings, 246-248; instinct in, 256-261; variability in, 258-261. 

 Bird's-nests, an epitome of wild nature, 109; haphazard design in, 109, 110. 

 Bird-songs, the power to hear, 29; not music, 29; elusiveness of, 30; a part of nature, 30; our pleasure in them from association, 31-34; songs of caged birds, 32, 35; the wing-song, 39-44; individual variation in musical ability, 44-46; acquired by imitation, 67, 68. 

 Bittern, least (_Ardetta exilis_), eating her eggs, 111. 

 Blackbird, crow, or grackle (_Quiscalus quiscula_ subsp. ), catching a fish, 176; enmity with robins, 263, 264. 

 Blackbird, English, song of, 45, 227. 

 Blackbird, red-winged. _See_ Red-shouldered starling. 

 Black-knot, 27. 

 Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_), hearing the, 29. 

 Bobolink (_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_), its song in the home meadows, 36; variation in song, 69; with defective song, 116. 

 Body, the, intelligence of, 128. 

 Bolles, Frank, 18. 

 Bostock, Frank C. , his _The Training of Wild Animals_, 239-242. 

 Brewster, William, 22. 

 Buds, formation of, 50, 51. 

 Bumblebee, hibernation of, 49. 

 Burmeister, quoted on bees, 200. 

 Calf, a wild, 214; a yearling and its muzzle, 237. 

 Canary-bird, 159; an incredible story of a, 177, 178. 

 Carlisle, Bishop of, 148. 

 Cats, 66, 67, 73; fear of dogs, 75; talking with the ears, 94, 95; playing with mice, 100; watching a mouse-hole, 186, 187; human qualities of, 225, 226. 

 Cat tribe, their method of hunting, 183, 184. 

 Cedar-bird (_Ampelis cedrorum_), notes of, 46; nest-building of, 112; and strings, 247, 248; no song impulse in, 257. 

 Chapman, Frank M. , his story of a least bittern, 111. 

 Chewink, or towhee (_Pipilo erythrophthalmus_), the "Hermit's" story, 93. 

 Chickadee (_Parus atricapillus_), flight of a young, 70; tameness of, 205. 

 Chipmunk, 159. 

 Coon. _See_ Raccoon. 

 Cow, the, ignorance of, 123, 124, 187, 221. 

 Cowbird (_Molothrus ater_), 79, 80, 156, 157; an incredible statement regarding, 178, 179, 220. 

 Coyote, or prairie wolf, 82, 86, 189. 

 Crab, hermit, 155. 

 Crabs, defensive instinct in, 169, 170. 

 Crossbills (_Loxia_ sp. ), feeding on young peaches, 261. 

 Crow, American (_Corvus brachyrhynchos_), winter quarters of, 50; the "Hermit's" story of a crow, 93; nature of his intelligence, 136, 137; notes of, 188, 268; story of a court of justice, 198, 199; maltreating a tame crow, 199; cunning of, 204; a misinterpreted incident, 233, 234; feeding, 265, 266; suspiciousness of, 266; flocking of, 266, 267; meaning of calls of, 268; disposition of, 268; in Bermuda, 268; lines on, 268. 

 Crow, white-necked African, 135, 136. 

 Crows and shell-fish, 2. 

 Cuckoos, 249; eating birds' eggs, 264; killed by robins, 264. 

 Darwin, Charles, 65, 67, 73, 75, 76, 79, 82, 83, 87, 127, 136, 149, 177, 198. 

 December, the month when Nature closes her doors, 47. 

 Deer, 84, 85, 185. 

 Dipper. _See_ Water ouzel. 

 Dogs, imitativeness of, 66; show gleams of reason, 76, 85, 88; feelings of shame, guilt, and revenge ascribed to, 144, 145; carrying a stick through a fence, 164-166; language of, 188; Maeterlinck on, 192, 193; John Muir's story of a dog, 193, 194; Egerton Young's book about, 194; hiding a bone, 205; companionableness of, 205, 206, 211, 221; rational intelligence in, 223-225; partake of the master's nature, 224; story of a pointer, 224, 225. 

 Dove, turtle, _or_ mourning dove (_Zenaidura macroura_), occupying a robin's nest, 7. 

 Duck. _See_ Mallard. 

 Duck, eider. _See_ American eider. 

 Duck, wild, wounded, 213. 

 Duck, wood (_Aix sponsa_), nest, eggs, and young of, 21-23. 

 Eagle, 103. 

 Eagle, bald (_Haliæetus leucocephalus_), 72, 213. 

 Ears, movements of, 95. 

