spools and strings; but they like to run about over the fields and
chew up their owner’s shoes. Now the wild dogs, and their cousins
the wolves, do not go out alone and hunt small animals as the cats
do. They go in packs; and they hunt large animals, wild sheep, wild
oxen, deer, which they chase, sometimes, for days at a time. Spools
and strings, therefore, are too small potatoes for the puppy; he
chases wagons, automobiles and trolley cars, playing he is hunting
big game. He doesn’t creep up cautiously on a ball of yarn, not to
frighten it. Instead he barks at the top of his voice to call the
rest of the pack. He runs away to play with other dogs, because the
dogs and wolves are social animals; and when he chews up a rubber
boot, he is playing that the pack has killed a moose and he is
gnawing the great leg bone.
Of course, the puppy and the kitten do not know that they are
playing at hunting when they chase spools and bark at carriages, any
more than a boy knows why he likes to climb trees or hit a ball with
a bat. But you can see for yourselves that the difference between
the play of puppies and the play of kittens is just the difference
between the work of a grown cat who hunts small creatures alone, and
the work of a grown up dog who hunts large creatures in company.
Not many young creatures, such as we commonly see, do so much
playing as puppies and kittens, tho boys and girls do a great deal
more. In fact, the wiser any animal is when it grows up, and the
more it is able to do then, the more playing it does, and the more
interesting games it plays, when it is small. Calves and colts and
lambs do not play especially interestingly, because wild cows and
horses and sheep do not do much except eat, sleep, and run away from
something that threatens to eat them up. But young squirrels, kept
in cages, sometimes play at burying nuts in the floor of their cages
for their winter supply of food; and young beavers, kept as pets in
the house, have been said to play at building dams of chairs, canes,
and umbrellas, across the parlor floor. Always, however, no matter
how tame the grown animal is, the kitten plays at being a wild cat,
and the puppy plays at being a wild dog, and the little boy plays at
being a wild Indian; all because cats and dogs and men have been
tamed and civilized for only a short while, but ran wild for ages.
There is one game that we all play, children, kittens, puppies,
monkeys, and I don’t know how many other young creatures—and that is
make-believe fights. We do it with sticks and snow balls and wooden
swords; the little animals chase one another back and forth, and
pretend to bite and scratch in the fiercest manner, as if they were
fighting for their lives. Most animals do have to fight for their
lives, many times over; so did most men in earlier times, before we
had policemen and jails, and when everybody had to look out for
himself.
Did you ever notice that a kitten is ticklish in just the same
places that you are? You stroke the kitten’s back or head or legs,
and it is as pleased as can be. But you touch it along the front of
the body, or around the front of the neck, and at once it begins to
bite and scratch and protest its best. All creatures that can be
tickled at all are ticklish in the same places; and all these places
happen to be precisely the spots where the great blood vessels and
other important vital organs are close to the surface, and where,
therefore, a wound would be most deadly. So when little animals play
at fighting and pretend to bite one another, they bite hard enough
to tickle. They don’t like to be tickled any more than you do. So
they learn to protect those ticklish places in their play, and when
they get to be grown up and fight in earnest, they have already
learned not to get bitten in those spots where the bite would do
most damage.
So the young animal’s instinct is to play at doing whatever his
ancestors have been doing for work; and he has this instinct in
order that he may like to do when young what he must do when old;
and so have practice in doing it, and learn to do it well.
Unfortunately, as men become more and more civilized, they have
continually to do more and more new things, while they still persist
in liking to do the old ones. That, I suppose, is why some boys and
girls do not like to work.
XV
Some Instincts of Chicks and Kittens
It certainly is a most fortunate circumstance that all animals are
born with a natural instinct for doing the particular things which
they will have to do to make a living in the world. It would
certainly be most inconvenient if moles and rats had an instinct to
fly, and birds wanted to hide in drains and cellars; if cows thought
they must dive into the water to catch fish, and seals tried to come
ashore and graze in the pastures. As it is, each creature has the
particular set of instincts which make it want to do the things
which it can do best.
