WAYS OF NATURE 
squirrels will cut off the chestnut burs before they 
have opened, allowing them to fall to the ground, 
where, as they seem to know, the burs soon dry 
open. Feed a caged coon soiled food, — a piece of 
bread or meat rolled on the ground, — and before 
he eats it he will put it in his dish of water and wash 
it off. The author of “Wild Life Near Home” 
says that muskrats “will wash what they eat, 
whether washing is needed or not.” If the coon 
washes his food only when it needs washing, and not 
in every individual instance, then the proceeding 
looks like an act of judgment ; the same with the 
muskrat. Butif they always wash their food, whether 
soiled or not, the act looks more like instinct or an 
inherited habit, the origin of which is obscure. 
_ Birds and animals probably think without know- 
ing that they think; that is, they have not self-con- 
sciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with 
this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intel- 
ligence, — intelligence that is not primarily con- 
cerned with his own safety and well-being, but that 
looks abroad upon things. The wit of the lower 
animals seems all to have been developed by the 
struggle for existence, and it rarely gets beyond 
the prudential stage. The sharper the struggle, 
the sharper the wit. Our porcupine, for instance, 
is probably the most stupid of animals and has 
the least speed ; it has little use for either wit or 
celerity of movement. It carries a death-dealing 
3 
