150 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



tively young puppies, this sense must be early present, 

 and finally well developed. 



SENSE OF SUPPORT. I have found in the case of all 

 puppies, and several other kinds of animals examined, 

 that even on the first day of birth they will not creep 

 off a surface on which they rest, if elevated some little 

 distance above the ground. When they approach the 

 edge they manifest hesitation, grasp with their claws 

 or otherwise attempt to prevent themselves falling, and, 

 it may be, cry out, giving evidence of some profound 

 disturbance in their nervous system. 



It would seem that there is no more urgent psychic 

 necessity to young mammals than this sense of being 

 supported. All their ancestral experiences have been 

 associated with terra Jirma, so that it is not very sur- 

 prising that when terra fir ma seems about to be re- 

 moved they are so much disturbed. To my own mind 

 this is one of the most instructive and striking psychic 

 manifestations of young animals, though I am not aware 

 that any attention has been called to it before; and 

 instead of referring to it under any of the usual 

 divisions of sense, as the muscular sense, pressure 

 sense, etc., I prefer to treat the subject under the above 

 general heading, for it seems to me that the feeling is a 

 somewhat complex one. 



It is interesting to note that a water tortoise I have 

 had for some years will at any time walk off a surface 

 on which he is placed. But this is not a creature that 

 always is on terra firma in the same sense as a dog, but 

 it frequently has occasion to drops off logs, etc., into 

 water. But again, I find this sense of support well 

 marked in birds that drop themselves into " thin air." 

 Nevertheless, a consideration of ancestral experiences 

 throws light on most cases, and perhaps on this one 



iso. 



TASTE AND SMELL. These things are so closely 



