THE INTERPRETATION OF ANIMAL CHARACTER.
TWO or three weeks ago, Sir John Lubbock delivered a delightful lecture at Walsall on the intelligence and senses of animals, in which he brought together a large number of the facts and observations accumulated during his long and active career as a naturalist and experimenter in the
field of natural history. There is one conclusion which the repeated perusal of that very interesting lecture has forced upon us that is well worth a little exposition and discussion, and that is the immense difficulty of interpreting truly the mind of dumb creatures separated widely from ourselves both by the complexity of their instincts and by the poverty of their resources for making their nature known to us. For example, Sir John Lubbock is evidently inclined to infer that some of the wasp species can count up to ten, and some up to twenty-four, on the strength of the facts which he relates in the following passage:—
" An interesting consideration rises with reference to the number of the victims allotted to each oell by the solitary wasps. Ammophila considers one large caterpillar of Noctuea segetum enough ; one species of Pommes supplies its young with five victims ; another, ten, fifteen, and even ap to twenty-four. The number appears to be constant in each species. How does the insect know when her task is fulfilled P Not by the cell being filled, for if some be removed she does not re- place them. When she has brought her complement, she considers her task accomplished, whether the victims are still there or not. How, then, does she know when she has made up the number twenty-four ? Perhaps it will be said that each species feels some mysterious and innate tendency to provide a certain number of victims. This would under no circumstances be any explanation ; but it is not in accordance with the facts. In the genus (Eumener) the males are mach smaller than the females. Now, in the hive bees, humble bees, wasps, and other insects where such a difference occurs, but where the young are directly fed, it is, of coarse, obvious that the quantity can be proportioned to the appetite of the grub. But in insects with the habits of ESIMEIt88 and Ammophii“ the case is different, because the food is stored up once for all. Now, it is evident that if a female grub was supplied with only food enough for a male, she would starve to death ; while if a male grab were given enough for a female, it would have too much. No each waste, how- ever, occurs. In some mysterious manner, the mother knows whether the egg will produce a male or female grub, and apportions the quantity of food accordingly. She does not change the species or size of her prey ; but if the egg is male, she supplies five, if female, ten, victims. Does she count ? Certainly this seems very like a commencement of arithmetic."
Now, upon that we should be inclined to ask a question. Granting what no one will deny, the existence of a maternal instinct in almost all animals,—which of the two is the higher exercise of reason, to recognise that a given parental effort on behalf of the progeny had been foiled, and that it required doing over again, or to count up to ten, or even up to twenty -four We should have thought that the former was far the slighter exercise of rational powers, at least admitting the pressure of any maternal instinct at all, which Sir John Lubbock would hardly dispute. Un- doubtedly many creatures which never show the slightest trace of such a counting power as the capacity to count ten,—to say nothing of twenty.four,—do adapt their maternal instinct to changed circumstances with the greatest alacrity. The thrush, for instance, to take one amongst many birds, is constantly known to visit one of her fledglings which has fallen out of the nest and has been put into a cage, and to feed it as carefully in that cage as she would have fed it in the neat. Yet we never heard of a thrush getting higher in its arithmetic than the power which Sir John Lubbock attributes to most birds of distinguishing between three eggs and two. Sir John believes that most birds will desert their nest if two out of only four eggs have been abstracted, but not if only one out of four has been abstracted ; and he infers that the bird sees no difference between three and four, but does see a difference between two and four. Well, the thrash is one of the birds, we imagine, that can count as high as three, but cannot discriminate between three and four ; and yet the thrush, like most other birds, will recognise that one of her brood has been displaced, and is in need of her care elsewhere. Is not that a slighter exercise of reason,—assuming that a steady maternal instinct prompts every mother,—than the effort to count ten P Yet the wasp is incapable of any such exercise of reason, it seems. She does not repair a mischance when it happens to the stock of food she provides. If so, surely it is unreasonable to suppose that she had the capacity to recognise that the food was for her offspring's use at all, and still more that she can count ten in the exercise of an instinct of which she has not the capacity to grasp the meaning. Surely a creature that could provide de- liberately for the future of its offspring and even count ten in supplying its wants, would be able to see that the ten had dwindled to nine or eight before her task was done, and would supply the deficiency. This striking incapacity seems to us to argue that the seeming capacity to count ten was not real, but was mere instinctive deference to some automatic necessity impressed upon the organism, just as the process for hatching the eggs of a bird is so impressed, without any conscious adaptation of means to ends at all. Surely it is more reasonable to suppose that the female is driven to find ten victims for every female grub, and five only for every male grub, by an inscrutable necessity, than it is to suppose that though she is rational enough to count ten before she knows that she has executed her task, she is nevertheless irrational enough to take no notice that two out of the ten victims have disappeared. Of course, this is only saying that there is no ex- planation of the instinct. That we grant. But is it not lees unreasonable to say that there is no explanation, than to give an explanation which would imply an amount of intelligence disproved by the simplest experiment made upon it P The lesser act of intelligence is implied in the greater. If there be no power of adaptation of resources to meet new difficulties, it is incredible that there can be arithmetical capacity enough for counting ten. We should take the power of an animal to meet unexpected emergencies of a simple kind as the most elementary of all tests of reason as distinguished from mere instinct. The ant or the beaver which at once makes good the injuries of whatever kind which happen to its settlement, cer- tainly reasons ; but the wasp which provides five, or ten, or twenty-four victims, as the case may be, for its undeveloped off- spring, but never replaces one that is taken away, almost as certainly is not acting on any principle which takes account of claaaging circumstances, but on instinct alone.
