A BEAVER’S REASON 
To observe the actions of the lower animals with- 
out reading our own thoughts into them is not an easy 
matter. Mr. Beebe thinks that when in early 
spring the peacock, in the Zoological Park, timidly 
erects its plumes before an unappreciative crow, it 
is merely practicing the art of showing off its gay 
plumes in anticipation of the time when it shall 
compete with its rivals before the females; in other 
words, that it is rehearsing its part. But I should 
say that the peacock struts before the crow or be- 
fore spectators because it can’t help it. The sexual 
instinet begins to flame up and master it. The fowl 
can no more control it than it can control its appetite 
for food. To practice beforehand is human. Ani- 
mal practice takes the form of spontaneous play. 
The mock battles of two dogs or of other animals 
are not conscious practice on their part, but are play 
pure and simple, the same as human games, though 
their value as training is obvious enough. 
Animals do not have general ideas; they receive 
impressions through their various senses, to which 
they respond. I recently read in manuscript a very 
clear and concise paper on the subject of animal 
thinking compared with that of man, in which the 
writer says: “There is a rudimentary abstraction 
before language. All the higher animals have gen- 
eral ideas of ‘good-for-eating’ and ‘not-good-for- 
eating,’ quite apart from any particular objects of 
which either of these qualities happens to be char- 
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