1881.] The Reasoning Faculty of Animals. 609 
they have never been molested, or disturbed but little, have no 
great dread of man, and it is only after they have learned by dire 
experience, and by observation, the evils likely to fall upon them 
from the advent of man, that they show any dread or fear of him.} 
This dread is then transmitted to their offspring, but is by no 
means an inherent faculty of the birds’ or animals’ mind. 
It is said again that a marked instinct is shown in birds by their 
nest building. Some say the bird makes as good a nest the first 
time she tries, as when she becomes old and experienced. But 
this has been emphatically denied, and is doubtless untrue. An 
observer has given an account of the first and subsequent attempts 
of one pair of birds to build a nest; and he shows conclusively 
that the first was a poor specimen of bird architecture, the second 
was an improvement, the third still better, and so on until the art 
was finally reached of making a handsome and serviceable nest. 
Alexander Wilson, one of the best of ornithologists, believed im- 
plicitly that birds improve in nest building and gives several in- 
stances of it.2. Birds learn to sing, too, by a long apprenticeship. 
At first the song consists merely of a few disconnected notes. 
By continual practice the art is developed, and at last the bird 
carols forth the lay which delights all hearers? It is not the re- 
sult of instinct, but of practice and gradual improvement. Mr, 
Wallace believes that as man performs many of his intelligent acts 
merely by imitation, so it is with birds in making a nest.4 
One would think that if there is any action which is instinctive 
With water animals, it would be that of swimming, yet this is not 
always the case. A writer in Harper's Weekly stated that “ were 
a young seal taken three or four weeks after birth and thrown into 
1See Darwin’s Voyage of Naturalist, pp. 398-401. In speaking of the birds of the 
Galapagos islands, he says: “ A gun is here almost superfluous, for with the muzzle 
I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day whilst lying down, a mocking 
thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I 
d in my hand, and began very quietly to sip the water; it allowed me to lift it 
from the ground whilst seated ‘on the vessel.” The testimony of other travelers is 
corroborative, 
? American Ornithology (16mo, Edinburgh edition, 4 vols. 1831), I, 179, 189-190 
*¢ also article by Dr, Brewer, “ On Variation of the nests of the same species of 
Birds.” Am. Nar. x11, 35. Wallace, “ Contributions to Natural Selection,” p. 227 
Article from “ Revue des Deux Mondes” in Pop. Sci Monthly, 1, 485, and others. 
* Darwin’s « Descent of Man,” 1st. ed.,1, 53 and 54. Wallace, ibid, p. 220, et seq, 
“Wallace, ibid. « Essay on Philosophy of Birds’ Nests.” 
