THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 269 



Many animals currently believed to be of high in- 

 telligence are not so. The fur seal just mentioned, for 



example, finds its way back from the 

 Intellect of the ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ thousand 



fur seal. •, , , r 



miles through a foggy and stormy sea, 



and is never too late or too early in arrival. The 

 female fur seal goes two hundred miles to her feeding 

 grounds in summer, leaving the pup on the shore. 

 After a week or two she returns to find him within a 

 few rods of the rocks where she had left him. Both 

 mother and young know each other by call and by 

 odour, and neither are ever mistaken, though ten thou- 

 sand other pups and other mothers occupy the same 

 rookery. But this is not intelligence. It is simply in- 

 stinct, because it has no element of choice in it. What- 

 ever its ancestors were forced to do the fur seal does to 

 perfection. Its instincts are perfect as clockwork, and 

 the necessities of migration must keep them so. But if 

 brought into new conditions it is dazed and stupid. It 

 can not choose when different lines of action are pre- 

 sented. 



The Bering Sea Commission once made an experi- 

 ment on the possibility of separating the young male 

 fur seals, or " killables," from the old ones in the same 

 band. The method was to drive them through a wooden 

 chute or runway with two valve-like doors at the end. 

 These animals can be driven like sheep, but to sort them 

 in the way proposed proved impossible. The most ex- 

 perienced males would beat their noses against a closed 

 door, if they had seen a seal before them pass through 

 it. That this door had been shut and another opened 

 beside it passed their comprehension. They could not 

 choose the new direction. In like manner a male fur 

 seal will watch the killing and skinning of his mates 

 with perfect composure. He will sniff at their blood 