 Eider, American (_Somateria dresseri_), killing mussels, 180-182. 

 Elephants, 76; protecting themselves from flies, 138; an incredible story, 145, 146. 

 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 24; his lines on the sparrow's song, 32, 102. 

 Evolution, 170, 171. 

 Fabre, the French naturalist, 158. 

 Farm, the author's, 101. 

 Fear, instinctive, 74-76; use of, 89; indiscriminating, 89; panics, 90. 

 Finch, purple (_Carpodacus purpureus_), song flight of, 44; song of, 44. 

 Fish and glass, 127. 

 Flocks, communication in, 96-98. 

 Fly, mimicking the honey-bee, 250. 

 Flycatcher, great crested (_Myiarchus crinitus_), nesting-habits of, 17-19. 

 _Forest and Stream_, 69, 93. 

 Fox, capturing a rabbit, 8, 72; poisoning stories of, 105; stories of crab-catching, 106, 107; intelligence of, 141, 142; misinterpreted stories of, 199; and deadfall, 222, 223; cunning of, 223. 

 Frog, wood, hibernation of, 48. 

 Frogs, hibernation of, 49. 

 Froude, 2. 

 Fruits, colors of, 251-254. 

 Golden-eye (_Clangula clangula americana_), young leaving nest, 22. 

 Goldfinch (_Astragalinus tristis_), flight song of, 43, 44; other notes of, 44; musical festivals of, 104. 

 Gophers, an interesting incident, 237, 238. 

 Grackle. _See_ Crow blackbird. 

 Grebe, and loon, 235, 236. 

 Gregariousness, its effect on individuality, 118, 119. 

 Groos, Karl, his work on _The Play of Animals_, 87, 100. 

 Grouse, flight of, 4. 

 Grouse, ruffed (_Bonasa umbelius_), 71, 94; drumming of, 177, 257; the "Hermit's" incredible story of a, 179, 180; feeble vocal powers of, 257. 

 Grouse, spruce, or Canada grouse (_Canachites canadensis canace_), 260. 

 Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, his _Chapters on Animals_, 124, 237. 

 Hawk, broad-winged (_Buteo platypterus_), 74. 

 Hawk, fish, or American osprey (_Pandion haliaëtus carolinensis_), 213. 

 Hawk, marsh (_Circus hudsonius_), a young, 99. 

 Hawk, red-shouldered (_Buteo lineatus_), 222, 223. 

 Hawk, red-tailed (_Buteo borealis_ and subsp. ), 102. 

 Hawks, alleged mimicry among, 248, 249. 

 "Hermit, " his false natural history, 93-95; his stories of cowbirds and a grouse, 178, 179. 

 Hibernation, 48, 49. 

 Hickory nut, 251, 252. 

 _Home Life on an Ostrich Farm_, 135, 136. 

 Homing instinct, the, a remarkable trait, 53; an instance of its workings, 53-57, 99; nature of, 235. 

 Honeysuckle, a shoot of, 24, 25. 

 Horses, ignorant fear in, 123; self-destruction of, 146, 162; a mare and her blind companion, 226, 227. 

 Hyla, peeping, hibernation of, 48; a second period of peeping, 231, 232. 

 Indigo-bird (_Cyanospiza cyanea_), flight song of, 44. 

 Individuality, effects of solitude and gregariousness upon, 118, 119. 

 _Industries of Animals_, 137. 

 Inferences, right, 231-238. 

 Insects stilled by the cold, 49, 50. 

 Instinct, 1; demoralized, 73, 74; one instinct overcoming another, 74; makes up nine tenths of the lives of our wild neighbors, 74; a kind of natural reason, 76; in connection with parasitism, 79, 80; importance of, 81; origin and development of, 81, 82; not always inerrant, 155; machine-like action of, 158, 159; non-progressive, 212; nature of, 254-257; variability of, 257-261. 

 Jackals, 142. 

 Jackdaw, the Bishop of Carlisle's story of a, 148. 

 Jay, blue (_Cyanocitta cristata_), Mr. Keyser's young bird, 69, 70; hiding instinct of, 161, 251, 263. 

 Jay, Canada (_Perisoreus canadensis_), 204, 260. 

 Jefferies, Richard, 131, 197, 203. 

 Jesse, Edward, his story of some swallows, 148. 

 Katydids, 49. 

 Kea, 260, 261. 

 Kearton, Richard, his story of an osprey, 137; on the wren's nest, 138, 139; on a colony of terns, 139; his experiments with wooden eggs, 227, 228; on instinct in animals, 257. 

 Keyser, Leander S. , his experiments with young birds, 69, 70. 