You remember what I told you in first pages of this book about the
little chick inside the egg. It lies quietly and grows, until it is
twenty-one days old. On the twenty-first day of its fife, for the
first time, the chick feels the instinct to peck. It has no idea why
it wants to peck, nor what will happen if it does. He only knows
that pecking against the inside of his shell is precisely the one
thing that he wants to do. So he pecks away—until, presto! out he
comes into a new and very much larger world.
By and by, after the chick has got rested and dried off, he staggers
up on his legs, and begins to look around him. His eye catches some
small object—peck! he goes again, and catches the bit in his mouth
the first time he tries, unerringly. It took you weeks to learn to
put your hand where you wanted it; in fact you couldn’t so much as
put your fingers in your mouth till you had tried many times. But
the chick is born with the pecking instinct, and hits at the very
first shot.
Yet the chick does not know what to peck at. He simply lets drive at
whatever chances to catch his eye—a bit of gravel it may be, or
something very nasty, or even a fleck of light on a blade of grass.
What is good to eat and worth pecking at, he has to learn by trying
just at you do. Neither does he know anything about drinking. In the
course of time, as he goes about pecking at all sorts of things, he
snaps at a dew drop on the grass or a sparkle of sun light on the
water in his drinking vessel. So he gets his first drink; and in the
course of time, he learns what water looks like.
Some day, perhaps, the chick will happen to walk into the water, not
seeing any reason why one should not walk on water just as well as
on land. Then he will think how very wet and unpleasant water is,
and out he will scramble as fast as possible. But if the chick were
a duck, tho he would not know anything more about water when he saw
it than a chick does, yet as soon as he felt the water on his legs,
that feeling would start up his swimming instinct, and away he would
go, swimming the first time he tried as well as ever he will. Yet a
duckling would sit on the edge of a pond till he grew up to be an
old duck before ever the sight of the water would make him want to
swim in it. The instinct starts up only when the duck gets its legs
wet. Either a duckling or a chick would sit down beside a dish of
water till they died of thirst, before they would try to drink, if
they did not make a start by pecking at something in the water or on
the bottom.
So you see the instinct does not tell the animal anything, it merely
starts him to doing something, from which he can learn more for
himself. It is just the same with us. We have an instinct to creep,
and after that to walk; these take us about so that we can see
things for ourselves. We have an instinct to climb; but we have to
learn for ourselves how much a branch will bear, and the difference
between poplar tree wood which will snap off and spill us out on our
heads, and apple tree wood which will not.
So you see that what animals know by instinct is always how to do
something. It may be how to swim, or how to fly, or how to build a
nest, or how to bite some other creature in the neck. Usually it is
some very simple act, that will simply give the creature a start in
life.
Did you ever see a kitten play with a mouse? The kitten’s instinct
is to chase any small object which is moving away from it—spool,
string, tail, ball, mouse, indifferently. The kitten sees the mouse
and runs after it. But the kitten will not hurt the mouse as long as
the mouse keeps still. You could put the mouse on the kitten’s head
and let it go to sleep there, and the kitten would never touch it,
so long as the mouse did not try to run away. But the minute the
mouse runs, away goes the kitten after it.
We say it is cruel of the kitten to torment the mouse as it does; to
let the poor frightened mouse think it has a chance to get away, and
when it tries to run, swooping down on it again. But the kitten
isn’t cruel. The kitten chases the mouse because it runs; plays with
it a few moments; then forgets all about it till it starts to run
again. But of course, the kitten is so large and rough compared with
a mouse, that sooner or later it is pretty certain to scratch the
little creature. Then for the first time, the kitten discovers that
there is meat inside the mouse, and that what it thought only an
amusing plaything is also good to eat. After that, the kitten
becomes a mouser.
It is something the same way with a dog. His instinct is to
pursue and bite large things that run away. If, therefore, you
run from a dog, he will run after you; and having started
running, he is pretty likely to bite. But if you pay no
attention to the dog, move only slowly, and do nothing to start
up his run-after-something-large-and-bite-it-in-the-legs
instinct, the dog will bark, but will not touch you.
One might go on at considerable length describing one after another
of the curious instincts of the various creatures we know. Many of
these, however, you can see for yourselves, just by watching young
animals, kittens, puppies, chicks, babies and the rest, and noticing
what they do all of their own accord, without ever being taught.
