184 
NATURE NOTES. 
many a farm-labourer dwelt in a far worse constructed house 
than the one that had been built for their family by this pair of 
thrushes. 
After these two years’ nests had been built, there took place 
periodical illuminations of the Thames, sometimes closing with 
fireworks ; and all this drew crowds of sight-seers from London 
to the banks of the river. The wise thrushes then moved their 
nests farther off, at the same time that the nightingale moved 
away ; and as I should like to have done myself, if I could have 
chosen my site for a dwelling as easily as these birds. There- 
after, though other birds, such as robins and tits, still built in 
the boxes supplied in the garden, and thrushes and blackbirds 
often came there to be fed in winter, or to gather snails and 
worms at other times, these thrushes built there no more. 
It is difficult to draw an exact distinction between what we 
agree to call instinct and what is designated reason, in regard 
especially to the construction of dwellings. The most common 
idea seems to be that human beings act from reason, animals 
from instinct. If, in doing a certain thing, we adopt means to 
effect it, and have a clear and precise notion that those means 
are directly subservient to that end, we are supposed to act 
from reason ; but if we are not conscious that the means adopted 
are subservient to that end, then we call the action instinct. 
Consciousness of means being subservient to end is usually 
regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of reason ; but 
between the uniform performance of instinct and the conscious 
knowledge of reason there is a vast field of human and animal 
activity. Some writers are getting to portion the field into a 
threefold division, comprising instinct, reason, and intelligence. 
Men and animals, they say, come into the world with an innate 
capacity for response to certain stimuli. This is part of their 
organic inheritance. If the response be at first an accurate and 
adequate response, we call it instinctive. The responses often 
have a variable amount of inaccuracy and inadequacy ; in such 
cases the animal has a power of selective control over the 
responses ; and this power of selective control in the activities 
essential to daily life is supposed to constitute the first stage of 
intelligence. Unlike reason, intelligence implies no conscious 
knowledge of the relation between the means employed and the 
end attained, though it may be exercised in selective adaptation 
to ends novel to the individual and to that of the species. 
Intelligence is considered to be the faculty by which, through 
experience and association, activities arc adapted to, or moulded 
by, new circumstances ; while reason has its power in the true 
grasping of relationships themselves. Intelligence is ever on the 
watch for fortunate variations of activity ; it proceeds by trial 
and error, and selects the successes from among the failures. 
Reason explains the suitability ; it shows wherein lies the suc- 
cess of the one and the failure of the other, and adapts its con- 
duct through a clear perception of the relationships involved. 
