ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 275 



among them, has been followed by a true lunacy. 

 They look frenziedly at nothing, walk in straight and 

 curved lines, with anxious and unwearying persever- 

 ance. They fawn on you, but without seeming to 

 appreciate the notice you give them in return; push- 

 ing their heads against your person, or oscillating 

 with a strange pantomime of fear. Their most intel- 

 ligent actions seem automatic; sometimes they claw 

 you as if trying to burrow into your seal skins; some- 

 times they remain for hours in moody silence, and 

 then start oif howling as if pursued, and run up and 

 down for hours. So it was with poor Flora, our 

 'wise dog.' She was seized with the endemic spasms, 

 and after a few days of violent paroxysms, lapsed into 

 a lethargic condition, eating voraciously, but gaining 

 no strength. This passing off, the same crazy wild- 

 ness took possession of her, and she died of brain 

 disease (arachnoidal effusion) in about six weeks.''^ 



This account is so full and specific that it needs no 

 comment. Such a case of lunacy was only needed 

 to complete the analogy which seems to be sustained 

 in every other of the more common manifestations o± 

 the animal and of the human mind. 



From the foregoing but most incomplete and im- 

 perfect consideration of some of the branches of the 

 subject of Animal Psychology, it would be venture- 

 some to urge any other than the more simple conclu- 

 sions. Two or three only will be suggested. 



In the first place, the term "instinct," to explain 

 the intelligent acts of animals, should be abandoned. 

 This term was an invention of the metaphysicians to 



^ Arctic Explorations, i. 157. 



