DO ANIMALS THINK AND REFLECT? 
instinct. The act shows intelligence, —that is, it 
adapts means to an end, — but it is not like human 
or individual intelligence, which adapts new means 
to old ends, or old means to new ends, and which 
springs up on the occasion. Jays and chickadees 
hold the nut or seed they would peck under the foot, 
but the nuthatch makes a vise to hold it of the bark 
of the tree, and one act is just as intelligent as tHe 
other; both are the promptings of instinct. But 
when man makes a vise, or a wedge, or a bootjack, 
he uses his individual intelligence. When the jay 
carries away the corn you put out in winter and 
hides it in old worms’ nests and knot-holes and 
crevices in trees, he is obeying the instinct of all 
his tribe to pilfer and hide things, — an instinct 
that plays its part in the economy of nature, as by 
its means many acorns and chestnuts get planted 
and large seeds widely disseminated. By this greed 
of the jay the wingless nuts take flight, oaks are 
planted amid the pines, and chestnuts amid the 
hemlocks. 
Speaking of nuts reminds me of an incident I 
read of the deer or white-footed mouse — an in- 
cident that throws light on the limitation of animal 
intelligence. The writer gave the mouse hickory- 
nuts, which it attempted to carry through a crack 
between the laths in the kitchen wall. The nuts 
were too large to go through the crack. The mouse 
would try to push them through; failing in that, he 
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