 Kingbird (_Tyrannus tyrannus_), 177. 

 Kipling, Rudyard, his _Jungle Book_, 14; his _The White Seal_, 14. 

 Kittens, 75. 

 Language, a necessity to thinking, 187, 188. 

 Lark. _See_ Skylark. 

 Lark, prairie horned (_Otocoris alpestris praticola_), spreading of, 36, 37; song and song flight of, 37, 38; killed by the locomotive, 38. 

 Leaves, persistent and deciduous, 51. 

 Lion, Bostock on the training of, 239-241. 

 Loco-weed, 83. 

 Locusts, 2. 

 Loon (_Gavia imber_), 180, 184; under ice, 235, 236. 

 _Lophius piscatorius_, 107. 

 Lubbock, Sir John, on recognition among bees and ants, 200. 

 Lynx, Canada, incredible story of, 183, 184. 

 Maeterlinck, Maurice, on the bee, 15; on the dog, 192, 193; his _Life of the Bee_, 201. 

 Mallard, domestic, finding its way home, 53-57. 

 Man, progress of, 26, 27; the line that divides him from the lower orders, 80, 81; animal origin of, 229, 230; instinct in, 255; learning through practice, 256. 

 Martin, Mrs. Annie, her story of a crow, 135, 136. 

 Meadowlark (_Sturnella magna_), song of, 34; flight song of, 43, 232, 233. 

 Meadowlark, Western (_Sturnella magna neglecta_), song of, 103. 

 Mice and traps, 23, 24. 

 Michelet, 147. 

 Mimicry, 248-250. 

 Mongoose, 72. 

 Monkeys, capable of the simpler forms of reason, 127. 

 Moose, a habit of, 142. 

 Moral code, evolution of, 23. 

 Morgan, C. Lloyd, 143, 149; his experiment with his dog, 164, 165. 

 Moth, hummingbird, 249, 250. 

 Mouse, white-footed, _or_ deer mouse, an incident, 163, 164. 

 Muir, John, his story of his dog Stickeen, 193, 194. 

 Mullet, 96. 

 Mushrooms, animals eating, 83. 

 Muskrat, 211. 

 Mussels, ducks drowning, 180-182. 

 _My Dogs of the Northland_, by Egerton Young, 194. 

 "My friend and neighbor through the year, " 268. 

 Natural history romancers, influence of, 13, 14; methods of, 16, 17. 

 Nature, an endless experimenter, 24, 139; prodigality of, 27; like a hunter, 27; bound to hit the mark, 28; the tendency to sentimentalize, 108; reaches her ends by devious paths, 110; the thinking of, 152; literary treatment of, 191-208; the interpretation of, 196-201, 203-205; wisdom of, 220. 

 Newts, migrations of, 219. 

 Nightingale, carrying nest, 15, 16; song of, 35; song of a caged bird, 35; a song contest, 115. 

 _North American Review_, an article in the, 61. 

 Nuthatch, 162. 

 Nuts, protective colors of, 251, 252. 

 Observing, rarity of accurate, 107, 108, 238. 

 Olaus, his fox and crab story, 106. 

 Oriole, Baltimore (_Icterus galbula_), a published account of a nest, 61-63; Scott's experiment with young, 68; its nest a marvel of blind skill, 110; its use of strings in nest-building, 247; an incredible story of, 248; variability of, 259, 260; song of, 259, 260; destructive in vineyards, 261. 

 Oriole, orchard (_Icterus spurius_), 260. 

 Osprey, 137. _See also_ Fish hawk. 

 Ostrich, 134, 135. 

 Ousel, water, or dipper, 73. 

 Oven-bird (_Seiurus aurocapillus_), walk of, 40; ordinary song of, 40, 41; flight song of, 41, 42. 

 Peacock, strutting before a crow, 217. 

 Peckham, George W. And Elizabeth G. , their work on the solitary wasps, 116. 

 Pelicans, driving fish, 216. 

 Phoebe-bird (_Sayornis phoebe_), nesting-habits of, 5, 157, 158; nest-building of, 112; cowbird's egg in nest of, 157; an instance of stupidity, 168, 169. 

 Pigeon, passenger, or wild pigeon (_Ectopistes migratorius_), flocks of, 96, 97. 

 Pike, 127. 

 Plants, intelligence of, 128, 129. 

 Plover, ring, rejecting counterfeit eggs, 227, 228. 

 Poison, fear of, 140. 

 Poisoning among animals, 105, 106. 

 Porcupine, its lack of wit, 3, 186; an encounter with a, 242-244; easily killed, 244; stories of rolling into a ball, 244, 245; C. G. D. Roberts on, 245, 246. 

