DO ANIMALS THINK AND REFLECT? 



instinct. The act shows intelligence, that is, it 

 adapts means to an end, but it is not like human 

 or individual intelligence, which adapts new means 

 to old ends, or old means to new ends, and which 

 springs up on the occasion. Jays and chickadees 

 hold the nut or seed they would peck under the foot, 

 but the nuthatch makes a vise to hold it of the bark 

 of the tree, and one act is just as intelligent as the 

 other; both are the promptings of instinct. But 

 when man makes a vise, or a wedge, or a bootjack, 

 he uses his individual intelligence. When the jay 

 carries away the corn you put out in winter and 

 hides it in old worms nests and knot-holes and 

 crevices in trees, he is obeying the instinct of all 

 his tribe to pilfer and hide things, an instinct 

 that plays its part in the economy of nature, as by 

 its means many acorns and chestnuts get planted 

 and large seeds widely disseminated. By this greed 

 of the jay the wingless nuts take flight, oaks are 

 planted amid the pines, and chestnuts amid the 

 hemlocks. 



Speaking of nuts reminds me of an incident I 

 read of the deer or white-footed mouse an in 

 cident that throws light on the limitation of animal 

 intelligence. The writer gave the mouse hickory- 

 nuts, which it attempted to cariy through a crack 

 between the laths in the kitchen wall. The nuts 

 were too large to go through the crack. The mouse 

 would try to push them through ; failing in that, he 

 163 



