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 in 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 following 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 



