210 ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS, 
able very soon to acquire a knowledge of the district 
that seems marvellous to a civilized man; but my own 
observation of savages in forest countries has convinced 
me, that they find their way by the use of no other 
faculties than those which we ourselves possess. It 
appears to me, therefore, that to call in the aid of a 
new and mysterious power to account for savages 
being able to do that which, under similar conditions, 
we could almost all of us perform, although perhaps 
less perfectly, is almost ludicrously unnecessary. 
In the next essay I shall attempt to show, that much 
of what has been attributed to instinct in birds, can be 
also very well explained by crediting them with those 
faculties of observation, memory, and imitation, and 
with that limited amount of reason, which they un- 
doubtedly exhibit. 
