242 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CiiAr. Ml. 



ness and stupidity are common enough amongst animals 

 usually reckoned as the most intelligent. Mr. Darwin 

 mentions,* as one proof of the existence of sympathy in 

 brutes (which no one denies), the familiar fact of a dog flying 

 at his master s enemy. But in a sudden scuffle it is by no 

 means unprecedented for a dog to fly at his own master. 

 After all that author s wonderful tales about the rationality 

 of crabs and snails it is interesting to read the following ad 

 mission. He tells us,t on the authority of Mr. Harrison 

 Weir, that if a pair of birds &quot; which would naturally remain 

 mated for life be separated for a few weeks during the winter 

 and matched with other birds, the two when brought together 

 again rarely, if ever, recognise each other.&quot; 



But what dog, though he has seen fuel put upon fires 

 again and again, ever puts on any himself to maintain the 

 heat he so greatly enjoys ? 



Many readers may have had a pet cat who has now and 

 again got a fish or chicken bone fixed between its back-teeth. 

 The useless motions the animal makes with its paw are suffi 

 ciently irrational ; but although the accident may have re 

 curred again and again it will make the same struggles 

 against the removal, by its master, of the object which 

 distresses it, while as soon as it is removed the animal will 

 go off, licking its jaws, without a sign of gratitude for the 

 relief afforded. But even that animal reputed the wisest, the 

 elephant, has, quite recently, in our Zoological Gardens, 

 given proof of extreme stupidity in actually pulling off the 

 end of its own trunk (which had got caught in a cord), 

 instead of waiting till aid came or calling for succour and 

 assistance before the injury instead of clamouring after it. 



It would be easy to multiply instances of conduct, in 

 animals of all the better-known classes, which if fairly con 

 sidered are enough to prove the distinction in quality 

 between the form or force which energizes in each animal 

 and that which we know to exist in ourselves. 



* Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 77. t Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 109. 



