The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals Part 1

The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals.

by William T. Hornaday.

PREFACE

During these days of ceaseless conflict, anxiety and unrest among men, when at times it begins to look as if "the Caucasian" really is "played out," perhaps the English-reading world will turn with a sigh of relief to the contemplation of wild animals. At all events, the author has found this diversion in his favorite field mentally agreeable and refreshing.

In comparison with some of the alleged men who now are cursing this earth by their baneful presence, the so-called "lower animals" do not seem so very "low" after all! As a friend of the animals, this is a very proper time in which to compare them with men. Furthermore, if thinking men and women desire to know the leading facts concerning the intelligence of wild animals, it will be well to consider them now, before the bravest and the best of the wild creatures of the earth go down and out under the merciless and inexorable steam roller that we call Civilization.

The intelligence and the ways of wild animals are large subjects.

Concerning them I do not offer this volume as an all-in-all production.

Out of the great ma.s.s of interesting things that might have been included, I have endeavored to select and set forth only enough to make a good series of sample exhibits, without involving the general reader in a hopelessly large collection of details. The most serious question has been: What shall be left out?

Mr. A. R. Spofford, first Librarian of Congress, used to declare that "Books are made from books"; but I call the reader to bear witness that this volume is not a ma.s.s of quotations. A quoted authority often can be disputed, and for this reason the author has found considerable satisfaction in relying chiefly upon his own testimony.

Because I always desire to know the _opinions_ of men who are writing upon their own observations, I have felt free to express my own conclusions regarding the many phases of animal intelligence as their manifestation has impressed me in close-up observations.

I have purposely avoided all temptations to discuss the minds and manners of domestic animals, partly because that is by itself a large subject, and partly because their minds have been so greatly influenced by long and close a.s.sociation with man. The domestic mammals and birds deserve independent treatment.

A great many stories of occurrences have been written into this volume, for the purpose of giving the reader all the facts in order that he may form his own opinions of the animal mentality displayed.

Most sincerely do I wish that the boys and girls of America, and of the whole world, may be induced to believe that _the most interesting thing about a wild animal is its mind and its reasoning,_ and that a dead animal is only a poor decaying thing. If the feet of the young men would run more to seeing and studying the wild creatures and less to the killing of them, some of the world's valuable species might escape being swept away tomorrow, or the day after.

The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Munsey's Magazine, McClure's Magazine and the Sunday Magazine Syndicate for permission to copy herein various portions of his chapters from those publications.

W. T. H.

The Anchorage, Stamford, Conn. December 19, 1921.

THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS

MAN AND THE WILD ANIMALS

If every man devoted to his affairs, and to the affairs of his city and state, the same measure of intelligence and honest industry that every warm-blooded wild animal devotes to its affairs, the people of this world would abound in good health, prosperity, peace and happiness.

To a.s.sume that every wild beast and bird is a sacred creature, peacefully dwelling in an earthly paradise, is a mistake. They have their wisdom and their folly, their joys and their sorrows, their trials and tribulations.

As the alleged lord of creation, it is man's duty to know the wild animals truly as they are, in order to enjoy them to the utmost, to utilize them sensibly and fairly, and to give them a square deal.

I. A SURVEY OF THE FIELD

I

THE LAY OF THE LAND

There is a vast field of fascinating human interest, lying only just outside our doors, which as yet has been but little explored. It is the Field of Animal Intelligence.

Of all the kinds of interest attaching to the study of the world's wild animals, there are none that surpa.s.s the study of their minds, their morals, and the acts that they perform as the results of their mental processes.

In these pages, the term "animal" is not used in its most common and most restricted sense. It is intended to apply not only to quadrupeds, but also to all the vertebrate forms,--mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes.

For observation and study, the whole vast world of living creatures is ours, throughout all zones and all lands. It is not ours to flout, to abuse, or to exterminate as we please. While for practical reasons we do not here address ourselves to the invertebrates, nor even to the sea-rovers, we can not keep them out of the background of our thoughts. The living world is so vast and so varied, so beautiful and so ugly, so delightful and so terrible, so interesting and so commonplace, that each step we make through it reveals things different and previously unknown.

The Frame of Mind. To the inquirer who enters the field of animal thought with an open mind, and free from the trammels of egotism and fear regarding man's place in nature, this study will prove an endless succession of surprises and delights. In behalf of the utmost tale of results, the inquirer should summon to his aid his rules of evidence, his common sense, his love of fair play, and the inexorable logic of his youthful geometry.

And now let us clear away a few weeds from the entrance to our field, and reveal its cornerstones and boundary lines. To a correct understanding of any subject a correct point of view is absolutely essential.

