The Minds of Animals 



But this dictum ot our paterfamilias is often surpassed 

 by that of the visitor who, seeing above the cage the 

 words " Hast African Rhinoceros," jumps at once to the 

 conclusion that it is a case of two small rhinoceroses with 

 their old mother ! There is no reason for this observer 

 to suppose that a young rhinoceros does not look like 

 a goat ! 



Whoever may doubt the truth of this should convince 

 himself by questioning the keeper of the rhinoceros in the 

 Zoological Gardens in Berlin. 



You will generally gather from books that the 

 rhinoceros is a dull and unintelligent animal. Dull and 

 unintelligent he is undoubtedly from a merely human 

 standpoint ; but he should, of course, be regarded in quite 

 another light, and would then be found to be gifted with a 

 specially directed intelligence of a very highly developed 

 kind. These animals cannot, of course, make deductions 

 and draw conclusions from their past experiences like men, 

 who inherit these intellectual treasures from remote ages, 

 transmitted in an enriched form from one generation to 

 another by means of the gift of speech. 



But, on the other hand, if a century ago every 

 rhinoceros had been endowed merely with the intelligence 

 ot an average civilised man, and thus endowed had been 

 the prey of reckless unsparing sportsmen, not a single 

 one of them would now be alive. In just the same way 

 must it be accounted for something that elephants have 

 mastered so important a piece of knowledge during the 

 last tew decades as how to save themselves from the 

 deadly fire of modern ritles. It is a great mistake to 



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