Mr. John Burroughs contributed some time ago to _Harper’s Magazine_ an
article bearing the above title. The leading American naturalist is so
weighty an authority that I feel chary about controverting any statement
made by him; but I cannot believe that he is right when he boldly asserts
that animals never think at all. I agree with Mr. Burroughs when he says
“we are apt to speak of the lower animals in terms that we apply to our
own kind.” There is undoubtedly a general tendency to give animals credit
for much greater intelligence, far more considerable powers of reasoning,
than they actually possess; in short, to put an anthropomorphic
interpretation on their actions.
But it seems to me that Mr. Burroughs rushes to the other extreme. To
deny to animals the power of thought is surely as opposed to facts as to
credit them with almost human powers of reasoning. Says Mr. Burroughs:
“Animals act with a certain grade of intelligence in the presence of
things, but they carry away no concepts of those things as a man does,
because they have no language. How could a crow tell his fellows of some
future event or of some experience of the day? How could he tell them
this thing is dangerous save by his actions in the presence of those
things? Or how tell of a newly found food supply save by flying eagerly
to it?”
Even if we admit that a crow is not able to recount the experiences of
the day to his companion, it does not follow that the crow does not
remember them, or cannot picture them in his mind. With regard to the
last question, I have frequently seen a crow, at the sight of some food
thrown out to him, caw loudly, and his friends, on hearing his cry, at
once fly to the food.
Of course it is open to any one to assert that, in this case, the crow
that discovers the food does not consciously call its companions; at the
sight of its food it instinctively caws, and its companions obey the caw
instinctively, without knowing why they do so. No one, however, who
watches crows for long can help believing that they think. The fact that
they hang about the kitchen every day at the time the cook pitches out
the leavings seems inconsistent with the theory that birds cannot think.
The crows obtained food at this place yesterday and the day before at a
certain hour, and the fact that they are all on the look out for food
to-day shows, not only that they possess a good memory, but that they are
endowed with a certain amount of reasoning power.
Many animals have very good memories. Now, in order that an animal may
remember a thing it must think. Its thoughts are of course not clothed in
language as human thoughts are, but they nevertheless exist as mental
pictures.
According to Professor Thorndike, the psychic life of an animal is “most
like what we feel when our consciousness contains little thought about
anything, when we feel the sense impressions in their first intention, so
to speak, when we feel our own body and the impulses we give to it (or
that outward objects give to it). Sometimes one gets this animal
consciousness; while in swimming, for example. One feels the water, the
sky, the birds above, but with no thoughts about them, or memories of how
they looked at other times, or æsthetic judgments about their beauty. One
feels no ‘ideas’ about what movements he will make, but feels himself
make them, feels his body throughout. Self-consciousness dies away. The
meanings and values and connections of things die away. One feels
sense-impressions, has impulses, feels the movements he makes; that is
all.”
This is probably a good description of the state of mind of a dog when he
is basking in the sunlight; he is thinking of nothing. But he hears the
shrill cry of a squirrel—this at once recalls to him the image of the
little rodent and past _shikar_. In a moment the dog is on the alert; he
is now thinking of the squirrel, and his instinct and inclinations teach
him to give chase to it. Or he hears a footstep; he recognises it as that
of his master, sees that the latter is wearing a _topi_, and at once
pictures up a run in the compound with his master. But his owner chains
him up. The dog looks wistfully at his master’s retreating figure and
pulls at his chain; it is surely absurd to say that the dog is not
thinking. The picture of a scamper beside his master rises up before him,
and he feels sad because he knows that the scamper is not likely to
become a _fait accompli_.
Again, you have been accustomed to throw a stick for your dog to run
after and carry back to you. You are out walking accompanied by your dog;
he espies a stick lying on the ground; at once images of previous
enjoyable runs after the stick rise up in his mind; he picks up the stick
and brings it to you, drops it at your feet and looks up at you. You
pretend to take no notice. The dog then picks up the stick and rubs it
against your legs. To believe that the dog while acting thus does not
think, that he is merely obeying an inborn instinct, is surely a
misinterpretation of facts. Animals have but limited reasoning powers,
and their thoughts are not our thoughts, they are not clothed in
language, they are merely mental pictures, called up either subjectively,
as when a dog barks while dreaming, or objectively by some sight or
scent, but nevertheless such sensations are thoughts.
