beloved master, even though they have been conveyed to a considerable
distance. This is especially true of the dog. So many examples of such
feats are on record that I refrain from mentioning them, but will
give but a single example. Rover, a pet greyhound that belonged to
the writer, had become such an annoyance to the neighborhood where he
lived, that the master determined to provide him a home in the country
some fifty miles away. He was conveyed to his destination in a covered
wagon, and after his new master had reached home, the poor animal was
placed in a stable for several days, where he was daily visited and
fed, and every effort possible made to attach him to the place and
family. On the fourth day of his arrival he was given his freedom. With
a long, loud wail he saluted the neighborhood, and the next moment was
off at full speed across the country, all efforts to stop him being
unavailing. In less than a week from his leaving he was at home again,
hungry and jaded out with fatigue and travel, but not too tired nor too
hungry to express the great joy he felt for the old master. How he ever
accomplished the journey, and what vicissitudes and difficulties he
encountered on the way, no one will ever know. After this I had not the
heart to send him away again, but put up with his capers and tricks as
best I could, and when complaints were preferred against him endeavored
to excuse them as a parent is prone to do in the case of a spoiled and
wayward child. But a day arrived when Rover to me was no more. What
had become of him I was never able to discover, but I always blamed a
near-by neighbor, a man who had neither love nor charity in his soul,
for his sudden disappearance.
That cats are selfish animals, attaching themselves to localities and
not to individuals, I do not believe. This idea has, perhaps, some
ground of truth, for the nature of a cat is not so easy to understand
as that of a dog. But when a cat is not understood, it is very probable
that she cares less for the inhabitants of the house than for the house
itself. Frequent instances are known by the writer where cats have
been in the habit of moving about with their owners, and have been as
much unconcerned as dogs would have been. True they have, like women,
a curious and prying disposition. I have seen them in new and strange
quarters go sniffing about every room of a house, and at last settle
down in some cozy, comfortable place, well satisfied with their tour
of investigation. Where the house fell short of their expectations, if
they have been cats that have received due consideration from their
mistresses or masters, they have tried to live down their objections
and to learn to be happy and contented with their lot. Only cats that
have not been much thought of are inclined to show their disapproval
to changes of residence which they deemed unsuitable by refusing to
stay with their masters. Blackie, a favorite cat of ours, never seemed
to care where her home was, so long as her friends were there to pet,
caress and pamper her with choice dainties.
All animals, so far as can be learned, have not only a capacity for the
society of man, but an absolute yearning for it. This feeling may be in
abeyance, from not having received any development at the hands of man,
but it nevertheless exists, and only awaits to be educed by some one
capable of appreciating the character of the animal. Tigers, as is well
known, are not generally considered the friends of mankind, and yet the
Indian fakirs will travel over the country with tame tigers, which they
simply lead about with a slight string, and which will permit small
children to caress them with their hands without evincing the least
disposition to hurt them.
When we survey the examples of love displayed by animals towards human
beings, which we have just detailed, and recall the hundreds that we
know and have read about, is it possible to believe that such love
can perish? We apprehend not. Unselfish love as this, which survives
ingratitude and ill-treatment, belongs to the spirit and not to the
body, and all beings capable of feeling such love must possess immortal
spirits. All may not have an opportunity of manifesting it, but all
possess the capacity and would, were the conditions favorable, manifest
it openly.
Few animals, as may easily be imagined, manifest Conjugal Love. Most
species have no particular mates, but merely meet by chance, and
seemingly never trouble themselves about each other again. No real
conjugal love, therefore, can exist, and it is rather curious that in
such animals a durable friendship is frequently formed between two
individuals of the same sex. But when we come to polygamous animals,
such as the stag among mammals and the domestic poultry among birds, we
meet with a decided advance towards conjugal love, although as in the
case of polygamous man, that love must necessarily be of an inferior
character. There is seen, at all events, a sense of appropriation on
either side. Take the example of the barn-yard fowl, as has already
been mentioned in that part of the chapter which deals with jealousy,
where it is shown that the proprietor of the harem resents any attempt
on the part of another male to infringe on his privileges.
