WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW? 
regarded as reasonable beings. I should as soon 
expect a fox or a wolf to make use of a trap to cap- 
ture its prey as to make use of poison in any way. 
Why does not the fox take a stick and spring the 
trap he is so afraid of? Simply because the act 
would involve a mental process beyond him. He has 
not yet learned to use even the simplest implement 
to attain his end. Then he would probably be just as 
afraid of the trap after it was sprung as before. He 
in some way associates it with his arch-enemy, man. 
Such stories, too, as a chained fox or a coyote 
getting possession of corn or other grain and bait- 
ing the chickens with it — feigning sleep till the 
chicken gets within reach, and then seizing it—are 
of the same class, incredible because transcending 
the inherited knowledge of those animals. I can 
believe that a fox might walk in a shallow creek to 
elude the hound, because he may inherit this kind 
of cunning, and in his own experience he may have 
come to associate loss of scent with water. Animals 
stalk their prey, or lie in wait for it, instinctively, not 
from a process of calculation, as man does. If a fox 
would bait poultry with corn, why should he not, in 
his wild state, bait mice and squirrels with nuts and 
seeds? Has a cat ever been known to bait a rat with 
a piece of cheese ? 
Animals seem to have a certain association of 
ideas; one thing suggests another to them, as with 
us. This fact is made use of by animal-trainers. I 
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