THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



of reflection or reasoning as to which may prove the 

 more advantageous. You may see a robin exploring a 

 tree, looking for a place to build her nest; she chooses 

 this limb or that; does she therefore reason about 

 the matter? In building it she takes one straw and 

 rejects another; is she therefore arguing with herself 

 all the time? One place and one weed stalk pleases 

 her, and the other does not. That, I fancy, is all 

 there is to it. Offer a baby two different-colored balls, 

 and it will choose between them. Is this choice an 

 act of reason? 



These authors tell an interesting incident of two 

 monkeys, one of which was of an egg-eating species 

 and the other of a nut-eating species. He of the egg- 

 eating race took the first egg he had ever seen and 

 proceeded to crack it and suck out its contents, after 

 the manner of his tribe. The other one cracked his 

 egg as if it were a nut, and the inside ran out and 

 fell upon the ground. After looking at it for a mo- 

 ment in a bewildered way, he scooped it up, sand and 

 all, with his hands and swallowed it, and then ate 

 the shell also. Then the writer makes the astonishing 

 statement that this was an act of reason on the part 

 of that monkey! Instinct failed him, and reason 

 came to his aid and prompted him to devour the 

 egg ! Is it not much easier to fancy that an instinct 

 came to his aid that was much older than his special 

 nut-eating instinct the simple eating instinct 

 itself? The egg proved to be a kind of food that ap- 

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