350 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



it. On my first visit afterwards I found that the beast had 

 gone up to the bait and smelled it, but had left it untouched. 

 He had next pulled up the pine tree that blocked the path, and 

 gone around the gun and cut the line which connected the bait 

 with the trigger, just behind the muzzle. Then he had gone back 

 and pulled the bait away, and carried it out on the lake, where he 

 lay down and devoured it at his leisure. There I found my string. 

 I could scarcely believe that all this had been done designedly, for 

 it seemed that faculties fully on a par with human reason would 

 be required for such an exploit if done intentionally. I there- 

 fore rearranged things, tying the string where it had been 

 bitten. But the result was exactly the same for three succes- 

 sive occasions, as I could plainly see by the footprints ; and 

 what is most singular of all, each time the brute was careful to 

 cut the line a little back of where it had been tied before, as if 

 actually reasoning with himself that even the knots might be 

 some new device of mine, and therefore a source of hidden 

 danger he would prudently avoid. I came to the conclusion 

 that that carcajou ought to live, as he must be something at 

 least human, if not worse. I gave it up, and abandoned the 

 road for a period. 



****** 



With so much for the tricks and the manners of the beast 

 behind our backs, roaming at will in his vast solitudes, what of 

 his actions in the presence of man 1 It is said that if one only 

 stands still, even in full view of an approaching carcajou, he 

 will come within fifty or sixty yards, provided he be to wind- 

 ward, before he takes the alarm. Even then, if he be not 

 warned by sense of smell, he seems in doubt, and will gaze 

 earnestly several times before he finally concludes to take him- 

 self off. On these and similar occasions he has a singular 

 habit — one not shared, so far as I am aware, by any other beast 

 whatever. He sits on his haunches and shades his eyes with one of 

 his fore-paws, just as a human being would do in scrutinising a 

 dim or distant object. The carcajou, then, in addition to his 

 other and varied accomplishments, is a perfect sceptic — to use 

 this word in its original signification. A sceptic, with the 

 Greeks, was simply one who would shade his eyes to see more 

 clearly. 



Bears. — There is no doubt that the intelligence of 

 these animals stands very high in the psychological scale, 

 although the actual instances which I have met of the 

 display of their intelligence are few. The tricks which 



