126 MIGRATION OF ANIMALS. 



breathe, do not require to remain long above water, or 

 have much of their bodies exposed to the air. The 

 grand inconvenience which they seek to avoid, appears 

 to be the labour of keeping open those breathing holes, 

 without which they could not live under the ice. Or 

 if there is any other instinct, it may be the desire of 

 escaping their enemies, as the bears and the northern 

 people watch them at their holes, and make them a 

 sure and easy prey. Those who have not thought 

 rightly upon the subject, are apt to say that they could 

 not know of those dangers, and therefore could not 

 seek to avoid them without experience. But that is 

 part of the general error into which we are so apt to 

 fall when we begin the study of nature. We make 

 ourselves the standard of comparison, and think of the 

 animals not only as if they had to deal with men, but 

 as if they actually were men themselves. Whereas, 

 in their natural state they need no teaching, and the 

 danger, or the means of life, and the instinct by which 

 the one is avoided and the other secured, are co- 

 existent. We are in the habit of attributing superior 

 sagacity to animals in certain stages of their being ; 

 as we give the "old fox" credit for greater cunning. 

 That may be, indeed must be true, as regards the arts 

 of man, because the means to which he resorts for the 

 capture or destruction of animals are not natural, and 

 thus it would be a violation of the law of nature to 

 suppose that they should be met by a natural instinct. 

 In situations which nature produces, the children of 

 nature are never at a loss ; but as the contrivances of 

 man are no part of her plans, it would be contrary to 

 the general law to suppose that they should be in- 



