THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ANIMALS 245 
After a mouth the psychic differences are slight, and 
at maturity they are physically much alike, though the 
rabbit is probably somewhat higher in the scale. 
In the one case the development of body, correlated 
with a certain psychic status and some peculiarities, 
takes place im utero, in the other case after birth, and 
that this contrast should be manifest among creatures 
in many respects so closely allied, both physically and 
psychically, is especially instructive. 
Some excellent observations on the cavy will be 
found in Prof. Preyer’s “The Mind of the Child.” 
General Conclusions. 
The investigations on the rabbit and the cavy 
illustrate sharp contrasts at birth, and for some time 
after, in animals that, in mature life, have much in 
common, both physically and psychically. 
The cavy, soon after birth, is able to care for itself, 
and can maintain an independent existence. 
The rabbit at birth is blind, deaf, incapable of any 
considerable locomotive power, and is, generally speak- 
ing, in a perfectly helpless condition. 
But this creature attains to a condition of comparative 
maturity, physical and psychic, within a month, so that 
it is then quite capable of caring, in all respects, for 
itself. All its instincts, except the sexual, are in full 
development about this time or soon after. 
In both the rabbit and the cavy, so simple is their 
psychic life, that there is little to note by way of 
advance after they are a few weeks old.* 
* The foilowing account, by Mr T. Mann Jones, shows that under 
special circumstances the rabbit may show not a little intelligence and 
‘*character” : ‘‘ In consequence of the difference I noted in ability 
and character as between young and old rats, when I was a boy, in 
1862, I procured eight young rabbits, so soon as they could really do 
without the mother. Within a couple of months I saw that the 