While maintaining that the higher animals can and do think, I am ready to
admit that a great many of their actions which are apparently guided by
reason are in reality purely instinctive. Thus the building of a nest by
a bird must, at any rate on the first occasion, be a purely instinctive
action. The creature cannot know what it is doing. Nor can it have any
thoughts on the matter; it suddenly becomes an automaton, a machine,
acting thoughtlessly and instinctively.
Some internal force which is irresistible compels it to seek twigs and
weave them into a nest. The bird has no time to stop and think what it is
doing, nor does it wish to, for it enjoys nest building. It is, of
course, impossible for a human being to understand the frame of mind of a
bird when building its first nest. The only approach to it that we ever
experience is when we are suddenly seized with an impulse to do something
unusual, and we obey the impulse and are afterwards surprised at
ourselves.
There is a story told of a wealthy man who had been out hunting and was
returning home tired and thirsty. He dismounted at a farm-house, went
inside and asked for a drink. While this was being obtained he noticed a
lot of valuable old china on the dresser: seized by a sudden impulse, he
knocked it all down, piece by piece, with his riding whip. His hostess on
her return with the drink looked surprised. The hunting man smiled, asked
her to name the value she set on the china, sat down and, there and then,
wrote out a cheque for the amount.
It always seems to me that when a bird begins for the first time to
collect materials for a nest she must act impulsively, without thinking
what she is doing. Just as the hunting man was seized with a sudden
desire to smash the crockery with his whip, so is she suddenly impelled
to collect twigs and build a nest.
Another instinctive act which is apparently purposeful is the feigning of
injury by a parent bird when an enemy approaches its young. Superficial
observation of this action leads the observer to imagine that the mother
bird behaves thus with deliberate intent to deceive, that in so doing she
consciously endeavours to distract attention while her young ones are
betaking themselves to cover. As a matter of fact, the bird will behave
in precisely the same way if she have eggs instead of young ones. This
has, of course, the effect of drawing attention to the eggs, and proves
that the action is instinctive and not the result of reasoning.
Most people have remarked the cautious manner in which many birds
approach the nest when they are aware that they are being watched. This
has the appearance of a highly intelligent act. It is, however, nothing
of the kind.
I have taken young birds from a nest, handled them and replaced them in
full view of their frantic parents. Then I have retired a short distance
and watched the parents. These invariably display the same caution in
approaching the nest as they did before I had discovered its whereabouts.
Birds and beasts think much less than they are popularly supposed to do.
It is absurd to attribute to them reasoning powers similar to those
enjoyed by man; it is equally absurd to assert that they do not think at
all.
A COUPLE OF NEGLECTED
CRAFTSMEN
Two Indian birds have a world-wide reputation. Every one has heard of the
weaver bird (_Ploceus baya_) and the tailor-bird (_Orthotomus sutorius_).
Their wonderful nests are depicted in every popular treatise on
ornithology. They are both master-craftsmen and deserve their reputation.
But there are in India birds who build similar nests whose very names are
unknown to the great majority of Anglo-Indians. The Indian wren-warbler
(_Prinia inornata_) weaves a nest quite as skilfully as the famous weaver
bird. This neglected craftsman is common in nearly all parts of India,
and, if you speak of the weaver bird to domiciled Europeans, they will
think you mean this wren-warbler, for among such he is universally called
the weaver bird; the famous weaver, whose portrait appears in every
popular bird book, is known to them as the baya.
As its name implies, _Prinia inornata_ is a plainly attired little bird.
Its upper parts are earthy brown. It has the faintest suspicion of a
white eyebrow, and its under plumage is yellowish white, the thighs being
darker than the abdomen. Picture a slenderly built wren with a tail three
inches in length, which looks as though it were about to fall out and
which is constantly being waggled, and you have a fair idea of the
appearance of this little weaver. But this description applies to dozens
of other birds found in India. The various warblers are so similar to one
another in appearance as to drive ornithologists to despair. The
inimitable “Eha” admits that they baffle him. “There is nothing about
them,” he writes, “to catch the imagination of the historian, and they
will never be famous. I have been perplexed as to how to deal with them.
. . . To attempt to describe each species is out of the question, for
there are many, and they are mostly so like each other that even the
title ornithologist does not qualify one to distinguish them with
certainty at a distance. If you can distinguish them with certainty when
you have them in your hand you will fully deserve the title.”
