THE INSTINCT OF ANIMALS 167 



annoying bandages. He seemed really to under- 

 stand the nature of the services rendered, and that 

 they were for his good." Most persons will have 

 had, some time or other, similar experiences with 

 cats or dogs, or in reheving animals caught in traps. 

 Romanes quotes a number of instances of elephants 

 intelHgently submitting to surgical operations, 

 bracing themselves against pain and, in the words 

 of the operators, behaving as if they understood the 

 object of the acts. Monkeys when wounded are 

 almost human in their behaviour. 



The impression left on the mind by long and close 

 study of animal instinct and intelhgence is apt to 

 be different from that which is popularly conceived. 



When all due consideration is given to the powers 

 possessed by the higher animals, one is, I think, 

 impressed most in the end by the enormous interval 

 of progress beyond this which the human mind so 

 evidently represents. When it is considered how 

 naturally it comes to man to use tools, it seems 

 matter for surprise not that we should occasionally 

 see this faculty in animals, but rather that we should 

 so rarely, even in the higher animals, see intelligence 

 rise to this level. When we observe an elephant 

 prepare a branch to switch off flies, or see a monkey 

 use a stick to rake in nuts, as in the example quoted 

 at the beginning of this article, we are much 

 impressed. Yet how far off, . after aU, do these 

 efforts leave the animal mind ! The monkey, 

 although he rises to this level, will sit and warm 

 himself at a fire without ever grasping the relation- 

 ship between the fire and the fuel which feeds it. 

 He wiU be the intelligent companion of man, and 

 yet all his life never reach the communionship of 