This brings us to the consideration of birds, where the many are mated
for the nesting-season, but subsequently do not seem to care more
for each other than they do for their broods of children. If one of
the pair be killed at the nesting-time the survivor, after a brief
lamentation, consoles itself in a few hours or days with another
partner, for there really appears to be a supply of spare partners of
both sexes always at hand. And now we come to those creatures which are
mated for life, and often we find among them a conjugal love as strong
and as sincere as among monogamous mankind. Prominent among them are
the eagle, the raven and the dove. And while we praise the turtle-dove
for its conjugal fidelity, and credit it with the possession of all
that is sweet, and good, and gentle, how remarkable is it that we
forget to accredit with the same virtue the eagle and the raven, that
are the types of all that is violent, and dark, and cunning. There are
many examples in existence of the conjugal love among such birds, but
they are so well known that reference to them is unnecessary. The case
of the mandarin duck, already narrated, affords a strong instance of
conjugal love wherein the lady was faithful and the husband avenged
himself on the destruction of his domestic peace.
[Illustration: MATED FOR LIFE.
Conjugal Fidelity Shown by a Pair of Doves.]
So numerous as are the instances of love shown by parents among the
lower animals towards their offspring, yet it is a very singular fact
that few, if any, trustworthy accounts of Filial Love, or the love
of children toward their parents, are to be found. But we must look
to man if we would understand the lower animals. Even human nature
must attain a high state of development before filial love can find
any place in the affections. In savages it barely exists at all, and
certainly does not survive into mature years. It is the glory of the
North American Indian boy, at as early an age as possible, to despise
his mother and defy his father. And the women are just as bad as the
men. Rejoicing in the pride of youth and strength, they utterly despise
the elder and feeble women, even though they be their own mothers, and
will tear from their hands the food they are about to eat, on the plea
that old women are of no use, and that the food would be much better
employed in giving nourishment to the young and strong. The Fijians
have not the least scruple in burying a father alive when he becomes
infirm, and assist in strangling a mother that she may keep him company
in the land of spirits. Both the Bosjesmen of South Africa and the
Australian seem to have not the least idea that any duty is owing to a
parent from a child, nor have they much notion of duty from a parent
toward the child. If the father be angry with any one for any reason,
he has a way of relieving his feelings by driving his spear through the
body of his wife or child, whichever one of the two happens to be the
nearer. Even the mother treats her child with less consideration than a
cow does her calf, and leaves the little creature to shift for itself
at an age when the children of civilized parents are hardly thought fit
to be left alone for a few minutes. This being the case with parental
love, it may be readily imagined that filial affection can have not the
slightest chance for development, and it is very much to be questioned
whether in the savage it can really be said to exist at all in the
sense understood by enlightened peoples. Therefore, as in the lower
human races, we find that filial love either is very trifling, or is
absolutely non-existent, need we wonder that in the lower animals such
few, if any, indications of its presence should be found?
Now, as to the subject of Parental Love, and the various ways in which
it manifests itself. There are many writers who claim that parental
love in the lower animals is not identical with that of man. They
affirm that it is only a blind instinct, and, in order to mark more
strongly the distinction between man and beast, call the parental
love of the latter by the name of storgë. Speaking for myself, I must
declare that I am unable to perceive any distinction between the two,
save that in civilized man the parental love is better regulated than
among the lower animals. But, as has been seen, it is not regulated at
all among the uncivilized races, and, in truth, many of the beasts are
far better parents than most savages. Nor can I understand why the word
storgë should be applied to parental love among the lower animals and
not to the same feeling in man. Among Greek writers the word, together
with the verb from which it is derived, is applied to the love between
human parents and children. It is so applied by Plato, and in the
same sense by Sophocles and others. One argument adduced by those who
deny the identity of the feeling in both cases is that parental love
endures throughout life in man, while it expires with the adolescence
of the young in the lower animals. This is doubtless true, as a rule,
with civilized man, but in the case of the savage, as has previously
been shown, it does not last longer than that of a bird, a cat or a
dog, taking into consideration the relative duration of life. And the
reason is identical in both cases. Were this love to exist through life
in the savage, the beast or the bird, the race would become extinct,
for neither race is able to support its children longer than their
time of helplessness. The beast and the bird cannot, and the savage
will not, provide for the future. It is therefore evident that if the
young had to depend upon their parents for subsistence, they would soon
perish from lack of food. Exceptions there are to this general rule,
and always, as far as can be determined, in the case of domesticated
animals whose means of subsistence are already insured.
