December, 1896. CUNNING IN ANIMALS. 381 



Further, I venture to say that the custom of regarding the causes 

 of animals' actions as simply elementary forms of human mental 

 action has given rise to much confusion. It is much more difficult 

 than at first sight may be supposed, to comprehend to even a 

 limited extent such actions of lower animals as are controlled 

 by senses the keenness of which we cannot know. When the 

 fox, by the power of his senses, becomes aware of the presence 

 of hounds, the immediate effort towards self-preservation is probably 

 a compound of two pure instincts, viz., that of fear and that 

 of self-defence. Thereafter his actions become voluntary, and 

 are frequently guided by a high degree of intelligence and cunning. 

 But the fox, when hard pressed, does not revert to native 

 instinct in a desperate effort to combat his pursuers. His in- 

 telligence rather prompts him to more and more clever stratagems. 

 Darwin (" Descent of Man," p. 80) refers to animals becoming more 

 sagacious in localities where they are hunted, and considers 

 that they do so largely through observing the experiences of 

 other animals. Young animals can be trapped more readily than old 

 ones, and they are less wary at the approach of man. " Even with 

 respect to old animals," he says, " it is impossible to catch many in the 

 same place and in the same kind of trap, or to destroy them with the 

 same kind of poison ; yet it is improbable that all should have partaken 

 of the poison, and impossible that all should have been caught in a 

 trap." Leroy, who was Ranger at Versailles, and has written largely 

 on these matters, states that in districts where foxes are much 

 hunted, the young cubs are much more wary than are even the old 

 foxes in districts where no hunting is practised.^ Rae also (" Animal 

 Intelligence," p. 430)- has described how Arctic foxes become sus- 

 picious of gun traps, and how they manage to steal the baits by 

 gnawing through the string attached to the trigger, or by tunnelling in 

 the snow across the line of fire and drawing the bait downwards. 

 Dr. Rae ascribes these clever devices to " abstract reasoning," but 

 Lloyd Morgan points out, as Darwin might also have done, that they 

 occur only after one or two foxes have been shot, and therefore a 

 certain amount of experience gained through observation. Traps 

 set at the mouths of fox ' earths ' are also avoided by cunning. Leroy 

 explains this in characteristic language. He says that the fox " smells 

 the iron of the trap, and this sensation has become so terrible to him, 

 that it prevails over every other." He then refers to the length of 

 time a fox will remain in an earth, the entrance or entrances of which 

 are guarded by traps, and how he will dig his way out in a new 

 direction to avoid this terrifying smell of iron. Further, he states 

 that if a rabbit runs from the earth in which the fox is concealed, and 

 is caught by the trap, the fox " infers that the machine has done its 

 duty, and walks boldly and securely over it." Romanes quotes 



1 " Lettres Phil, sur 1' Intelligence des Animaux," 1802, p. 86. 



2 See also Lloyd Morgan, " Animal Life and Intelligence," p. 366. 



