THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



skill of the bird in building its nest, and caring for 

 its young? 



The laboratory investigator has animal behavior 

 more in a nutshell, and for that very reason is cut 

 off from all perspective, all total effects. He cannot 

 reconstruct a complete dog or cat or monkey out of 

 his laboratory analyses without aid from free obser- 

 vation outside. He could learn very little about a col- 

 lie dog, or a setter dog, in his laboratory that would 

 enable him to infer all the capacities of those crea- 

 tures, any more than he could of a man. Indeed, he 

 would fare better with a man, because he could 

 probe his mentality, his power of thought, though 

 not his power of action. The animal acts, it does 

 not think; and to test its power of action is harder 

 than to test a man's thinking capacity. 



In leading their own unrestrained lives there often 

 is, among both wild and domesticated animals, some- 

 thing, some resourcefulness in meeting a new condi- 

 tion, some change of habit, some adaptation of new 

 means to an old end, or old means to a new end, that 

 looks, at least, like a gleam of free intelligence, or an 

 attribute of true mind : as when a chipmunk cuts a 

 groove in the side of a hole he is digging, so as to 

 get out a stone he has struck, and then fills up the 

 groove; or when a monkey selects a straw from the 

 floor of his cage to poke an insect out of a crack in 

 the side; or when wolves combine to run down a 

 deer or a hare by relays; or a pointer dog, of his own 

 182 