Several of such cases have come to my notice. I shall instance but
one. A friend of mine has two terriers, a mother and a daughter. The
strongest bond of love and fellowship unites them. They always sit
close together, and the mother playfully pinches her daughter all over.
Should they by chance become separated, even for a very short time,
the daughter comes up wagging her tail, and then licks her mother’s
nose and mouth. When hunting together, they always act in concert,
each one taking a hole, and one keeping watch while the other scrapes
away the earth. The meaning of each other’s whine or bark is perfectly
understood, and no two persons could understand their own language
better than do these dogs theirs, nor be more comprehensible to each
other.
Self-abnegation is perhaps one of the most beautiful characteristics
which parental love can give. This is particularly shown when the young
are in danger. A human mother in charge of her child will defy a danger
before which she would shrink if alone, and in its defence would dare
deeds of which most strong men would be incapable, for during the time
her selfhood is extinguished, and her being is sunk into that of her
child. Such abnegation becomes a true mother, for if she would not
consent to do and dare for the sake of her offspring, she would degrade
herself below the beasts and the birds, who hesitate not in performing
that duty to their children, though _savants_ do declare that they
possess only storgë, whatever they may mean by it, and not parental
love.
[Illustration: EVIDENCE OF CONJUGAL AFFECTION.
Male Humming-Bird Feeding His Partner, and Ready to Act in Her Defence.]
Everyone who has paid even a passing attention to the habits of birds
must have noticed the vigilance a pair of catbirds exercise over their
nest when containing young birds. Neither parent, when the other is
absent, relaxes this vigilance, for they consider no labor, no care, no
watchfulness, too great or too exacting where their offspring are to be
benefited. Let an enemy approach, even if it be man himself, and they
are beside themselves with anger and resentment, flying into the very
face of the audacious intruder, as though they would pluck his eyes
out as a just punishment for his presumption and temerity. I have seen
the nest of a catbird attacked by a black snake, and crushed within
the folds of the hideous serpent the father-bird, but the disaster
did not cause the mother-bird to desist from the attack, for, utterly
oblivious of all else but her offspring and the snake, she fought on
until the latter was forced to glide away into the bushes to escape
her infuriated assaults. But no species of bird is more courageous in
defence of its nest than the little ruby-throated humming-bird. It is
really dangerous to visit the nest when with eggs or young. I would as
soon attempt to assail the dome-shaped nest of our common hornet as
that of this humming-bird. It is as much as one can do to protect his
eyes from the lightning-like attacks of these birds, so swiftly and so
unerringly do they direct their blows at these points.
So great is the affection and solicitude of the red-eyed vireo for her
young, that she will scarcely leave the nest when the hand is stretched
out a few inches over the mouth of the structure. And then when she
does leave, it is not in a hurried, precipitate manner, but with a
quiet, deliberate movement that excites one’s admiration and makes
one vow never to abuse such simple, childlike confidence. I have even
placed my hand upon the sitting-bird without disturbing the current of
her brooding thoughts, or the peaceful serenity of her soul. A rough
dash at the nest tends to frighten her away _instanter_, but when the
hand is reached out to it slowly and silently the bird seems to act as
though it had nothing to fear, and remains calm and self-possessed.