Of all these curious instincts, I know of nothing more curious than
the way in which the instincts of our common nesting birds play hide
and seek with one another thru the changing seasons of the year.
Each in turn comes to the fore, governs the birds’ conduct for a few
weeks, then dies down to give place to the next; but only to
reappear once more in its proper place during the following year.
When our song birds come north in the spring, one of the first
things they do is to pick out mates, and get to work building their
nests. We may be very sure that no young bird, hatched out the year
before and building her nest for the first time, has the remotest
idea why she is building it. She finds a spot in thicket, hollow
tree, or barn, which somehow looks right to her. Then she finds that
bits of string, hair, moss, wood, and the like, which she has never
bothered her head about before, suddenly become the most interesting
and attractive things in the world, and before she knows it, she is
building a nest; the same sort of nest that other birds of her sort
are building, tho it may be that she was brought up as a pet in the
house and has never seen a nest in her life before. When she is
older, and has built a great many nests, she will perhaps build the
least little bit better than she did the first time; but it will
take a pretty sharp eye to tell the difference. The bird who has
never seen a nest will always build the right size and kind at the
first trial, and build it almost as well as she ever will.
By and by there are eggs in the nest. I don’t suppose the bird knows
how they got there, and I am quite sure she doesn’t spend any time
wondering about it. The thing she cares for now is to sit on those
eggs; and the bits of string, hair, moss, and wood which once seemed
so valuable interest her no more.
Still she has not the least idea what the eggs are for. She merely
feels that her one desire is to settle down on top of them and sit
there; just as you, my reader, at night when you are tired and
sleepy, just plain want to lie down on something soft. A little
later, and instead of wanting to sit quietly on her nest, the mother
bird is possessed to rush round the country, picking up things to
eat and stuffing them into hungry little mouths. She can not
possibly know what it is all for. She just has a sort of hunger for
feeding her babies, as at other times she has a hunger for feeding
herself. But a few weeks later, she hasn’t the slightest interest in
these children of hers, doesn’t know them by sight, and is just as
likely to fight them away if they trouble her as if they were total
strangers. The hurry-round-and-find-something-to-feed-the-babies
instinct has served its purpose and gone back into cold storage.
Another instinct is taking its place, and pretty soon the birds will
be off for the south to spend the winter. Next year they will do the
same thing right over again. But how much they remember of what
happened the year before is just one of those things that I, among
others, would give something to find out.
XVI
Certain Stupidities of Animals
It is a good idea for boys and girls to keep pets. Often it is
rather hard on the pets; but the boys and girls get much happiness
out of their animal companions, and they learn a great deal about
the ways of animals besides.
Any of you who keep pets could, I have no doubt, tell me many
wonderful tales of the extraordinary intelligence of these horses,
dogs, cats, pigeons, cavies, mice, parrots, rabbits, squirrels, and
what not, which, according to their nature, share our hearth rugs or
our back yards. You who do not, have only to ask the man next door
who keeps a horse or a dog, or the woman on the other side who has a
cat or a parrot, to learn that animals are only just a little short
of human, and if they could only talk, would soon prove, as we say,
to “know more than most men.”
Now there is no doubt that many animals are extraordinarily clever.
I could easily fill this whole book with stories of their sagacity.
At the same time, they are often extraordinarily ignorant, and
sometimes extraordinarily stupid. And because you will always be
hearing abundant stories of their cleverness, I am going to tell you
sundry tales of their stupidity. Between the two, perhaps we shall
strike a just balance.
