Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/234

222 gun with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the gun was separated from the bait by a distance of about twenty yards, and the string which connected the trigger with the bait was concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow. The gun-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, but not in killing a second; for the foxes afterward adopted either of two devices whereby to secure the bait without injuring themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device was to burrow up to the bait through the snow at right angles to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they escaped without injury—the bait being pulled below the line of fire before the string was drawn sufficiently tight to discharge the gun. Now, both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I have carefully interrogated Dr. Rae on all the circumstances of the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings, so that there can have been no special association in the foxes' minds between strings and traps. Moreover, after the death of fox number one, the track on the snow showed that fox number two, notwithstanding the temptation offered by the bait, had expended a great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to sever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire. Dr. Rae and a friend in whom he has confidence observed the fact a sufficient number of times to satisfy themselves that the direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed to thought and not to chance.

I could give several other unequivocal instances of reasoning on the part of animals which I have myself observed; but time does not permit of my stating them. Passing on, therefore, to the emotional life of animals, we find that this is very slightly, if at all, developed in the lower orders, but remarkably well developed in the higher; that is to say, the emotions are vivid and easily excited, although they are shallow and evanescent. They thus differ from those of most civilized men in being more readily aroused and more impetuous while they last, though leaving behind them but little trace of their occurrence. As regards the particular emotions which occur among the higher animals, I can affirm from my own observations that all the following give unmistakable tokens of their presence: Fear, Affection, Passionateness. Pugnacity, Jealousy, Sympathy, Pride, Reverence, Emulation, Shame, Hate, Curiosity, Revenge, Cruelty, Emotion of the Ludicrous, and Emotion of the Beautiful. Now, this list includes nearly all the human emotions, except those which refer to religion and to the perception of the sublime. These, of course, are necessarily absent in animals, because they depend upon ideas of too abstract a nature to be reached by the mind when unaided by the logic of signs. Time prevents me from here detailing any of my observations or experiments