Who is not familiar with the proverbial skill of the Carolina dove in
feigning lameness when her nest is being approached? Without a cry, and
with scarcely a rustle of her feathers, she slips out of her nest upon
the ground, and by a series of manœuvres, as if desperately wounded,
grovels along on her belly in the dust till she has led her enemy a
long journey from the site of the nest, when she will take to wing and
fly away into a coppice or a clump of brushwood.
That birds should manifest a love for the young which they hatch has
always seemed a strange problem to me. I can see how that, in the
case of a mammal, the mother should feel a love for the creature who
is absolutely a part of herself--whose very life-blood is drawn from
her veins. But this is not necessarily the case with birds. If, as
often happens with poultry, the eggs of several hens are placed under
one bird for hatching, the hen that hatches them knows no difference
between the chickens that come from her own eggs and those which
proceed from eggs laid by others. Even where the eggs belong to birds
of different species, as to the common Muscovy-duck for example, the
hen displays as much affection for the young ducklings, despite the
disparity of instinct and habit, as she does had they proceeded from
her own eggs. May it not be that parental love has different channels
of transmission, and that in such a case as this the emanation from
the sitting-hen may be the vehicle of parental love toward the young
which are to be hatched? Certain it is that a sitting-hen, as many
of us have observed, is altogether a changed being, both in attitude
and expression. She is entirely absorbed in the eggs when she is
incubating, and, though she may not have the intellect to distinguish
a mere lump of chalk from one of her own eggs, yet love is altogether
independent of intellect, and may exist in all its vigor, and yet may
be wasted on an unworthy object.
Fishes, as is generally known, are not particularly emotional beings,
and are not likely to entertain a lasting love for anything. Indeed, in
some instances, parental love would be absolutely useless, as in the
case of the cod-fish, which could be hardly expected to entertain a
special love for each of the countless thousands of young it produces
every year. The life of the mother would be an unenviable one, if
her lot were to look after her young as soon as they are hatched,
especially when the varied foes that beset her eggs as soon as they
are produced, are considered. Just as there are fishes that possess
conjugal love, so there are fishes that possess parental love, and
prominent among these are the sticklebacks. But in the case of these
fishes the most curious part is that parental love is shown by the
father, and not by the mother, the latter having nothing to do but
to lay the eggs, and leaving to the former the exclusive labor of
providing for the young.
[Illustration: Copyright 1900 by A. R. DUGMORE.
WOOD-THRUSH SETTING.]
Enough of instances of true parental love among the lower animals
could be given to fill this entire book, but a sufficient number have
been adduced to show that the feeling is the same in man as in them,
although, of course, the mode of manifesting it is different. We have
shown the fallacy of the theory that parental love is life-enduring in
man and very brief among the animals, and have seen that, in proportion
to the duration of life, it is quite as brief among the savages as
among the animals. And, again, we have seen where it has been lost and
then restored, and also where it was never lost; where in animals, as
in man, it has caused complete abnegation of self, the parents living
for their children, and not for themselves, and where it has given
strength to the weak and courage to the timid. Even the very fishes
have been shown to be amenable to the same influences as man, and
could we have carried our illustrations still lower down the scale we
would have found the same influences existing among much humbler forms
of animal existences. In conclusion, there is no resisting the fact
that parental love, one of the highest and holiest feelings of which a
loving and immortal soul can be capable, is shared equally by man and
beast, according to their respective capacities.
LIFE PROGRESSIVE.
