222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gun with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged 

 the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the gun 

 was separated from the bait by a distance of about twenty yards, and 

 the string which connected the trigger with the bait was concealed 

 throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow. The gun-trap thus 

 set was successful in killing one fox, but not in killing a second ; for 

 the foxes afterward adopted either of two devices whereby to secure 

 the bait without injuring themselves. One of these devices was to bite 

 through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other 

 device was to burrow up to the bait through the snow at right angles 

 to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the 

 gun, th&y escaped without injury — the bait being pulled below the line 

 of fire before the string was drawn sufficiently tight to discharge the 

 gun. Now, both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what 

 I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I have carefully in- 

 terrogated Dr. Rae on all the circumstances of the case, and he tells 

 me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings, so 

 that there can have been no special association in the foxes' minds 

 between strings and traps. Moreover, after the death of fox number 

 one, the track on the snow showed that fox number two, notwithstand- 

 ing the temptation offered by the bait, had expended a great deal of 

 scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to sever the cord. 

 Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire. Dr. 

 Rae and a friend in whom he has confidence observed the fact a suffi- 

 cient number of times to satisfy themselves that the direction of the 

 burrowing was really to be attributed to thovight and not to chance. 



I could give several other unequivocal instances of reasoning on 

 the part of animals which I have myself observed ; but time does not 

 permit of my stating them. Passing on, therefore, to the emotional 

 life of animals, we find that this is very slightly, if at all, developed in 

 the lower orders, but remarkably well developed in the higher ; that is 

 to say, the emotions are vivid and easily excited, although they are 

 shallow and evanescent. They thus differ from those of most civilized 

 men in being more readily aroused and more impetuous while they last, 

 though leaving behind them but little trace of their occurrence. As 

 regards the particular emotions which occur among the higher animals, 

 I can affirm from my own observations that all the following give 

 unmistakable tokens of their presence : Fear, Affection, Passionate- 

 ness. Pugnacity, Jealousy, Sympathy, Pride, Reverence, Emulation, 

 Shame, Hate, Curiosity, Revenge, Cruelty, Emotion of the Ludicrous, 

 and Emotion of the Beautiful. Now, this list includes nearly all the 

 human emotions, except those which refer to religion and to the percep- 

 tion of the sublime. These, of course, are necessarily absent in ani- 

 mals, because they depend upon ideas of too abstract a nature to be 

 reached by the mind when unaided by the logic of signs. Time pre- 

 vents me from here detailing any of my observations or experiments 



