VI INSTINCT AND INTELIIGENCE 231 



would necessarily become liereditary, simply because, as a 

 result of this indifference, a whole series of the animal's 

 faculties must suffer decay — partly as a direct consequence 

 of the disuse of organs, partly in consequence of the cessation 

 of natural selection. But since the latter must be always 

 of less importance in confinement, the action of the former 

 cause, as further considerations will show, would chiefly 

 determine the degeneration. Finally, the Axolotls, simply 

 through disuse of their organs, would, like the workers of 

 Polyergus rufescens, reach a condition in which they would 

 be incapable of taking food in any other way than by being 

 fed with the hand. 



Particular Instances of Intelligence and Eeason in 



Animals 



I cannot by any means recognise as instinct all that in the 

 preceding has been so described, especially what was referred 

 to as the instinct of fear, or what was mentioned by me 

 in discussing the nature of instinct. When starlings and 

 pigeons remained undisturbed on the roof from which I brought 

 down a crow with my gun, when certain birds recognise me 

 in the garden as a friend, others as a foe, that is not instinct, 

 but intelligence ; for in comparatively short time the creatures 

 drew from the facts certain conclusions respecting me, and 

 behaved accordingly. Among all the facts I have men- 

 tioned, that which shows most clearly the exercise of in- 

 telligence is, that the same migratory birds which in Europe 

 in consequence of their experience are most shy of man, in 

 Africa, whither they go in winter, and where they are not 

 pursued, are quite tame. It is certain that on the northern 

 coasts also birds, ducks for instance, which are in many places 

 protected there for the sake of their eggs, as in Ptottum, 

 distinguish between friendly and hostile shores. The eider- 



