354 Mr. French's Inquiry concerning Instinct. 



velocity of the Ostrich, in an onward course through the briny flood, 

 and render pursuit unavailing. Instead, however, of repelling the 

 attack, it generally dives to an immense depth, where, under a 

 pressure often exceeding 200,000 tons upon its body, it becomes 

 so exhausted, that, on its return to the surface of the sea, it be- 

 comes an easy prey. " The conduct of the Whale, in this respect," 

 as Mr. Scoresby observes, " intimates, that the instinctive faculty 

 generally possessed by the lower animals, and employed for the 

 purpose of self-preservation, directs it to descend to the depths of 

 the ocean for escaping its natural enemies in the same element, 

 and it further intimates, that, whatever these enemies may consist 

 of, whether Sword-fish, Thrashers, or Sharks, since it avoids them 

 by this means, it must be able to descend lower, and to sustain a 

 greater degree of pressure from the superincumbent water, than 

 any of the animals that are in the habit of attacking it."* The 

 Balcena Physalis^ L., which inhabits , the same seas, is seldom 

 attempted by the northern Avhalers, in consequence of its rapid 

 flight when attacked giving little chance of success. + Why is not 

 the sagacity of the former species sharpened by the persecution of 

 man, so as to enable it to pursue the same means of self-preservation 

 so successfully practised by the latter ? We have seen in the case 

 of the Fox, when placed under circumstances rendering him more 

 liable to the attacks of man, such a variation of sagacity as might 

 perhaps be attributed by some to an increase of intelligence, but 

 there is in the case now cited, every reason in favour of a similar 

 increase of any supposed intelligence on the part of the Whale : a 

 plain proof that proper intelligence is predicable of neither the 

 one nor the other, and that their perceptions are governed by 

 final causes : — the like is illustrated in the case of the Flamingos, 

 hereafter adverted to; who, though very stupid, on the first ap- 

 proach of human beings to their haunts, had subsequently a per- 

 ception awakened which enabled them to appoint a sentinel to 

 warn them of danger on the approach of men. The Whale then 

 bas no intelligence to assist him in his necessity ; it therefore is 

 to be presumed, that neither were the Foxes nor the Flamingos 

 assisted by intelligence properly their own; but by perception. 



* Scoresby's Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery, p. 134-5. 

 + Ibid. p. 420. 



