175 



ON SAGACITY AND INSTINCT. 



BY T. C. 



The more I have considered the subject, the more I am inclined to 

 believe that animals possess, when in a state of domestication, some 

 degree of the reasoning faculty, or at any rate sagacity, which, if it do 

 not amount to reason, is far superior to mere instinct. 



Instinct is implanted in all animals solely to enable them to provide 

 for their immediate wants, and it extends only so far as they them- 

 selves are concerned ; it is given to all according to their necessity, to 

 prevent their several species from becoming extinct, and all have 

 instinct adapted to their natures. The worm which is cut to pieces by 

 the spade of the husbandman, " the poor beetle which we tread upon," 

 and all those which we consider the meanest of God's creatures, have as 

 much instinct as the "cunning" fox and the " sagacious" elephant, 

 because it extends only so far as their necessities : it teaches them 

 to procure proper food for themselves and their young ; to defend them 

 from or elude the attacks of enemies ; to construct their habitations of 

 suitable materials, and in a manner adapted to their respective natures. 

 It actuates the bird when it builds in some safe retreat, and gathers 

 certain substances wherewith to construct its nest; when it flies from 

 clime to clime, over vast tracts of land and over trackless seas ; or when 

 it darts from its nest, affecting lameness, to entice the intruder from its 

 young to itself : it teaches some to retire to their roosting places when 

 the sun sinks beneath the horizon, and others to sally out in quest of 

 that prey which nature has destined to form their food ; and it teaches 

 the cuckoo to deposit her egg in the nest of a stranger, and the owner 

 t© nourish her young in preference to her OAvn. But the cuckoo has no 

 reason for acting as she does ; she never attempted to build her own 

 nest, or to feed her own young ; she needs no trial nor experience ; she 

 does not consider whether the bird into whose nest she drops her egg 

 will feed the young with food adapted to its nature, or whether it will 

 be able to turn out its brethren and take possession of the nest ; she 

 needs no instruction, nor does she reason in any way, but, guided by a 

 power to her far superior to reason, she seeks only those nests which 

 nature has adapted for the reception of her eggs, and trusts her young 

 only to those birds which will procure proper food for the nestling. 