It is, however, possible to recognise the Indian wren-warbler by its
note. When once you have learned this you are able to identify the bird
directly it opens its mouth. But how shall I describe it? It is a
peculiar, harsh but plaintive, _twee, twee, twee_; each _twee_ follows
close upon the preceding one, and gives you the idea that the bird is
both excited and worried. If you see a fussy little bird constantly
flitting about in a cornfield and uttering this note, you may be
tolerably certain that the bird is the Indian wren-warbler. It never
rises high in the air; it is but an indifferent exponent of the art of
flying. It moves by means of laborious jerks of its wings. It is a true
friend to the husbandman, since it feeds exclusively on insects. The most
remarkable thing about it is its nest. This is a beautifully woven
structure, composed exclusively of grass or strips of leaves of
monocotyledonous plants which the bird tears off with its bill. These
strands are invariably very narrow, and are sometimes less than
one-twentieth of an inch in breadth. The nest may be described as an
egg-shaped purse, some five or six inches in depth and three in width,
with an entrance at one side, near the top. It is devoid of any lining,
and its texture puts one in mind of a loosely made loofah. The nest is
sometimes attached to two or more stalks of corn, or more commonly it is
found among the long grasses which are so abundant in India. When the
nest is built in a cornfield the birds have to bring up their family
against time. They are unable to begin nest-building until the corn is
fairly high, and must, if the young are to be safely started in life,
have brought them to the stage when they are able to leave the nest by
the time the crop is cut.
In India nearly every field of ripe corn has its family of wren-warblers;
the two parents flit about, followed by a struggling family of four.
These little birds do not by any means always defeat time. Numbers of
their nests containing half-fledged young are mown down at every harvest
by the reaper’s sickle. The nest is woven in a manner similar to that
adopted by the baya; the cock and hen in each case work in combination.
Its texture is looser than that of the more famous weaver, but it is not
less neatly put together. In it are deposited four or five pretty little
green eggs, marked with brown blotches and wavy lines.
Our second neglected craftsman is a tailor. It sews a nest so like that
of the world-famous tailor as to be almost indistinguishable from it.
Some authorities declare that the two nests are distinguishable. They
assert that the nest of _Orthotomus_ is invariably lined with some soft
substance, such as cotton-wool, the silky down of the cotton tree, soft
horse-hair, or even human hair, while that of the species of which we are
speaking is lined with grass or roots. This distinction does not,
however, invariably hold. I have seen nests of this species which have
been lined with cotton-wool.
This bird is known to ornithologists as the ashy wren-warbler (_Prinia
socialis_). Anglo-Indian boys call it the tom-tit. It is a dark ashy-grey
bird, with the sides of the head and neck and the whole of the lower
plumage buff. There is a tinge of rufous in the wings and tail. It is
most easily distinguished by the loud snapping noise it makes during
flight. How this noise is produced we do not know for certain. Reid was
of opinion that the bird snapped its long tail. What exactly this means I
do not know. Jesse believes that the sound is produced by the bird’s
mandibles. I have spent much time in watching the bird, and am inclined
to think that the noise is caused by the beating of the wings against the
tail. This last is constantly being wagged and jerked, and it seems to me
that the wings beat against it as the bird flits about. When doves and
pigeons fly, their wings frequently meet, causing a flapping sound. I am
of opinion that something similar occurs when the ashy wren-warbler takes
to its wings.
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this bird is the
well-authenticated fact that it builds two types of nest. Besides this
tailor-made nest, the species makes one of grass, beautifully and closely
woven, domed, and with the entrance near the top. I have never seen this
latter type of nest, but so many ornithologists have that there can be no
doubt of its existence.
The strange thing is that both types of nest have been found in the same
neighbourhood, so that the difference in the form of nursery is not a
local peculiarity.
I am at a loss to account for the existence of these two types of nest. I
have no idea how the habit can have arisen, nor do I know what, if any,
benefit the species derives from this peculiarity. So far as I am aware,
no one can say what it is that leads to the construction of one type of
nest in preference to the other. The nests of this species present a most
interesting ornithological problem. I hope one day to be in a position to
throw some light on it; meanwhile I shall welcome the news that some one
has forestalled me. The ashy wren-warbler is a common bird, so that most
Anglo-Indians have a chance of investigating the mystery. The same kind
of eggs are found in each type of nest. They are of exceptional beauty,
being a deep mahogany or brick-red, so highly polished as to look as
though they have been varnished.