370 Animal Life and Intelligence, 



of a favourite cat which, during his absence, was much 

 plagued by two boys. About a week before his return the 

 cat had kittens, which she hid from her tormentors behind 

 the book-shelves in the library. But when he returned 

 she took them one by one from this retreat, and carried 

 them to the corner of his dressing-room where previous 

 litters had been deposited and nursed. Here abnormal 

 circumstances and the reign of anarchy and persecution 

 forced her to adopt a hiding-place where she might bring 

 forth her young; but the return of normal conditions, 

 sovereignty, and order led her to take up her old quarters 

 under the protection of her master. Now, look at the 

 description I have given in explanation of her conduct. 

 See how it bristles with conceptual terms : "abnormal," with 

 its correlative "normal;" "anarchy and persecution," 

 "protection " and "order." All this, I believe, is mine, and 

 not the cat's. For her there was a practical perception, 

 in the one case of plaguing boys, in the other case of 

 protecting master ; and her action was the direct outcome 

 of these perceptions through the employment of her intelli- 

 gence. 



Some stress has been laid on the occasional use of tools 

 by animals. Mr. Peal* observed a young elephant select 

 a bamboo stake, and utilize it for detaching a huge 

 elephant-leech which had fixed itself beneath the animal's 

 fore leg near the body. "Leech-scrapers are," he says, 

 "used by every elephant daily." He also saw an elephant 

 select and trim a shoot from the jungle, and use it as a 

 switch for flapping off flies. How far, we may ask, do 

 such actions imply " a conscious knowledge of the relation 

 between the means employed and the ends attained"?! 

 That, again, depends upon how much or how little is 

 implied in this phrase. 



A boy picks up a stone and throws it at a bird ; he 

 comes home and unlocks the garden-gate with a key ; he 

 enters his room, and removes the large " Liddell and 



* Nature, vol. xxi. p. 34. 



t Komanes, " Animal Intelligence," p. 17 : Definition of reason. 



