158 WILD NEIGHBORS chap. 



advancement intellectually, and give some hint of 

 the probable limits of this progress. 



It should be noted that taming and training 

 are not identical terms. Taming is merely induc- 

 ing an animal to abandon its natural feral dis- 

 position so far as to come under human control 

 and be more or less sociable with man. It is a 

 matter in respect to which animals vary widely, 

 not only as between classes, but as between indi- 

 viduals of the same species. Moreover, tamabil- 

 ity seems a matter of disposition rather than of 

 intellect, and perhaps pertains to a lower rather 

 than a higher grade of intelligence, for it is no- 

 ticeable that some of the animals most clever in 

 the school of the menagerie abandon only slightly, 

 if at all, their native savagery. On the other hand, 

 some animals thoroughly domesticated seem inca- 

 pable of any considerable degree of education — 

 though perhaps nobody has ever tried it in any 

 proper and continuous way. It would be hazard- 

 ous to allege that any animal organism is too low 

 to manifest, have we eyes to perceive it, some 

 intelligence superior to simple sensitiveness or 

 unreasoning instinct. It is beyond my purpose, 

 however, to deal here with these almost imper- 

 ceptible beginnings of brute mind, or indeed with 

 natural intellect in animals at all, but, rather, to 

 hasten on to a view of the acquired knowledge and 

 abilities of the higher, vertebrated animals. 



Much might be said in respect to the inferior 



