CHAPTER IV. 



SECRETIVENESS. 



ANIMALS in a state of nature are endowed with certain 

 protective instincts to a degree which might often tempt 

 us to believe in the existence of a " sixth sense :" the 

 clairvoyance of bats, for instance, and the topographical 

 second-sight of migratory birds seem almost too mar- 

 vellous for any less mystic theory. But the specific 

 purpose of such instincts, and their great variety in 

 degree as well as in kind, make it more probable that 

 in stress of circumstances any one of the more or less 

 rudimentary faculties which the lowest animals share 

 with the highest is capable of an almost infinite develop- 

 ment. The necessity of pursuing its prey under water 

 has taught the dap-chick to find insects at the bottom 

 of a muddy creek. The exigencies which compel a 

 nursing she-wolf to return by the shortest route from 

 a hunting-expedition in a distant mountain-range have 

 perhaps endowed the ancestors of the genus Canis with 

 that marvellous faculty of direction ; and the defensive 

 warfare of many animals against an enemy of superior 

 strength may have developed their instinct of caution 

 to the degree which enables them to hold their own 



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