 Prairie-dogs, their fear of weeds and grass, 189. 

 Protective coloration, 139, 140. 

 Quail, or bob-white (_Colinus virginianus_), nests of, 6. 

 Rabbit, nest of, 7; intelligence of, 7; pursued by a mink or weasel, 7, 8; pursued by a fox, 8; imitating a monkey, 66. 

 Rabbit, jack, 184; running in a furrow, 213. 

 Raccoon, washing food, 3, 134. 

 Rats, 72, 73, 106, 184, 185. 

 "Real and Sham Natural History, " the author's article, v, vi. 

 Reason, an artificial light, 212. 

 Roberts, Charles G. D. , on the porcupine, 245, 246. 

 Robin (_Merula migratoria_), nests of, 4, 5, 169, 264, 265; unusual songs of, 45, 68, 154, 155; nesting on turn-table, 169; and string, 246, 247; variability of nesting-habits of, 258, 259; closely associated with country life, 261, 262; boring for grubs, 262, 263; pugnacity of, 263; at war with blue jays, crow blackbirds, and cuckoos, 263, 264; a hustler, 264, 265. 

 Romanes, G. J. , 15, 16, 73, 106, 142; untrustworthiness of his _Animal Intelligence_, 147, 148. 

 Roosevelt, Theodore, his _The Wilderness Hunter_, 72, 142; quoted on teaching among animals, 84-86, 88, 103; quoted on the moose, 142, 149; his story of a horse, 235. 

 Rooster, "teaching" a young one, 94; calling a hen, 190. 

 Ruskin, John, 197. 

 St. John, Charles, 76; his story of a fox, 142, 149. 

 Sapsucker, yellow-bellied. _See_ Yellow-bellied woodpecker. 

 Scallops, 129, 130. 

 Schoolchildren, letters from, 1. 

 "School of the woods, " the, 99. 

 Scott, W. E. D. , 68. 

 Selous, Edmund, on a song contest between nightingales, 115. 

 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 184, 203. 

 Sexual selection, 116. 

 Sharp, Dallas Lore, on the crested flycatcher, 18. 

 Shrike (_Lanius_ sp. ), assisting wounded mate, 24, 250. 

 Skunk, dull wits of, 4; killing a maimed one, 203. 

 Skunk-cabbage, 52. 

 Skylark, song of, 32-34, 37; in America, 33, 34; Scotchman and, 33; Irishman and, 34; wooing a vesper sparrow, 40; a caged, 69. 

 Snake, black, 16. 

 Snakes, and the power of fascination, 16. 

 Solitude, its effect on individuality, 118, 119. 

 Sparrow, bush, or field sparrow (_Spizella pusilla_), nest of, 259. 

 Sparrow, chipping (_Spizella socialis_), nest of, 142, 143, 259, 154; an unusual song of, 259. 

 Sparrow, English (_Passer domesticus_), singing like a canary, 68, 257; eggs of, 120; a case of blind instinct in, 160. 

 Sparrow, song (_Melospiza cinerea melodia_), a city girl's impression of its song, 31; a talented singer, 45; the "Hermit's" story, 93, 94; variability of, 259. 

 Sparrow, vesper (_Pooecetes gramineus_), flight song of, 39; lark-like in color and markings, 40; wooed by a skylark, 40; low degree of variability in, 259. 

 Spring, the real beginning of, 51, 52. 

 Squirrel, gray, 75, 133. 

 Squirrel, red, nesting-material of, 20; a stupid, 125; and chestnuts, 132; and maple sap, 132; and green apples and pears, 133, 155, 251. 

 Squirrels, and chestnut burs, 3; their knowledge of nuts, 133; smelling with the whole body, 133. 

 Starling, red-shouldered, _or_ red-winged blackbird (_Agelaius phoeniceus_), song of, 34. 

 Stevenson, Robert Louis, on the English blackbird's songs, 45. 

 Sumac, fruit of, 254. 

 Swallow, cliff (_Petrochelidon lunifrons_), nesting of, 155, 157. 

 Swallows, 93. 

 Swift, chimney (_Chætura pelagica_), change of nesting-site, 8; getting nesting-material, 8, 9; in the chimney, 9; a creature of the air, 9, 10; spring and fall congregations in large chimneys, 10-13; drumming in chimney, 183. 

 Swimming, 78, 79. 

 Sycamore, fruit of, 251. 

 Tanager, scarlet (_Piranga erythromelas_), nesting in a cherry tree, 6, 7. 

