INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 93 



by impulse ; so that we can hardly hold this up as a 

 hard-and-fast argument against animals, and we must 

 accordingly make every allowance for them. 



Lieutenant Massoutier, in the same pamphlet, also Further 



, , . , criticism 



asserts that camels will not eat ' camel thorn when O f Mas- 

 saturated with moisture, and that it is then injurious to views 1 * 

 them, and he states that they should not on this 

 account be sent out to graze while the dew is on the 

 ground. As a rule, when I have .been with camels, we 

 have been marching at that hour ; still I have seen them 

 on certain occasions eating herbage that was moistened 

 with dew, so that as regards the species generally 

 I am in a position to contradict the former part of this 

 statement. Of the latter portion we will speak in 

 chapter vii. 



Here, again, Lieutenant Massoutier infers a power 

 of discrimination in the animal which, if not due to 

 reason, is at all events a very highly developed instinct, 

 amounting, if not almost akin, to intelligence. For 

 he would seem to infer that a camel refuses to eat 

 moistened herbage, instinctively knowing it to be bad 

 for him. It may be so with the Algerian breed, who 

 may possess a sharper instinct, and who may have been 

 trained from infancy to avoid moist pasture, or yet, 

 again, who may have learnt from their own or parental 

 experience to do so. But if such is the case, it would 

 appear quite unnecessary to me to take precautions to 

 prevent them grazing at an early hour. 



But I know that most camels who have been de- 

 prived of water will certainly eat moist herbage, in 

 fact any moistened food, all the more readily, and 

 when suffering from thirst it would be difficult to 