Thus, it was surely reasoning,—of a simple kind, indeed, but still reasoning, and not instinct,—which was displayed by Sir John's poodle ' Van,' when he learned to associate the word " food" with bread-and-milk, and to bring the word when he wanted the thing ; to associate the word " out " with a walk, and-to bring the word when he wanted a walk, and so on; and Sir John Lubbock seems to have established absolutely by these experiments that a clever dog is fully capable of learning the names affixed by his master to his various enjoyments, and of asking for an enjoyment by means of a fixed sign or symbol. Indeed, every creature which answers to its own name, shows the same power in a much more rudimentary form. But what was the reason why Sir John Lubbock failed at the next step in instructing this clever animal ?- "I then tried the following experiment prepared six,nards about 10 inches by 3, and coloured in pairs,—two yellow, two blue, autttwo orange. I put three of them on the floor, and thee, holding DTP one of the others, endeavonred to teach ' Van' to bring me the duplicate. That is to say, that if the blue was held up, he should fetch the corresponding colour from the floor; if yellow, he should fetch the yellow, and so on. When he brought the wrong card, he was made to drop it, and return for another till he brought the right OM, when he was rewarded with a little food. We continued the lessons for nearly three months, but as a few days were missed, we may say for ten weeks, and yet at the end of the time I cannot say that ' Van' appeared to have the least idea what was expected of bier. It seemed a matter of pure accident which card be brought. There is, I believe, no reason to doubt that dogs can distinguish °slows; but as it was jaet possible that' Van' might be colour-blind, we then repeated the same experiment, only substituting for the coloured cards others marked respectively with dark bands, I., II., and III. This we continued for another three months—or, say, growing for intermissions, tan weeks—but to my surprise, entirely without success, for we entirely failed to make the dog understand what we wanted."
We take it that the real difference between this and the previous experiment is very simple. It was not that the dog did not see the likeness between the like cards and the difference between the different ones, for this he had proved sufficiently in the previous experiment that he did see. All the various samples of cards with "food," or " oat," or " bone " on them were used by him, and used indifferently, when he wanted the thing associated with the- name he had learnt to recognise. Any one of twenty cards with the same name on it was brought, and ' Van' knew per- fectly well that any one of them would do. Clearly, therefore, he saw the resemblances and the differences between printed words. Why could he not learn that when his master held up a-card with one sign on it, he wanted him to bring another card with a similar sign on it P Solely, we imagine, because, while he could learn to associate a name with a real thing, he could not learn to associate a name with a duplicate of itself. Be could perceive likeness, and make use of it to get at MVO ultimate enjoyment ; but he could not conceive of anybody's wanting him to show that he understood that one object was like another, without any relation to an isitiraute object to be gained. His mind could pass from the same to the thing named,—at all events, where the thing named was what he enjoyed,—but not from one name to a duplicate of the same name where thane was no external reality to be associated with the name. It is true that he was fed when he brought a similar card, and not fed when he brought a die- similar one ; but if he had learned anything in that way, it would have been to think that the card he brought was another name for " food," and when he found that on the next occasion (after a different card had been held up) it was not a name for food, but for being refused food, he would be bewildered, and regard the whole lesson as confusion. It is evidently a much easier busi- ness to make even a very clever animal understand'the name for a thing, than to make him understand the name as a mere abstract term,—as expressing the common aspect of similar things. This last lesson was an attempt to make Van' display his pro- ficiency in discovering a mere resemblance. He could detect the resemblance, but could not understand that he was asked to show that he had detected it, simply for the sake of illustrating his abstract power.
It is still more difficult to interpret what passes in the mind of an animal when you come to the region of the character and the affections. An eminent physician described to the present writer a day or two ago, what he had himself witnessed during the illness and after the death and burial of a favourite collie of his own. The dog was sick to death, and was taken to die quietly in the country, where the mother of various puppies of the same breed was bringing up her family. Directly the sick dog was taken down, the bitch went to lie by his aide, and never left him for the four days that he survived,—could not, indeed, be tempted away from hie aide. Alter his death, his master had a grave dog for him, in which he was laid amidst a shower of primroees, with some little ceremony. The female jumped down into the grave and licked the poor old dog's ear, and was followed in so doing by all the puppies,—all his own children,—while two dogs of a different breed stood, one on each side of the grave, wagging their tails, but showing no wish to descend and take leave of him in this fashion. Then the bitch leaped out of the grave, followed by all her puppies, rushed into a neighbouring field, and began circling round and round it in a wild gallop of apparent delight. And the interpretation put upon this fidelity and farewell of hers, followed by this burst of exuberant spirits, by the master, was, "Duty first, and pleasure afterwards." The nursing and the farewell were duties which had been discharged with all due tenderness ; hot once discharged, the mother saw no reason why she should not take a thorough good romp with her children. "Dead was dead, and gone was gone ;" mourning was not part of her conception of the exigencies of the situation. Now, was that, or was it not,a true interpreta- tion of what passed through that collie's mind P If not, what was it that made her lie for four days by the dying dog, and then leap into the grave and give his ear a lick P Perhaps the notion of duty never entered her head ; it may have been sympathy, real trouble at seeing her old companion in so much trouble, that kept her at his side. But then, what took her and all the puppies into the grave ? That was not sympathy ; was it a sense of propriety, a feeling of what was due to the head of the family, a last recognition of what he had been, and was to be no more ? If so, would not that imply a sort of con- ventional sense of status and dignity, a feeling of decorum, a recognition of the appropriateness of a certain kind of demeanour to a certain kind of occasion, and a sense, too, of the weight of those obligations, and of relief at their discharge, as expressed by the subsequent gambols with her offspring? If all that might really be inferred, what germs of an advanced civilisation would not be contained in the character of such dogs as these? But who can judge how far it is safe to go, in interpreting by our human analogies what takes place in the heart of a dumb creature P
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