188 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



which they often do before they seize them with their 

 teeth. It is likewise probable that animals which are 

 furnished with many instruments of feeling, as the 

 cuttle-fish, the polypus, and others, have a superior 

 faculty of distinguishing, and of choosing what is 

 agreeable or convenient for them. Hence fishes, 

 whose bodies are covered with scales, ought to be the 

 most stupid of animals, because they can have no 

 knowledge of the form of objects, and a very obtuse 

 sense of feeling must be conveyed through the scales. 

 Hence, also, all animals which have not divided ex- 

 tremities, as arms, legs, paws, &c. must have a more 

 obtuse sense of feeling than those that are furnished 

 with these instruments of sensation. Serpents, how- 

 ever, are less stupid than fishes ; because, though 

 their skin is hard and scaly, they have the faculty of 

 twisting round bodies, and of obtaining by this means 

 more accurate conceptions of the forms and qualities 

 of these bodies*'*. 



It follows from this theory, that the hand should 

 be the principal organ for procuring intelligence, and 

 consequently that man is furnished with organs of 

 touch superior to any other order of animals. It re- 

 quires explanation, however, to render this plausible ; 

 for many of the four-handed animals (Quadrumana, 

 BLUMENBACH), as monkeys and lemurs, have hands 

 as soft and delicate as ours. " The monkey," says 

 Dr. Darwin, "has a hand well enough adapted for 

 the sense of touch, which contributes to his great 

 facility of imitation ; but in taking objects with his 

 hands, as a stick or an apple, he puts his thumb on 

 the same side of them with his finger, instead of 

 counteracting the pressure of his fingers with it : 

 from this neglect he is much slower in acquiring the 

 figures of objects, as he is less able to determine the 

 distances or diameters of their parts, or to distinguish 

 * Oiseaux, vol. i. lutr. 



