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HARD WICKE ' S S CIE NCE - G OSS J P. 



will answer his purpose. Varnish, of which I have 

 tried many kinds, does not give a satisfactory result ; 

 and besides, destroys the natural appearance of the 

 egg. I never use varnish now, but find that I can 

 preserve the colours of nearly all eggs by taking care, 

 when blowing them, not to allow any moisture to 

 touch the outside of the shell ; and when drying, 

 before placing them in the cabinet, I carefully keep 

 them from the light, for most eggs when newly blown, 

 more especially those of a blue or greenish colour, 

 and many of the hawk's fade more during a few days' 

 exposure to the light, than they would in as many 

 months when placed in the cabinet. Light should 

 also be carefully excluded from the specimens in 

 the collection. I have had few "faded" eggs since 

 I adopted the above plan, six or seven years ago. — 

 P. Standen, Goosnargh, Preston. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals. — The 

 settlement of the question raised by Mr. H. D. Bar- 

 clay in the January number as to intelligence in men 

 and animals, depends very much on what we consider 

 to be the precise nature or manner of the reasoning 

 process. As to this point there is a dispute amongst 

 philosophers. One school holds that all deductive 

 reasoning is from general propositions to particular 

 ones, whereas J. S. Mill and his followers maintain 

 that "all inference is from particulars to particulars," 

 and on that account, "the lower animals profit by 

 experience, and avoid what they have found to cause 

 them pain in the same manner, though not always 

 with the same skill, as a human creature. Not only 

 the burnt child, but the burnt dog dreads the fire." 

 As we have no evidence that animals can form general 

 propositions, if we adopt the latter view, then it must 

 be admitted that animals can reason as competently 

 as man can. If, on the other hand, the former 

 doctrine be adopted, then the seeming reasoning of 

 the lower animals can be explained as a simple pro- 

 cess of association. "Animals are led, not by a 

 concatenated train of discovered relations, but by 

 mere impulse, i.e., by the suggestion which comes up 

 according to the law of co-existence." Mr. H. C. 

 Rogers asks, "If an animal does precisely the same 

 thing that a man would do under certain circum- 

 stances,' are we not justified in concluding that animal 

 and man are moved by the same power ? " If 

 "power " here means motive, then I do not think we 

 should be justified in forming any such conclusion. 

 Besides, it is impossible for us to know the full and 

 precise "circumstances" under which any animal 

 acts. Again, memory is an act of intellect, but cer- 

 tainly not an act of reasoning in the sense of inferring 

 one proposition from another. As regards the affec- 

 tion of the dog, it is very probable that there is more 

 of selfishness therein than is commonly supposed. 

 That the dog likes his master for the latter's own 

 sake can scarcely be supposed. The fact seems to 

 be, that this animal is possessed of an irrepressible 

 prodigality of life-energy, and any source of the 

 gratification or exercise of that liveliness is of course 

 exceedingly prized by him ; and hence when the 

 master dies, the fountain of this life and energy is 

 stopped ; " the very source of it is stopped," a 

 circumstance amply sufficient to induce a serious 

 revulsion of feeling, and an unwonted peculiarity of 

 action. With regard to the wonderful feats per- 

 formed by animals, Dr. Carpenter has, it seems to 

 me, conclusively shown that these are merely me- 

 chanical, the result of the animal organism "growing 

 to the way in which it has been habitually exercised." 

 Finally, the view that the reason of man is only 

 developed instinct, has been seriously disputed by 

 men of the highest culture, ability, and sanity. Man 



seems to have the faculty of forming certain notions, 

 (such as moral good, the fair, the sublime, God, &c), 

 and a power of anticipating the future, &c, which it 

 would be difficult to prove were ever acquired, or 

 could possibly be acquired by a mere process of 

 development. The average cranial capacity of an- 

 thropoid apes and of man, savage or civilized (viz. 

 10 to 26 or 32), exhibits a proportion which is alto- 

 gether inexplicable on the supposition that man's 

 brain is a lineal descendant of that of some pre-his- 

 toric ape, monkey, or baboon. — P. Q. Keegan, LL.D, 



Intelligence in Animals. — Your 'correspondent,. 

 Mr. A. C. Rogers, quotes my words correctly, viz. : — 

 "The great difficulty in the investigation of the 

 minds of animals appears to be that man instinctively 

 and unconsciously, unless checked by reflection, ex- 

 plains their actions, especially in extraordinary cases, 

 by his own modes and laws of thought," but when 

 he asks "will Mr. Barclay kindly inform us how else 

 we are to explain their actions if we are not to use 

 our own modes and laws of thought," he appears to 

 have misunderstood my meaning. Certainly we must 

 use our own laws of thought ; most of us do not use 

 them sufficiently. I will illustrate my meaning by 

 considering the questions he puts. Is it simply instinct 

 that induces a dog to starve itself to death on the 

 grave of its master ? or risk its life unbidden to save 

 that of a helpless child 1 In my last letter I defined 

 reason as the power to draw a conclusion from pre- 

 mises. Now, touching as the death of a dog on the 

 grave of its master is, I can see in it no act of reason, 

 but should rather conclude it indicated the absence 

 of the faculty, neither can I perceive any act of 

 reason in a dog leaping into the water unbidden to 

 save a child, which he may do precisely in the same 

 manner as he would jump after a stick which I have 

 also seen a dog do unbidden. A man who could 

 swim and declined to rescue a child from the water 

 would be justly blamed, but who could blame a dog 

 if it remained barking on the bank ? It is beyond 

 dispute that animals have some intelligence and 

 memory, but what I question is their power of 

 reasoning, which is the root of man's civilisation and 

 makes him a responsible being. It is a distinct 

 faculty, and unless animals were originally endowed 

 with it, that it should be developed by training as 

 some maintain, appears to me simply incredible, and 

 I have never yet read an anecdote that convinced me 

 they are possessed of it. Since writing my first letter 

 I have seen a book, "Thirty Years among Wild 

 Beasts in India ; " the author's remark on the intelli- 

 gence of elephant and the popular opinions thereon 

 confirm my view of the question. — H. D. Barclay. 



A Curious Crustacean. — Some years ago I was- 

 passing by a large stagnant pool, when my attention 

 was arrested by a curious creature just beneath the 

 surface of the water, which after some trouble I suc- 

 ceeded in capturing. As I have never read of any 

 fresh-water inhabitant resembling it, I thought some 

 of your correspondents might be able to inform me 

 what it was. As nearly as I can recollect, it closely 

 resembled the common green crab of the seashore,, 

 excepting that its " legs " were longer and thinner, 

 and the carapace was circular and serrated at the 

 edges. I brought it home in safety, but whilst I 

 went for the necessary appliances for the examination, 

 it mysteriously disappeared. Subsequently I dis- 

 covered another and smaller one, which was also> 

 lost by an accident before I could study it. The 

 locality whese these crustaceans (?) were found, was 

 in the middle of Berkshire, in a large pond close to> 

 a wood. The month was July. The creatures were 



