ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 



spontaneously the same subconscious or psychic 

 state, and acted upon by the same hidden influence, 

 in a way and to a degree that never occur among 

 men. 



The faculty or power by which animals find the 

 way home over or across long stretches of country 

 is quite as mysterious and incomprehensible to us 

 as the spirit of the flock to which I refer. A hive 

 of bees evidently has a collective purpose and plan 

 that does not emanate from any single individual 

 or group of individuals, and which is understood 

 by all without outward communication. 



Is there anything which, without great violence 

 to language, may be called a school of the woods ? 

 In the sense in which a playground is a school — a 

 playground without rules or methods or a director 

 — there is a school of the woods. It is an unkept, an 

 unconscious school or gymnasium, and is entirely 

 instinctive. In play the young of all animals, no 

 doubt, get a certain amount of training and disci- 

 plining that helps fit them for their future careers; 

 but this school is not presided over or directed by 

 parents, though they sometimes take part in it. It is 

 spontaneous and haphazard, without rule or system ; 

 but is, in every case, along the line of the future 

 struggle for life of the particular bird or animal. 

 A young marsh hawk which we reared used to play 

 at striking leaves or bits of bark with its talons; 

 kittens play with a ball, or a cob, or a stick, as if 

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