WAYS OF NATURE 
the cat and the scent of the fox, why should it not 
develop and sharpen their wits also? The remote 
ancestors of the fox or of the crow were doubtless less 
shrewd and cunning than the crows and the foxes of 
to-day. The instinctive intelligence of an animal of 
our time is the sum of the variations toward greater 
intelligence of all its ancestors. What man stores in 
language and in books — the accumulated results 
of experience — the animals seem to have stored in 
instinct. As Darwin says, a man cannot, on his first 
trial, make a stone hatchet or a canoe through his 
power of imitation. “He has to learn his work by 
practice; a beaver, on the other hand, can make its 
dam or canal, and a bird its nest, as well or nearly 
as well, and a spider its wonderful web quite as 
well, the first time it tries as when old and expe- 
rienced.” 
An animal shows intelligence, as distinct from 
instinct, when it takes advantage of any circum- 
stance that arises at the moment, when it finds new 
ways, whether better or not, as when certain birds 
desert their old nesting-sites, and take up with new 
ones afforded by man. This act, at least, shows 
power of choice. The birds and beasts all quickly 
avail themselves of any new source of food supply. 
Their wits are probably more keen and active here 
than in any other direction. It is said that in Okla- 
homa the coyotes have learned to tell ripe water- 
melons from unripe ones by scratching upon them. 
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