Frédéric Houssay

“ The Lion is certainly an incomparable hunter; but his whole organisation tends to facilitate the capture of living prey. His agility and the strength of his muscles enable him to seize it at the first leap before it can escape. With his sharp claws he holds it; his teeth are so keen and his jaw so strong that he kills it immediately; with such natural advantages what need has he of ingenuity? But in the case of the Wolf or the Fox it is quite another matter; they hunt with a veritable art which Man himself has not disdained, since he has taken as his associate their relative, the Dog. ”

“ At that hour the sun begins to reach him, and to escape it he passes over to the opposite slope; it is a curious sight to see them all, with pendent heads and sleepy air, advance with trailing steps to their eastern retreat, settle down in it, and continue their dream and their digestion till evening, when they again set forth to prowl. We never grow tired of admiring the intelligence of their domesticated fellows, but this trait seems to me worthy of remark; it proves a very developed power of observation and reflection. ”

“ Of all animals the Ape most skilfully directs his flight. There is no question that in his intelligence we may find every rudiment of our own; but of all his qualities none more nearly approximates him to us than his courage. There are no animals, not even the great beasts of prey, who are so brave as Man and the Ape, and who are capable of so much presence of mind. It is perhaps this bravery which, joined to his sociability, has most contributed to assure the supremacy of the one. ”

“ If by chance an owl appears by day and one of them perceives him, immediately a clamour arises — a veritable cry of war; all those who are in the neighbourhood fly to the spot, and business ceases; the nocturnal bird of prey is assaulted, riddled with blows from beaks, stunned, his feathers torn out, and, notwithstanding his defence, he succumbs to numbers.
In all the preceding examples the social species unite for the common security the forces and effects which they can derive from their own organs. ”

“ It is not only against other animals that these great mammals have to defend themselves; they are much afraid of heat, and they are accustomed, especially in the south of Persia, to ruminate while lying in the water during the hot hours of the day. They only allow the end of the snout, or at most the head, to appear. It is a curious spectacle when fording a river to see emerge from the reeds the great heads and calm eyes of the Buffaloes, who follow with astonishment all the movements of the horsemen, although nothing will disturb their sweet and fresh siesta. ”

“ He pursues tired or wounded animals whom he meets, and easily masters them. If he finds a burrow, he quickly hollows a hole and brings to light the young rabbits who thought themselves in safety in the bowels of the earth; he robs nests placed in the thickets, and devours the young birds. Beehives are not protected against his greediness by the stings of the swarms; he rolls on the earth, crushes his assailants, and finally triumphs over the discouraged insects and gorges himself with honey. ”

“ It is unquestionable that an industry marks a higher degree of civilisation not only by its development, but still more by its reference to the less necessary things of life; in every species the importance of the place given to the superfluous is a mark of superiority. The animals who, foreseeing a hard season, or fearing the days when hunting will not be productive, lay up provisions to utilise in such times of famine, rise a degree higher than even the most skilful hunters. ”

“ Yet the female constructs a genuine nest. She seeks a very inaccessible spot in the midst of brushwood and thickets of reeds. With her jaw she carries thither boughs which she arranges on the soil and covers with leaves. She lays her eggs and conceals them with care beneath vegetable remains. Not yet considering her work completed, she stays in the neighbourhood watching with jealous eye the thicket which shelters the dear deposit, and never ceases to mount guard threateningly until the day when her young ones can follow her into the stream. ”

“ What the individual loses in individuality and in personal initiative, heredity restores to him in the form of instinct which is, as it were, the condensed and accumulated intelligence of his ancestors. He himself no longer needs to take thought either to preserve his life or to assure the perpetuation of his race. The qualities which he received at birth render reflection less necessary; thus species endowed with some powerful instinct seem not to be intelligent when they live sheltered from unforeseen events. ”

“ Science only begins on the day when we have found the simple theory which binds together all the facts at that time known, without of course prejudicing the future. As the number of acquired facts increases, if the theory in question continues to explain the new as it explained the old, the science becomes more firmly established. If we can imagine a time arriving when all the possible phenomena are known, and the existing hypothesis still explains them, nothing henceforth can overturn it, the science is completed. That is the simple case in which a theory has been victorious ”

