92 COLIN CLOUTS CALENDAR 



but loose in my rooms ; and in afifectionateness of de- 

 meanour, as well as in general cleverness of perceptions, 

 it certainly surpassed a good many dogs that I have 

 known. Doubtless the habit of storing food grew up 

 at first, as the west-country proverb says, more by hap 

 than cunning. It may have originated merely from the 

 thoughtlessly greedy practice of carrying home more food 

 at a time than was needed for immediate consumption. 

 Still, though the custom need not have been deliberately 

 intelligent in its origin, it must have tended to develop 

 intelligence in the animals displaying it ; and even now 

 it has hardened into an inherited instinct, it may often 

 be a very conscious bit of prevision indeed with old 

 squirrels who have seen more than one winter, and who 

 know that nuts or berries cannot always be obtained 

 with equal ease. At any rate, the fact that squirrels, 

 rats, and beavers are now very clever animals is undeni- 

 able ; and there is every reason to believe that their 

 cleverness has been partly brought out by their provid- 

 ent habits. 



Another thing that probably adds to the physical 

 basis of intelligence in squirrels is their possession of 

 a pair of paws which almost serve them in the place of 

 hands. Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out that many 

 of the cleverest animals are those which can grasp an 

 object all round with some prehensile organ. Such 

 animals, in fact, are the only ones that can really quite 

 understand the nature of space of three dimensions. 

 The apes and monkeys with their opposable thumb, the 

 elephants with their flexible trunk and its finger-like 

 process, the parrots with their prehensile claws, are all 

 instances strictly in point. Even among the usually 



