THE LAWS OF ORIENTATION AMONG ANIMALS. 497 



does, often finds bis direction less accurately than a man whose intel- 

 lectual culture is limited ; he makes an act which should be in some 

 measure mechanical and impulsive an act of "reason. As a result of 

 these considerations, savages, deprived of improved instruments and 

 possessed of sharpened senses, can furnish us with more interesting 

 facts than can civilized peoples. 



A former military attache at Pekin told us that when undertaking 

 long hunting expeditions he took with him two Mongolians, who, after 

 many days' journey, would lead him back to the point of departure. 

 The confidence which he reposed in these guides was never deceived; 

 they found again in the return the path followed in going. American 

 Indians also seem to make use of the law of retracement when, after 

 many weeks of absence, hunting in very distant regions, they return 

 to their home. The nomads of Africa and Asia follow in their wander- 

 ings laws based to some extent on those which govern the migrations 

 of animals. 



These facts are certainly very curious, but one must not draw too 

 strict conclusions from them; the primitive man knows, in spite of his 

 intellectual inferiority, how to reason out what he shall do. It is con- 

 sequently very difficult in analyzing an act of orientation to discern in 

 it the part played by reason. 



VIII. 



We have vainly sought in the works of naturalists a theory which 

 might explain satisfactorily the acts of orientation performed by ani- 

 mals. Many very interesting notes have been made on their habits; 

 the life of certain ones has no further secrets for us. But when it 

 becomes necessary to pass from effect to cause the observer usually 

 takes the wrong side. Erroneously taking himself as a term of com- 

 parison, he asks what he would do to accomplish such and such an 

 action proved instinctive in an animal. However, if an animal has not 

 reasoning power he possesses senses whose power surpasses anything 

 that we can imagine. 



We know the famous experiment of the female peacock moth shut up 

 in a box and set out at night on a balcony in Paris where representa- 

 tives of its species were very seldom found. The next morning there 

 were four males, doubtless from the neighboring forest, settled on the 

 box. How did they know that 20 kilometers away they would find a 

 female in the midst of Paris, where they had never before ventured? 



When in the Pyrenees the hunters run down an ibex, it is useless for 

 them to hide the entrails under a bush or in a hole; vultures appear 

 from every direction, although but a few minutes before not one was 

 visible on the horizon. 



Such facts as these are inexplicable from what we know of the senses — 

 of our own especially. The acts of orientation are not less extraordi- 

 nary; therefore the observers who have remarked these things have 

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