Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 106.djvu/633

Rh fore they had any true understanding of its principle. I do not believe that any of the orders below man grasp principles at all, though they may apply a principle in their act. The beaver applies the principle of the dam to the creek where he locates his house, but to say that he works from an intellectual conception of that principle, I think, would be to lift him to the human plane at once. The swallow, and the robin, and the phœbe-bird, all act upon the principle that mud will adhere to a rough surface, and that it will harden; shall we, therefore, credit them with a knowledge of the properties of mud? However, I freely admit that the act of the chimpanzee was of a higher order than the swallow's use of mud in sticking its nest to a rough surface. Its superior intelligence is seen in its purposeful use of a tool, an object in no wise related to itself, to bring about a definite end; just as another monkey, of which Mr. Hornaday speaks, did in using a stick to punch a banana out of a pipe.

I do not agree with those who urge that an animal, such as the beaver, for instance, gives proof of its gift of reason when it amputates its leg in order to escape from a trap. I dissent from it for several reasons. Animals apparently much lower in the scale of intelligence than the beaver, such as the musk-rat and the skunk, will do the same thing; and animals much higher, such as the dog, the fox, the wolf, will not do it. Indeed it has been found that an all but brainless animal, like the star-fish, will do it. In order to get free of a piece of rubber-tubing placed over one of its arms, the star-fish has, after exhausting other expedients, been known to amputate the arm. Hence, I infer that the beaver, caught in a trap, does not reason about it, and 'reach the conclusion that he must inflict upon himself the pain of amputating his foot.' He only shows the promptings of a very old and universal instinct, the instinct of self-preservation.

Every creature, little and big, that has powers of locomotion, struggles against that which would forcibly hold it, or which opposes it. A cricket or a grasshopper will leave a leg in your hand in order to escape. Try forcibly to retain the paw of your dog, or your cat, and see how it will struggle to be free. A four-footed animal caught in a trap is filled with rage and pain; it bites at everything within reach, the bushes, the logs, the rocks; of course it bites the trap, but upon the steel its teeth make no impression. If the animal is small, the part of the foot that protrudes on the inside of the jaws of the trap soon becomes numb and dead or frozen, and is gnawed off. The leg above the trap may become frozen and senseless, and the amputation of it give little pain. Trappers tell us that bears often resort to all manner of devices to get rid of the trap, some of which seem very intelligent, as for instance, when one climbs a tree, and getting the trap fast amid the branches, brings its weight to bear upon it, thus calling in the aid of gravity. But I would no sooner think that such behavior on the part of the bear was the result of a reasoning process a knowledge of the force of gravity than I would attribute reason to a tree because it tries to assume the perpendicular, or to clouds because they soar aloft in order to let down the rain. The bear is doing his best to get his paw out of the jaws of the trap, and in his blind fury and desperation he climbs a tree and tries to detach the trap there, but only succeeds in getting it fast, when, as a matter of course, he drops down and pulls out. He could have pulled his own weight and more upon the ground had he got the trap fast. The trapper's hope is that he will not get it fast.