 Teaching among animals, 83-94, 233, 234. 

 Telepathy, 96-98. 

 Terns, 139. 

 Thoreau, Henry D. , his "night-warbler, " 42, 153, 195, 203. 

 Thrush, hermit (_Hylocichla guttata pallasii_), with an impediment, 116. 

 Thrush, song, in the Trossachs, 46; and wooden eggs, 227. 

 Thrush, Wilson's. _See_ Veery. 

 Thrush, wood (_Hylocichla mustelina_), nest of, 5; a "singing-school, " 94; nest-building of, 113, 114, 155, 156; ways of, 113, 114; song contest of, 114, 115. 

 Toad, going into the ground, 49. 

 Towhee. _See_ Chewink. 

 _Training of Wild Animals, The_, by Frank C. Bostock, 239-242. 

 Traps, the fear of, 89. 

 Tumble-bug, 26. 

 Turkey, 75, 214. 

 Van Dyke, Henry, his poem on the song sparrow, 31. 

 Variation, 73; a less active principle now than formerly, 120; various degrees of, 120, 121; causes of, 121. 

 Veery, or Wilson's thrush (_Hylocichla fuscescens_), song of, 84, 85. 

 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 87; on mimicry, 249, 251. 

 Warbler, black and white creeping (_Mniotilta varia_), nest and egg of, 111. 

 Warbler, grasshopper, 227. 

 Warbler, yellow (_Dendroioa æstiva_), and cowbird's egg, 80, 156, 157, 229. 

 Ward, Lester F. , his _Pure Sociology_, 112. 

 Wasps, solitary, ways of, 116-118; instinct in, 158, 159; intelligence of, 164. 

 Wasps, stinging instinct in stingless, 169, 170. 

 Waxwing, cedar. _See_ Cedar-bird. 

 Weasel, rescuing young, 24. 

 White, Gilbert, on the swallow's nest-building, 167, 168, 203; his account of his old tortoise, 207. 

 Whitman, Walt, quoted, 206. 

 Wolf, prairie. _See_ Coyote. 

 Wolves, 66. 

 Wood-borers, 49, 50. 

 Woodchuck, 72. 

 Woodcock (_Philohela minor_), song and song flight of, 42, 43. 

 Woodpecker, downy (_Dryobates pubescens medianus_), dispossessed by flying-squirrels, 20; trying to evict a hairy woodpecker, 21. 

 Woodpecker, hairy (_Dryobates villosus_), and downy woodpecker, 21. 

 Woodpecker, yellow-bellied, or yellow-bellied sapsucker (_Sphyrapicus varius_), 91. 

 Wren, European, nest of, 138, 139. 

 Wren, house (_Troglodytes aëdon_), nesting-materials of, 19; young of, 162; handling twigs, 166. 

 Young, Egerton, his _My Dogs of the Northland_, 194. 

 Books by John Burroughs

 WORKS. 18 vols. , uniform, 16mo, with frontispiece, gilt top. WAKE-ROBIN. WINTER SUNSHINE. LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY. FRESH FIELDS. INDOOR STUDIES. BIRDS AND POETS, with Other Papers. PEPACTON, and Other Sketches. SIGNS AND SEASONS. RIVERBY. WHITMAN: A STUDY. THE LIGHT OF DAY. LITERARY VALUES. FAR AND NEAR. WAYS OF NATURE. LEAF AND TENDRIL. TIME AND CHANGE. THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS. THE BREATH OF LIFE. 

 THE BREATH OF LIFE. _Riverside Edition. _

 THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS. _Riverside Edition. _

 TIME AND CHANGE. _Riverside Edition. _

 LEAF AND TENDRIL. _Riverside Edition. _

 WAYS OF NATURE. _Riverside Edition. _

 FAR AND NEAR. _Riverside Edition. _

 LITERARY VALUES. _Riverside Edition. _

 THE LIGHT OF DAY. _Riverside Edition. _

 WHITMAN: A Study. _Riverside Edition. _

 A YEAR IN THE FIELDS. Selections appropriate to each season of the year, from the writings of John Burroughs. Illustrated from Photographs by CLIFTON JOHNSON. 

 IN THE CATSKILLS. Illustrated from Photographs by CLIFTON JOHNSON. 

 CAMPING AND TRAMPING WITH ROOSEVELT. Illustrated from Photographs. 

 BIRD AND BOUGH. Poems. 

 WINTER SUNSHINE. _Cambridge Classics Series. _

 WAKE-ROBIN. _Riverside Aldine Series. _

 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS. Illustrated. 

 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS. Illustrated. 

 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK