THE ANIMAL AND THE PUZZLE-BOX 



of which the laboratory naturalist could get no 

 inkling. 



The laboratory study of the animal mind is within 

 its proper limits worthy of all respect, but you can 

 no more get at a complete animal psychology by 

 this method than you can get at the beauty and 

 character and natural history of a tree by studying 

 a cross section of its trunk or of one of its branches. 

 You may get at the anatomy and cell-structure of 

 the tree by this means, but will not the real tree 

 escape you? A little may be learned of the science 

 of animal behavior in the laboratory, but the main, 

 the illuminating things can be learned only from ob- 

 servation of the free animal. 



I fear that the experimenters unduly exalt their 

 office. The open-air naturalist arrives at most of 

 their results, and by a much more enjoyable and 

 picturesque route. Without all their pother and ap^ 

 pliances and tiresome calculations, he arrives at a 

 clear conception of the springs of animal behavior. 

 The indoor investigator usually experiments with 

 domestic animals, animals that have been much 

 changed and humanized by ages of association with 

 man, such as the ,cat and the dog. What important 

 addition has he made, or can he make, to our knowl- 

 edge of these animals? He has learned that the dog 

 is probably color-blind, which one might have eas- 

 ily inferred, since the color-sense could be of little 

 use to the dog, or to any other quadruped. A power 

 191 



