April 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



673 



knowledges " tlie danger that is always lurking 

 near the essay naturalist, — ^lurking near me as 

 well as Mr. Sharp, — ^the danger of making 

 too much of what we see and describe, — of 

 putting in too much sentiment, too much 

 literature, — in short, of valuing these things 

 more for the literary effects we can get out of 

 them than for themselves."* This is admirable, 

 and reassures one in venturing upon an illus- 

 tration of the way in which Mr. Burroughs has 

 himself inadvertently yielded to this besetting 

 temptation of the ' essay naturalist.' Por I 

 should be sorry to appear other than an ad- 

 mirer of Mr. Burroughs's writings; and even 

 as a technical student of comparative psychol- 

 ogy I agree in the main with his point of view, 

 which I hope to discuss elsewhere, pointing 

 out, for a wider public, what I regard, in the 

 light of recent research, to be the limitations 

 as well as the advantages of his somewhat 

 arbitrary position on the role of instinct in 

 animal life. Mr. Long's plea for animal in- 

 dividuality will then receive its full share of 

 attention.f 



* Op. cit., p. 299. 



t Mr. Long's contention that every boy who has 

 watched animals has something to tell the ' nat- 

 uralist ' is not to be dismissed with a sneer. 

 Some boys certainly have seen many things that 

 no ' naturalist ' has recorded. Nobody who has 

 kept live animals feels that the stereotyped ac- 

 count of their behavior is "quite adequate to the 

 individual differences and the plastic ' accom- 

 modations ' which they display; but these very 

 individual differences and ' accommodations,' in so 

 far as they have any importance, are themselves 

 susceptible of scientific study. That they have 

 not been sufficiently recognized in certain ' sci- 

 entific ' quarters can not be denied. But, if they 

 have any meaning, they are ' facts ' for the ' nat- 

 uralist,' and as such have in the first place to be 

 established on trustworthy evidence and then in- 

 terpreted in accordance with ' law.' 



The exceptional, even when true, can scarcely 

 be said to furnish the basis for the most whole- 

 some instruction in 'nature-study.' Nor is it of 

 prime importance for science itself. Cf. E. L. 

 Thorndike's remarks in his ' Animal Intelligence,' 

 Psychological Reviexo, Monograph Supplement No. 

 8, June, 1898, pp. 3-5. The widespread eagerness 

 in the quest of the unusual and the gusto with 

 which the anomalous is too often greeted when 



This communication is not concerned with 

 questions of interpretation. When it comes 

 to these, the comparative psychologist finds 

 himself in an embarrassing position. His 

 work, if not actually scouted, is often lightly 

 regarded by the neurologist and the pure 

 physiologist, on the one hand, in the sup- 

 posed interest of a mechanical explanation 

 of nature, while, on the other hand, it is 

 ignored by the ordinary naturalist, untrained 

 in the analytic method of psychology, and 

 poohpoohed by the ' educated public,' compla- 

 cent in its anthropomorphic sentimentalism. 

 The serious student of animal psychology 

 labors under the disadvantage of having a 

 popular subject to investigate! Wherefore he 

 has constantly to be on his guard and may 

 often seem to be ' carrying a chip on his 

 shoulder ' through no fault of his own. If he 

 be not a pessimist, however, he must regard 

 popular interest in his subject as in the long 

 run a boon upon which he may favorably 

 reckon.* 



But I have wandered far from my promise 

 to illustrate Mr. Burroughs's tendency to ' slip 

 up ' unawares. It is in one of Mr. Burroughs's 

 less satisfactory articles, on ' The Ways of 

 Nature,'! that we read the following descrip- 

 tion of the peculiar behavior of the common 

 ' sissing or blowing adder ' (Heterodon platy- 

 rhinus), when teased or persistently attacked: 



It seems to be seized with an epileptic or cata- 

 leptic fit. It throws itself upon its back, coiled 

 nearly in the form of a figure 8, and begins a 

 series of writhings and twistings and convulsive 

 movements that is astonishing to behold. Its 

 mouth is open and presently full of leaf mould, 

 its eyes are closed, its head is thrown back, its 

 white belly up; now it is under the leaves, now 



it is found are symptomatic of an intellectual 

 malady which threatens the very life of- reason 

 in the community. 



* The camp of human psychologists is not a 

 scientific Utopia, but that were too much to ex- 

 pect in a territory still overrun with such pro- 

 found personal prejudices and imagined practical 

 interests, — especially when the invaders are by 

 nature so well-disposed towards the aboriginal 

 enemy. 



t The Century Magazine, Vol. LXVI., No. 2, pp. 

 294-302, June, 1903. Citation from p. 299. 



