272 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



ruminants, dogs, apes, and even birds, e.g., wild duck and 

 ravens) feel an irrepressible longing to investigate more closely 

 any unusual appearance. Apes are most inquisitive, as Darwin 

 so delightfully demonstrated with a snake in a paper bag. 1 The 

 old assertion that man alone has the desire to gain new experi- 

 ence intentionally is most convincingly disproved by these 

 instances of curiosity in animals. 



Counting, Reckoning, Measuring, Weighing. Similarly it 

 has long been proved incorrect to suppose that man alone is 

 capable of counting. It is very old folk-lore that certain birds 

 can count. I remember a story of Leroy's about the crow which 

 he tried to outwit and did not succeed until four of the five 

 sportsmen in the hut had come out while the fifth remained 

 behind and shot the crow. 



Leroy concluded from this that the crow could only count 

 up to four. Lichtenberg's account of the nightingale which 

 was only content after it had obtained its usual three meal- 

 worms is well known, as also the old popular belief that a nest 

 with four eggs will not be deserted if one is taken but will be if 

 two are taken. That these statements have the support of so 

 eminent a scientist as Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) 

 makes them the more readily acceptable. The true solitary 

 wasps (Eumenidae) bring slaughtered caterpillars to the nest 

 for the larvae. The number is very variable in different species. 

 One species brings five, another ten, another fifteen, and a fourth 

 twenty-four caterpillars to the nest. When the required 

 number is complete the entrance to the nest is closed. There 

 is indeed one special species of Eumenes which varies the 

 number of victims according to the sex of the eggs laid, pro- 

 viding the males with five, the females with ten. These are 

 very remarkable facts, and leave no doubt about the ability of 

 these insects to count. The famous American Garner, who set 

 himself the task of studying the language of apes, claims to 

 have found that the capuchin ape can count up to three. He 

 put three bullets into a box and allowed the ape to pick them 

 out with his hand ; afterwards he only put in two bullets, the 

 ape after picking out these two searched everywhere for the 

 third. 



1 Darwin, loc. cit., vol. i., p. 109, and Sir John Lubbock, Ice. clt., p. 284. 



