Ii8 CHARACTERISTIC MOVEMENTS 



Now to consider subconscious mentation in 

 relation to purely natural wild life. A fact 

 which strikes the close observer is that the 

 body movements of the creatures are charac- 

 teristically peculiar to themselves ; compared 

 with the human species their actions might be 

 described as " aiitomatic." The reason for 

 this is that the animals are not self-conscious 

 — they have no reasoning faculty ; instead, 

 their actions result from a series of subcon- 

 scious impulses set in motion by the physical 

 senses (sight, hearing and "scenting" per- 

 ceptions) ; the consequence is, quick and de- 

 cisive motions, in some cases almost amount- 

 ing to " jerkiness," only that the expression 

 suggests lack of grace which, in fact, is not 

 wanting. 



There are, of course, slow-moving creatures 

 who, from our point of view, appear ungrace- 

 ful and even clumsy ; but this seeming im- 

 perfection is only apparent, for the creatures 

 themselves are well adapted to, and in com- 

 plete correspondence with, their own proper 

 surroundings, otherwise they would not be 

 there. 



The particularity of action to which I refer 

 is perhaps more apparent in birds than others, 

 though all act, more or less, in the same way. 

 For instance, let us watch the behaviour of a 



