HIT-AND-MISS METHOD OF NATURE 



wire screen, clawing, biting, and leaving no clue un- 

 tried. This random trial-and-error course finally 

 results in the proper means of reaching the food 

 being hit upon. The child learns in the same hit- 

 and-miss method, and we children of larger growth 

 learn many things in the same way. We try, try, 

 and try again, always profiting by our failures. 



I saw Nature at her hit-and-miss method the 

 other day when I saw a young but fully grown and 

 half-tamed sparrow hawk try to release itself from 

 the string by which it was held, and which had be- 

 come much tangled about the foot. He picked and 

 pulled at it blindly of course. If he persists long 

 enough, I said, he will succeed; he will finally hit 

 the loop that is the key to the whole tangle, and 

 the string will fall free ; which turned out to be the 

 case. He made many ineffectual efforts, but after 

 a time his trial-and-error process brought him the 

 release he was striving for. The intelligence of the 

 hawk, if we may call it such, showed itself in re- 

 cognizing the fact that its movements were im- 

 peded by the tangled string, and that he might im- 

 prove the situation. Of course it had no rational 

 mental process about the matter, but obeyed the 

 blind instinctive impulse to free itself from the 

 string that held it. 



The great continental ice-sheet in late Tertiary 

 times drove all animal and plant life toward the 

 Equator; when the ice-sheet retreated, the plants 

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