THE BEE. 149 



you will recollect that the formei? bit off the wings of 

 the latter, either in order to prevent it from flying to 

 its nest, or (as we believe most reflecting naturalists 

 would say) because it was the only part of its enemy 

 that was vulnerable, we will now contrast with this 

 very questionable exhibition of the reasoning faculty, 

 another mentioned by a writer in an illustrated 

 periodical*, in which a bird is the actor. 



He narrates an anecdote of two crows that were 

 watching a dog gnawing a bone, of which they were 

 very anxious to obtain possession. The dog, how- 

 ever, kept such a sharp eye upon them that they 

 dared not approach him openly, but one of the crows 

 slipped quietly round to the back of the animal and 

 began to peck at his tail with its beak. No sooner 

 did the dog turn his head to defend himself from 

 this rear attack, than the other crow hopped up, and, 

 seizing the coveted bone, flew off with it. Now, 

 here we have not only an evidence of design, but a 

 cunning, premeditated plot ; and we say these crows 

 richly deserved their bone for the intelligence they 

 displayed in obtaining possession of it. 



In these creatures, therefore, as we see by the fore- 

 going example (which is one in a thousand), there is, 

 combined with a low reasoning power, a considerable 

 amount of cunning ; and not only might similar traits 

 be pointed out in the nature of the higher animals, 

 but even in man himself we not unfrequently find a 

 defective or debased intellect accompanied by great 

 * ' Once a Week. ' 