No one can doubt that the earth’s crust, so far as it has been
deciphered by man, presents us with a record, imperfect though it be,
of the past. Whether, however, the known and admitted imperfections
of its records, geological and palæontological, are sufficiently
trustworthy to account satisfactorily for the lack of direct evidence
recognizable in some modern hypotheses, may be a matter of individual
opinion, but there can be little doubt that they are sufficiently
extensive to throw the balance of evidence decisively in favor of
some theory of continuity, as opposed to any theory of intermittent
and occasional action, which some writers have strenuously and
intelligently advocated. No marks of mighty and general convulsions of
nature exist, as the seeming breaks which divide the grand series of
stratified rocks into numerous isolated formations would indicate. They
are simply indications of the imperfection of our knowledge. Science
will never, in all probability, point to a complete series of deposits,
or to a complete succession of life, which shall link one geological
period to another. But that such deposits and such an unbroken
succession must have existed at one time we may well feel sure, and
stand ready to believe that nowhere in the long series of fossiliferous
rocks has there been a total break, but that there has inevitably been
a complete continuity of life, as well as a more or less complete
continuity of sedimentation from the Laurentian period to the present
day. One generation, speaking figuratively, hands on the lamp of
life to the next, and each system of rocks is the direct offspring
of its predecessor in time. Though it is apparent that there has not
been continuity in any given area, still the geological chain could
not have been snapped at one point and taken up again at a totally
different one. Hence we arrive at the conviction that in geology, as in
other sciences, continuity is the fundamental law, and that the lines
of demarcation between the great formations are but gaps in our own
knowledge.
Through the study of fossils, as is well known, geologists have been
led to the all-important generalization that the vast series of
fossiliferous or sedimentary rocks may be separated into a number of
definite groups or formations, each of which being characterized by
its own organic remains, but not properly and strictly, it must be
understood, by the occurrence therein of any one particular fossil.
However, a formation may contain some particular fossil or fossils
not occurring outside of that formation, thus enabling an observer
to identify a given group with tolerable certainty; or, as very
often happens, some particular stratum or subgroup of a series, may
contain peculiar fossils, whereby its existence may be determined with
considerable readiness in divers localities. Each great formation, let
it be said, is properly characterized by the association of certain
fossils, the predominance of certain families or orders, or by an
assemblage of fossil remains that represent the life of the period
during which the formation was deposited.
Fossils, then, not only enable us to determine the age of the deposits
in which they are found, but they also further enable us to arrive at
some very important conclusions respecting the manner in which the
fossiliferous bed was deposited, and, consequently, to the condition
of the particular region occupied by the bed at the period of its
formation. Beds that contain the remains of animals, such as now
inhabit rivers, we know to be fluviatile in their origin, and that
at one time they must have either constituted actual river-beds, or
been deposited by the overflowing of ancient streams. But if the beds
contain the remains of mollusks, minute crustaceans or fish, such as
are found to-day in lakes, then we conclude that they are lacustrine,
and were deposited beneath the waters of former lakes. And, lastly,
if the remains of animals such as now people the oceans are to be
met with in the beds, then we know that they are marine in origin,
and that they are fragments of an old sea-bottom. On the whole, the
conditions under which a bed was deposited, whether in a shallow sea,
in the immediate vicinity of a coast-line, or in deep water, can
often be determined with considerable accuracy from the nature of the
relics of the organisms which they contain. But we have thus far been
dealing with the remains of aquatic animals. When, however, we consider
the remains of aerial and terrestrial animals, or of plants, the
determination of the conditions of deposition is not made out with such
an absolute certainty. Remains of land-animals would, of course, occur
in sub-aerial deposits, that is, in beds, like blown sand, accumulated
upon the land, but the most of such remains of such animals are found
in deposits which have been laid down in water, and hence their present
position is due to the fact that their former owners were either
drowned in rivers or lakes, or borne out to sea by water-channels.
Animals possessed of the power of flight might also similarly find
their way into aqueous deposits, but, when it is remembered that many
birds and mammals habitually spent a great part of their time in the
water, it is not to be wondered at that they should present themselves
as fossils in sedimentary rocks. Even plants, such as have undoubtedly
grown upon land, do not prove that the bed in which they are found was
formed on land, for many of their remains are extraneous to the bed
in which they now occur, having reached their present site by falling
into lakes or rivers, or by being carried out to sea by floods or
gales of winds. Still, there are many cases which obviously show that
plants have grown on the very spot where we now find them. The great
coal-fields of the Carboniferous Age, it is now generally conceded, are
the result of the growth _in situ_ of the plants which compose coal, as
well as that they grew on vast marshy or partially submerged tracts of
level alluvial land.