Let me begin by telling about my own dog, a white and brown collie,
whom I, in common with all owners of dogs, regard as uncommonly
intelligent. When I tie the dog up, I use a light chain, one end of
which runs on a long trolley wire fastened between the house and a
tree. This, by the way, is a good way to tie a dog, for then he can
run the length of his trolley wire and the length of his chain
besides, and yet not have to drag much weight or tangle up a long
chain. Very often, however, my dog, after running out beyond the
tree as far as he can go, starts to come back again on the other
side of the tree. Of course he can’t do it, for the chain is fast
about the trunk. Now what would you do, if you were tied up that
way, and found that your trolley wouldn’t work? I am sure you would
look at once to see whether you had not got your chain twisted round
the tree; and when you found you had, you would run round the other
way and untwist it. Of course you would, and you wouldn’t stop to
think twice. But my silly dog has never caught the idea. When he
first finds himself caught up short, he pulls and struggles. Then he
sits down and howls for me. I go out and walk round the tree the
other way. The dog follows me; and at once is free. I suppose I have
done this in exactly the same way fifty times. Yet the foolish dog
never has learned to do it for himself. And yet he is a wise dog—as
dogs go. I suppose the reason is that his wild ancestors never were
fastened up on trolleys, so there is no chain-untwisting instinct to
start him learning.
Or perhaps you think monkeys are especially wise little creatures.
Then consider this case: A man had a monkey, and was trying to find
out exactly what it did know. So he used to put the monkey’s food in
a box, lock the door with a key, leave the key in the lock; and
after many trials, taught the monkey to turn the key, open the door
and get his food. Then he tried taking the key out of the lock and
laying it down beside the door, to see whether the monkey would have
sense enough to pick it up. But the monkey didn’t. No matter how
hungry he might be, he would simply stand and wait until the man
picked up the key for him and put it in the lock. Then he would
unlock the door as usual and get his dinner. Fifty times in
succession the man picked up the key and put it in the lock, while
the monkey stood two feet away and watched every movement—but the
monkey never learned to do this simple act for himself.
Should you like to try for yourself an experiment that will show you
how little the wisest animal understands? Then get a wide-mouthed
bottle (a milk jar will do nicely), put in it a piece of fresh meat
or fish; hold it above the head of a hungry cat so that she will see
the food first thru the bottom; then set the bottle upright on the
floor, and watch the cat try to get the morsel out. She will
probably not go to work at all the way you would; and your way will
be decidedly the better.
Cats suggest coons; and coons, like cats, are commonly thought to be
especially clever little animals. So they are; but always with an
animal’s kind of cleverness, not our kind. Somebody who has been
studying coons more carefully than they have ever been studied
before, reports facts such as these: A coon is taught to open a box
to get his food. The door of the box fastens with a bolt, and the
coon has learned to pull the bolt and open the door as readily as
you or I could do it. The bolt is now changed over to the other side
of the door. The change completely baffles the coon, who has to
learn his trick all over again, and that with almost as much
difficulty as when he learned it the first time. Even coming up to
the box from a different direction would throw the beast off, so
that he would boggle a long while over a door which he had been
unfastening with the greatest ease.
Another coon was given a food-box with a door fastened by a simple
latch. The youngest child would have merely looked at the latch,
lifted it with his hand, and taken his food. But it was too much for
the coon. He scratched and scrambled and hunted all over the box;
until in the violence of his efforts he fell off the top of the box
and landed on his head. As he stood on his head in front of the box,
pawing the air with all four legs at once, one hind foot chanced to
catch on the latch, lifted it, and opened the door. So Mr. Coon got
his dinner.
Next time he was hungry, what does he do but go and stand on his
head in front of the box, and paw the air with his hind legs, till
he hit the latch again, and got another dinner. In the course of
half-a-dozen trials, the coon learned to put his paw in exactly the
right place, and give just the right push to open the door at once.
But all the time he continued to stand on his head to do it. It was
not until the twenty-eighth attempt and the twenty-eighth dinner,
that it occurred to the silly coon that he could lift the latch just
as well standing right side up.
Still another student of animals has been testing rats. Now an old
rat is proverbial for wisdom; they laugh at cats, and it is pretty
nearly impossible to get them to go near a trap, unless they are
nearly starved. Let’s see, then, some things that a wise rat does
not know.
