PuRNELL. — On the Anhnal Mind m Organic Evolution. 247 



active, the constant strain in each case tending to develope 

 and strengthen those physical characteristics which best tend 

 to the animal's preservation. There is thus an unceasing 

 reciprocal action going on between the intelligence of animals 

 which either associate together or are frequently brought into 

 contact as enemies. 



It is the intelligence of animals which has led them to 

 associate together in communities, often very large, by means 

 of which they afford mutual aid against enemies, and also 

 enjoy social intercourse. The latter, indeed, is probably 

 quite as much the cause of the formation of animal com- 

 munities as the former. The American bison, or bufl'alo, 

 formerly roamed North America in herds containing millions, 

 yet it was itself the strongest and fiercest animal on the 

 continent, and even had it required to combine for purposes of 

 defence much smaller herds would have sufficed for the pur- 

 pose. But whatever may have been the original cause of the 

 formation of these vast herds, it was the mental principle in 

 the bison which brought them about, and these irresistible 

 combinations exercised a vast influence over the destiny of 

 the bison, and might have endured for untold ages but for the 

 advent of civilised man, anned with his deadly weapons of de- 

 struction, against which the bison's intelligence was powerless. 

 Another animal formerly found in large numbers in North 

 America— the beaver — also illustrates my argument. The 

 beaver's social disposition and remarkable engineering capa- 

 bilities have resulted in its bodily structure becoming emi- 

 nently fitted for their exercise. 



Animals which have a wide range will always be found to 

 be intelligent. The sagacious elephant inhabits a large part 

 of Africa, Southern Asia, and the Malay Archipelago, while 

 extinct species of the race were dispersed over a much more 

 extensive area of the earth's surface. The jaguar is one of 

 the most intelligent of the larger beasts of prey, and its range 

 in America extends from Patagonia to Texas. According to 

 Wallace ("Travels to the Amazons," p. 316), "The jaguar, 

 say the Indians, is the most cunning animal in the forest ; 

 he can imitate the voice of almost every bird and animal so 

 exactly as to draw them towards him ; he fishes in the rivers, 

 lashing the water with his tail to imitate falling fruit, and 

 when the fish approach hooks them up with his claws. He 

 catches and eats turtles, and I have myself found the un- 

 broken shells, which he has cleaned completely out with his 

 paws ; he even attacks the cow-fish in its own element, and 

 an eye-witness assured me he had watched one dragging out 

 of the water this bulky animal, weighing as much as a large 

 ox." Taking the elephant and jaguar as types of intelligent 

 animals of the larger kind, the rat, and especially the Norway 



