CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 109 



Off went the sambur, and crack went the rifle, 

 so that the tiger lost its meal and its life at the 

 same moment. It is always desirable to take 

 note of these mistakes made by the jungle-folk. 

 They should increase our admiration for them 

 instead of lessening it. Some people pretend 

 to believe that the lower animals never make 

 mistakes. They are so used to saying that 

 "to err is human'* that they come to regard 

 man as the only creature capable of miscalcu- 

 lation. Yet animals, both wild and tame, are 

 by no means infallible. Professor Lloyd 

 Morgan, who has made a lifelong study of the 

 mind of animals, calls my attention to the 

 interesting case of some pheasant chicks cross- 

 ing an open road near a wall. Suddenly, they 

 stood as if struck motionless. At the same 

 moment, a sparrow-hawk dashed over the top 

 of the wall and easily secured one of the brood. 

 Someone asked the Professor why the little 

 creatures did apparently just the wrong thing 

 in the circumstances. His answer was that the 

 chicks had learnt to keep quite still on hearing 

 a warning note from their mother and that, 

 under ordinary circumstances, that would be 

 the very best thing to do in presence of an 

 enemy, as to run about would only betray their 

 presence by the disturbance of the grass. In 

 the open road, where, even keeping still, they 

 were very conspicuous, running away into the 



