WAYS OF NATURE 



squirrels will cut off the chestnut burs before they 

 have opened, allowing them to fall to the ground, 

 where, as they seem to know, the burs soon dry 

 open. Feed a caged coon soiled food, — a piece of 

 bread or meat rolled on the ground, — and before 

 he eats it he will put it in his dish of water and wash 

 it off. The author of "Wild Life Near Home" 

 says that muskrats "will wash what they eat, 

 whether washing is needed or not." If the coon 

 washes his food only when it needs washing, and not 

 in every individual instance, then the proceeding 

 looks like an act of judgment ; the same with the 

 muskrat. But if they always wash their food, whether 

 soiled or not, the act looks more like instinct or an 

 inherited habit, the origin of which is obscure. 



Birds and animals probably think without know- 

 ing that they think; that is, they have not self -con- 

 sciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with 

 this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intel- 

 ligence, — intelligence that is not primarily con- 

 cerned with his own safety and well-being, but that 

 looks abroad upon things. The wit of the lower 

 animals seems all to have been developed by the 

 struggle for existence, and it rarely gets beyond 

 the prudential stage. The sharper the struggle, 

 the sharper the wit. Our porcupine, for instance, 

 is probably the most stupid of animals and has 

 the least speed ; it has little use for either wit or 

 celerity of movement. It carries a death-dealing 

 3 



