Hanging Nest of the Baltimore Oriole Great
Hanging Nests of the Crested Cacique
"Rajah," the Actor Orang-Utan
Thumb-Print of an Orang-Utan
The Lever That Our Orang-Utan Invented
Portrait of a High-Caste Chimpanzee
The Gorilla With the Wonderful Mind
Tame Elephants Assisting in Tying a Wild Captive
Wild Bears Quickly Recognize
Protection Alaskan Brown Bear,
"Ivan," Begging for Food
The Mystery of Death
The Steady-Nerved and Courageous Mountain Goat
Fortress of an Arizona Pack-Rat
Wild Chipmunks Respond to Man's Protection
An Opossum Feigning Death
Migration of the Golden Plover. (Map)
Remarkable Village Nests of the Sociable Weaver Bird
Spotted Bower-Bird, at Work on Its Unfinished Bower Hawk-Proof
Nest of a Cactus Wren
A Peace Conference With an Arizona Rattlesnake
Work Elephant Dragging a Hewn Timber The Wrestling Bear,
"Christian," and His Partner
Adult Bears at Play
Primitive Penguins on the Antarctic Continent, Unafraid of Man
Richard W. Rock and His Buffalo Murderer
"Black Beauty" Murdering "Apache"
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 assume 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 surpass 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 entitled to smile tolerantly upon the cheerful assumptions of ten years ago.
But let it not at any time be assumed that we are destitute 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