262 Studies in Animal Behavior 



acteristic of her species cannot be stated with any 

 assurance. 



As I have remarked in another work, "We are 

 apt to overestimate the importance of the ability 

 to reason as if it were the chief thing of value in 

 intelligent behavior. There are other mental traits 

 which may enable an animal to get what it wants 

 better than an increment of reasoning power. Gen- 

 eral activity, power of attention, interest, quickness 

 of forming associations, delicacy of discrimination, 

 duration of memory, and the ability to form com- 

 plex associations are all of the utmost importance 

 in many situations of an animal's life. . . . Give 

 a fox greater power of inferential thinking, but de- 

 crease his alertness, curiosity, suspiciousness, and 

 quickness of perception, and he might fall a victim 

 to the hunter while his mind was employed on some 

 other subject." Possibly more intelligence of the 

 human sort would have been a positive drawback 

 under the conditions of Lizzie's natural environ- 

 ment. 