In a commonplace and desultory way man has been mildly interested in the intelligence of animals for at least 30,000 years. The Cro- Magnons of that far time possessed real artistic talent, and on the smooth stone walls and ceilings of the caves of France they drew many wonderful pictures of mammoths, European bison, wild cattle, rhinoceroses and other animals of their period. Ever since man took unto himself certain tractable wild animals, and made perpetual thralls of the horse, the dog, the cat, the cattle, sheep, goats and swine, he has noted their intelligent ways. Ever since the first caveman began to hunt wild beasts and slay them with clubs and stones, the two warring forces have been interested in each other, but for about 25,000 years I think that the wild beasts knew about as much of man's intelligence as men knew of theirs.

I leave to those who are interested in history the task of revealing the date, or the period, when scholarly men first began to pay serious attention to the animal mind.

In 1895 when Mr. George J. Romanes, of London, published his excellent work on "Animal Intelligence," on one of its first pages he blithely brushed aside as of little account all the observations, articles and papers on his subject that had been published previous to that time. Now mark how swiftly history can repeat itself, and also bring retribution.

In 1910 there arose in the United States of America a group of professional college-and-university animal psychologists who set up the study of "animal behavior." They did this so seriously, and so determinedly, that one of the first acts of two of them consisted in joyously brushing aside as of no account whatever, and quite beneath serious consideration, everything that had been seen, done and said previous to the rise of their group, and the laboratory Problem Box. In view of what this group has accomplished since 1910, with their "problem boxes," their "mazes"

and their millions of "trials by error," expressed in solid pages of figures, the world of animal lovers is ent.i.tled to smile tolerantly upon the cheerful a.s.sumptions of ten years ago.

But let it not at any time be a.s.sumed that we are dest.i.tute of problem boxes; for the author has two of his own! One is called the Great Outdoors, and the other is named the New York Zoological Park. The first has been in use sixty years, the latter twenty-two years. Both are today in good working order, but the former is not quite as good as new.

A Preachment to the Student. In studying the wild-animal mind, the boundary line between Reality and Dreamland is mighty easy to cross. He who easily yields to seductive reasoning, and the call of the wild imagination, soon will become a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions of things that never occurred. The temptation to place upon the simple acts of animals the most complex and far- fetched interpretations is a trap ever ready for the feet of the unwary. It is better to see nothing than to see a lot of things that are not true.

In the study of animals, we have long insisted that _to the open eye and the thinking brain, truth is stranger than fiction._ But Truth does not always wear her heart upon her sleeve for zanies to peck at. Unfortunately there are millions of men who go through the world looking at animals, but not seeing them.

Beware of setting up for wild animals impossible mental and moral standards. The student must not deceive himself by overestimating mental values. If an estimate must be made, make it under the mark of truth rather than above it. While avoiding the folly of idealism, we also must shun the ways of the narrow mind, and the eyes that refuse to see the truth. Wild animals are not superhuman demiG.o.ds of wisdom; but neither are they idiots, unable to reason from cause to effect along the simple lines that vitally affect their existence.

Brain-owning wild animals are not mere machines of flesh and blood, set agoing by the accident of birth, and running for life on the narrow-gauge railway of Heredity. They are not "Machines in Fur and Feathers," as one naturalist once tried to make the world believe them to be. Some animals have more intelligence than some men; and some have far better morals.

What Const.i.tutes Evidence. The best evidence regarding the ways of wild animals is one's own eye-witness testimony. Not all second- hand observations are entirely accurate. Many persons do not know how to observe; and at times some are deceived by their own eyes or ears. It is a sad fact that both those organs are easily deceived. The student who is in doubt regarding the composition of evidence will do well to spend a few days in court listening to the trial of an important and hotly contested case. In collecting real evidence, all is not gold that glitters.

Many a mind misinterprets the thing seen, sometimes innocently, and again wantonly. The nature fakir is always on the alert to see wonderful phenomena in wild life, about which to write; and by preference he places the most strained and marvellous interpretation upon the animal act. Beware of the man who always sees marvellous things in animals, for he is a dangerous guide.

There is one man who claims to have seen in his few days in the woods more wonders than all the older American naturalists and sportsmen have seen added together.

Now, Nature does not a.s.semble all her wonderful phenomena and hold them in leash to be turned loose precisely when the great Observer of Wonders spends his day in the woods. Wise men always suspect the man who sees too many marvelous things.

The Relative Value of Witnesses. It is due that a word should be said regarding "expert testimony" in the case of the wild animal.

Some dust has been raised in this field by men posing as authorities on wild animal psychology, whose observations of the world's wild animals have been confined to the chipmunks, squirrels, weasels, foxes, rabbits, and birds dwelling within a small circle surrounding some particular woodland house. In another cla.s.s other men have devoted heavy scientific labors to laboratory observations on white rats, domestic rabbits, cats, dogs, sparrows, turtles and newts as the handpicked exponents of the intelligence of the animals of the world!

Alas! for the human sense of Proportion!

Fancy an ethnologist studying the Eskimo, the Dog-Rib Indian, the Bushman, the Aino and the Papuan, and then proceeding to write conclusively "On the Intelligence of the Human Race."