266 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



Mr. Lloyd Morgan could detect little sign of 

 shrinking from his hand in plovers newly hatched in 

 an incubator, although ' they lay in the drawer with 

 bill on the ground and outstretched neck in a well- 

 known protective attitude.' Other birds evinced some 

 instinctive shrinking at first, which passed away 

 almost immediately, so that all the species ' would run 

 to my hands after a very short time, nestle down 

 between them, and poke out their little heads con- 

 fidingly between my fingers.' 



From this it appears that, while the protective 

 instinct is congenital and automatic, the specific dread 

 of man is purely imitative, or imparted, or both. 



Of all the groups of creatures mentioned in the 

 above-quoted text from Genesis, none have more cause 

 to entertain dread not only of man, but of all other 

 living creatures more powerful than themselves, than 

 fishes. However exhilarating life on the ocean wave 

 may be, life under the waves is one continual frenzied 

 struggle to devour or to escape being devoured. Few, 

 indeed, and feeble are vegetarian feeders in the sea ; 

 almost every marine animal divides its time between 

 pursuit of and flight from its neighbours. Nevertheless, 

 deeply as the habit of fear must be ingrained in the 

 nature of these creatures, some of them profit very 

 readily from reassuring experience, and exhibit a degree 

 of mental receptivity which removes them very far 

 from the category of sentient automata. 



The cod, for instance, occupies a somewhat higher 

 place in the animated scale than the aforesaid Mimrain 

 trout, yet there is hardly any creature, not even the 



