ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 
tures, which it follows by scent or sight. It can 
neither see nor smell crabs in the deep water, where 
crabs are usually found. How should it know that 
there are such things as crabs? How should it know 
that they can be taken with bait and line or by fish- 
ing for them? When and how did it get this experi- 
ence? This knowledge belongs to man alone. It 
comes through a process of reasoning that he alone 
is capable of. Man alone of land animals sets traps 
and fishes. There is a fish called the angler (Lophius 
piscatorius), which, it is said on doubtful authority, 
by means of some sort of appendages on its head 
angles for small fish; but no competent observer 
has reported any land animal doing so. Again, 
would a crab lay hold of a mass of fur like a fox’s 
tail ?— even if the tail could be thrust deep enough 
into the water, which is impossible. Crabs, when 
not caught with hand-nets, are usually taken in 
water eight or ten feet deep. They are baited and 
caught with a piece of meat tied to a string, but 
cannot be lifted to the surface till they are eating 
the meat, and then a dip-net is required to secure 
them. The story, on the whole, is one of the most 
preposterous that ever gained credence in natural 
history. 
Good observers are probably about as rare as 
good poets. Accurate seeing, — an eye that takes in 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, — how 
rare indeed it is! So few persons know or can tell 
107 
