6 Psychological Distinctions 



known, when hunted, to crouch exposed upon a rock of 

 nearly its own colour, in the midst of a river, and so to evade 

 detection by its pursuers ; and we perpetually hear such cases 

 brought forward as decisive proofs of its extreme sagacity. 

 However, as regards the latter instance, will not a brood of 

 newly hatched partridges instantly cower and squat motion- 

 less at sight of a foe*? and, as concerns the former, do 

 we not find that many beetles, though just emerged from the 

 pupa state, will simulate death every bit as cleverly as a fox 

 or corn-crake ? Whence it surely follows that there can be 

 no occasion to attribute the act to a reasoning process in the 

 one animal, any more than in the other. 



It would be unnecessary to enter here into any details on 

 the obvious correlativeness of the dominant instincts of ani- 

 mals to the mode of life most congenial to their constitution, 

 to remark on the mutual relations of habit and structure, and 

 the exquisite adaptation of structure to locality. Hence, the 

 natural habits of species of necessity bear reference to their 

 indigenous haunts, as manifestly as their structural conforma- 

 tion. Thus, the elephant, which, like the other great Pachy- 

 dermata, affects the vicinity of rivers and marshes, delights 

 to relax its rigid hide in the stream ; and afterwards covers it 

 with a thick plastering of mud, probably to retard its too 

 rapid desiccation : the which has been deemed an incontro- 

 vertible proof of its reasoning from observation. A young 

 robin, however, the first time that it sees water, will, if it be 

 not too deep, fearlessly plunge in and wash; and a young 

 wren or lark will avail itself of the earliest opportunity to 

 dust its feathers on the ground, the exact purport of which 

 is not yet definitely understood. If, therefore, the latter be 

 thus obviously instinctive, what reason have we to esteem the 

 former otherwise? The uniformity of all these habits and 

 propensities, in creatures of the same species, tends rather to 

 intimate that in neither case are they the result of reasoning. 



To infer reflection on the part of brutes, as many have not 

 scrupled to do, as the motive for whatever in human actions 

 could only be the result of reasoning, one would imagine to 

 be too palpable a misapprehension to need serious considera- 

 tion ; yet some writers have gone so far as to attribute fore- 

 thought to the dormouse, and other species which provide 



* I have noticed a remarkable instance of this, on placing down a 

 stuffed polecat before a young brood, tended by a bantam hen. A rail or 

 gallinule will also run towards a bank approximating to their own colour; 

 and, if no hiding-place be discoverable, will insert the head into a crevice, 

 and, remaining motionless, suffer themselves to be taken. Of this 1 have 

 known many instances. 



