LEAF AND TENDRIL 



of self-preservation. When the chickadee comes to 

 the bone or bit of suet upon the tree under your 

 window, it does so with little or no signs of suspi- 

 cion. Its enemies are of a different kind, and its 

 instincts work differently. Or when we see a fox 

 trying to elude or delay the. hound that is pursuing 

 him, by taking to rail fences or bare plowed fields, 

 or to the ice of frozen streams, we say he knows 

 what he is doing; he knows his scent will not 

 lie upon the rail or the bare earth or the ice as 

 upon the snow or the moist ground. We translate 

 his act into our mental concepts. The fox is, of 

 course, trying to elude or to shake off his pursuer, 

 but he is not drawing upon his stores of natural 

 knowledge or his powers of thought to do so; he 

 does not realize as you or I would that it is the scent 

 of his foot that gives the clue to his enemy. How 

 can he have any general ideas about odors and sur- 

 faces that best retain them? He is simply obeying 

 the instinctive cunning of his vulpine nature, and 

 takes to the fence or to the ice or to the water as 

 a new expedient when others have failed. Such . a 

 course on our part under like circumstances would 

 be the result of some sort of mental process, but 

 with the fox it is evidence of the flexibility and 

 resourcefulness of instinct. The animals all do 

 rational things without reason, cunning things with- 

 out calculation, and provident things without fore- 

 thought. Of course we have to fall back upon 

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