Reason and Instinct. 



6201 



to shoot it,*" is doing do more, or acting no otlicrwise, than a lion or a 

 bear in instinct- directed pursuit of their several kinds of prey, or than 

 the savages of America, Africa or Australia in their almost equally 

 instinctive prosecution of the chase, — still it is unquestionable that in 

 the great mass of a civilized community, as to the processes of its 

 every-day hfe, those impulses of Instinct which we class under the 

 head of Food-craving are much as tliough they had no real existence 

 or influence. If directed by them at all, civilized folk are directed by 

 them, we must say, to the butcher, the baker and the brewer. 



We have now only those impulses which are classed under Migra- 

 tion and Local Direction left for notice. Of the latter we must at 

 once say that it is lost or entirely removed ; of the former, that it 

 exists still, but is greatly modified both in intensity and mode of ap- 

 plication. It is individual now, rather than collective ; the result of 

 deliberate counsel and volition, rather than of spontaneous, restless 

 impulse. 



The result of our inquiry, therefore, would seem to be that Instinct 



^ I take tlie circumslavice stated below from Mr. Coucli's 'Illustrations of 

 Instinct,' p. 185. The cock of the woods is said to be so extremely shy that lie can 

 rarely be met with except in the pairing season ; but then, " every morning he renews 

 his song." While engaged in this occupation, and its attendant ceremonies of run- 

 ning with drooped wings and clucking, it seems he may — as is the case with several 

 other birds at such times, e.g. the corn-crake and the ruffed grouse — be approached 

 very closely ; indeed, near enough sometimes to be caught by the hand. A man in 

 Sweden goes out one morning to shoot these birds, and hearing one, makes his 

 approaches in due form. " He could not see many yards before him in the forest, and 

 only followed the direction of the sound. While standing motionless, in expectation 

 of the renewal of the bird's call, he thought he perceived a dark object on one side of 

 him, but it did not engage much of his attention ; and at the usual note he moved on 

 towards the game, but was surprised to see the black object had advanced in an equal 

 degree, and now stood in a line with him. Still he thought more of the bird than 

 anything else, and approached close to it before he perceived that a large bear stood 

 within a few feet of him ; and in fact just as they were both about to spring on the 

 bird they caught sight of each other, and each retired.'' However, after a few 

 moments both man and beast resumed their " stalk," which ended in the death of the 

 bear by a shot from the man's gun, who was, however, so much startled that he did 

 not even wait to see the result of the discharge. Again, " when a lion is very hungry 

 and lying in wait, the sight of an animal may make him commence stalking it. In 

 one case a man, while stealthily crawling towards a rhinoceros, happened to glance 

 behind him, and found, to his horror, a lion stalking him; he only escaped by 

 springing up a tree like a cat." (Livingstone, Miss. Travels, p. 138). A similar 

 instance is recorded in Andersson's ' Travels in Africa,' in which the author himself 

 was stalked by a lion, step by step, as he carried on the stalking process towards some 

 game animal. 



XVI. 2 Y 