Rats, of course, are used to running thru holes in the walls of
houses, drain pipes, and the like, and are clever enough at finding
their way in such places. So this man made a set of passages, such
as a rat would naturally live in, and put seven rats in it. These
soon became at home, and would find their way at once thru the maze
of passages to the spot where their food was kept, running at full
speed. Then the man took a long straight passage with a sharp turn
at the end, and shortened it up by three feet. The next time the
rats were put in, they all started pell-mell for their food; but
when they came to the shortened passage, tho it was broad day light,
every one of the rats ran smash against the end wall; and it
actually took as long for them to learn that the length of the
passage had been changed, as it took to learn the way round in the
first place. But when the passage was made longer than before, the
rats ran their customary distance to the place where the side
opening used to be; then turned and butted into the side wall. This
they did time after time, and even after they had learned to turn at
the right point one day, they were just as likely to butt the wall
the next. Really, they did not seem able to think about the matter
at all.
But I am saving the strangest case for the last. This is about a
cow. The cow used to make a great deal of fuss for her owner because
she would not stand to be milked unless she were allowed all the
while to lick her calf. One day the calf died; then there was much
trouble, and no milk at all. But the farmer understood the ways of
cows. He took the calf’s skin, stuffed it with hay, and gave the
mother that to lick at milking time. To be sure, the stuffed calf
had neither head nor legs and didn’t look the least bit like a
calf—but it was all right to lick, and the mother cow licked it
contentedly and gave down her milk as before. One day, when the
tender parent was caressing her little calf at milking time, she
happened to unrip the seam where the skin was sewed up. The hay fell
out; and the mother cow, without the slightest surprise or
agitation, proceeded to devour the unexpected provender, and never
left off until the little hay calf had entirely disappeared down her
throat.
I understand that this practice of giving a cow the stuffed skin of
its calf is the regular thing in some countries, where the cattle
are wilder than with us. I am told also that a like device has to be
employed with camels. Each camel refuses to be milked, unless she
can have her little one to lick. But the natives are accustomed to
kill and eat the little camel, and give the mother its skin. This
answers exactly as well; but if they try to palm off another skin on
her, she knows the difference at once. Out of a hundred living
camel-calves or their stuffed skins, the mother camel will always
pick her own, and never be content with any other. Yet she doesn’t
bother her head over the difference between her live calf, and its
dead skin lacking legs and head, with the hay stuffing sticking out
of the seams! Truly, animals are as stupid about some matters as
they are wise about others.
XVII
How We Differ From The Animals
How do we differ from all other living creatures? Not in having
hands; the monkeys have four hands, and if hands were the test of
humanity, would be twice as human as we. Not in lacking coats of fur
or features; pigs and elephants have skins as bare as ours. Nor is
it that we walk on two legs; the birds do that, and the kangaroos.
The difference is not even in the fact that we have no tails; for
some of the apes also are as tailless as we are. Besides, when you
come to think of it, most animals do not have tails—insects do not,
nor clams and oysters, nor sea-anemones and star-fish, nor corals
and sponges, nor frogs and toads, nor jelly-fish; even the birds,
unless you count the feathers as part, do not have tails that one
could really wag.
After all, too, we human beings do have tails; or at least a string
of tail bones, an inch or more long, tucked away inside our skins.
This coccyx bone, as it is called, is the place where it hurts so
fearsomely when you sit down too hard on a pebble or a bicycle bar,
and it catches you in one little spot just at the end of the back
bone. When that happens, you may remember that the difference
between you and the animals is not altogether in tail bones. Once in
a while, too, men do have veritable tails, as large as a finger, and
round and curly like a pig’s.
The one essential difference between ourselves and all other
creatures on the earth is neither in hands nor skins nor legs nor
tails, but in talking. We can talk and the animals cannot.
But you say right off, parrots can talk. Oh, no, they can’t! Parrots
can speak, in the sense that they can say words; but that is a quite
different thing from talking. Dumb people, tho they cannot speak,
have no difficulty in learning to talk with their fingers. The
parrot can be taught to repeat words, whole sentences, even pieces
of poetry—but no parrot ever learns to talk about the things that he
is interested in. No parrot, for example, ever tries to tell about
the forest where he was born, nor his voyage to this country, nor
the animals he met in the store before he was bought. He, says
“Polly wants a cracker”; but he doesn’t say, “I want to get out of
this cage and fly about”; and no two parrots ever yet tried to
converse with one another.