iv] MENTAL POWERS OF SPIDERS 21 



reality no proof whatever. The power to spin such a 

 complicated snare as we have just described predis- 

 poses us to attribute a high order of intelligence to 

 a creature capable of such an achievement, and when 

 it " shams death " on being disturbed we immediately 

 pronounce it "cunning." The wildest conclusions 

 are sometimes arrived at. One author, for instance, 

 states that he has seen an Attid spider "instructing 

 its young ones how to hunt ' and adds that " when- 

 ever an old one missed its leap, it would run from the 

 place and hide itself in some crevice as if ashamed of 

 its mismanagement." Such inferences, of course, were 

 entirely unwarranted from the facts observed. Now 

 the fact that a newly-hatched garden-spider can make 

 a complete snare without ever having seen the oper- 

 ation performed immediately relegates that action 

 to the realm of instinct, not less wonderful than 

 intelligence perhaps, but certainly quite distinct from 

 it. With the much discussed origin of instinct we 

 are not here concerned, but a pure instinct differs 

 from intelligence in this : that it is due to inherited 

 nervous mechanism and results in actions the object 

 of which may be quite unknown to the actors. 

 There is no conscious adaptation of means to an end. 

 When a young spider spins a web there is not only 

 no evidence that it does so with the deliberate pur- 

 pose of catching flies, but many known facts go to 

 prove that it performs the feat, " because it feels as 