“ The expeditions organised for this purpose are simply a perfected chase, both by the way in which they are conducted, and by the result to which they are to lead. It is not a question of brutally seizing a prey to be devoured immediately. The captured animal must be carefully managed, carried away alive and in such a condition that it has not yet known a free life, and can accustom itself to new conditions. When the Polyergus or Amazon ants desire to increase their band of slaves, one first remarks extreme excitement in the neighbourhood of the nest. ”

“ There is no need for surprise if we meet to-day, I do not say among all, but among a very large number of animals, this foresight for offspring in a well-marked form. It is easy to understand that the species that first acquired and fixed an instinct propitious to the increase of the race has rapidly prospered, stifling beneath its extension those that are less favoured from this point of view, which is of capital importance in a struggle for a place beneath the sun. ”

“ A habitual act costs us much less to execute than a deliberate and reflective act. It is thus that the constructions of bees are more perfect than those of ants; the former act by instinct, the latter reason their acts at each step.
Instinctive actions originate in reflective actions. — No doubt it may be said: It is a pure hypothesis thus to consider instinct as derived from intelligence; why not admit as well that instinctive acts have been such from the beginning — in other words, that species have been created such as we see them to-day? ”

“ If an individual is led to reproduce often the same series of actions it contracts a habit; the repetition may be so frequent that the animal comes to accomplish it without knowing it; the brain no longer intervenes; the spinal cord or the chain of ganglia alone govern this order of acts, to which has been given the name of reflex actions. A reflex may be so powerful as to be transmitted by heredity to the descendants; it then becomes an instinct.
Thus by its nature instinct does not differ from intelligence, but is intimately connected with it by a chain of which all the links may be counted. ”

“ The most rudimentary method of hunting in ambush is simply to take advantage of some favourable external circumstance to obtain concealment, and then to await the approach of the prey. Some animals place themselves behind a tuft of grass, others thrust themselves into a thicket, or hang on to the branch of a tree in order to fall suddenly on the victim who innocently approaches the perfidious ambush. ”

“ I can only believe that the fox, though not insensible, as its behaviour on being left to itself appears to prove, yet has its body thrown by extreme terror into that benumbed condition which simulates death, and during which it is unable to feel the tortures practised on it. ”

“ Thus, in the Southern States the nest is woven of delicate materials united in a rather loose fashion, so that the air can circulate freely and keep the interior fresh; it is lined with no warm substance, and the entrance is turned to the west so that the sun only sends into it the oblique evening rays. In the north, on the contrary, the nest is oriented to the south to profit by all the warm sunshine; the walls are thick, without interstices, and the dwelling is carpeted in the warmest and softest manner. ”

“ At the moment of laying the female seeks out an inhabited dwelling, and when the owner is absent she furtively lays an egg there. The young intruder breaks his shell after four days’ incubation, that is to say, usually much before the legitimate children; and the parents, in order to silence the beak of the stranger who, without shame, claims his share with loud cries, neglect their own brood which have not yet appeared, and which they abandon. ”

“ On land exactly the same kind of chase is carried on by Rooks, Crows, and Magpies, who follow the plough to seize the worms which the ploughshare turns up in the open earth. In autumn they cover the fields, animated and active, pilfering as the furrow is hollowed out.
Certain rapacious birds who are awkward in hunting, especially Kites, make up for their lack of skill by audacious impudence. Constantly on the watch for better hunters like the Falcon, they throw themselves on him as soon as he has seized his prey. ”

“ Between the beings whom nature has endowed with a shelter and those who construct it by their own industry, we may intercept those who, deprived of a natural asylum and not having the inclination or the power to make one, utilise the dwellings of others, either when the latter still inhabit them, or when they are empty on account of the death or departure of the owner. ”

“ The mouse gleans and constantly brings in the light down of the willow, grains with cottony crests, and the petals of flowers. This is all carefully fitted, and when the edifice is completed the female retires into it to bring forth her young, which are there well sheltered against the dangers without, and the caprices of storms and floods. The nest is made with as much delicacy as that of any bird, and no other mammal except Man is capable of executing such weaver’s work. ”

“ Following up this success, they bring accomplices; a veritable band of brigands is organised, who have no other industry than to seize honey already manufactured in order to fill their own cells. Their audacious enterprises are not always crowned with success; they are repulsed in populous and well-organised hives, but they are successful in the weaker ones. Sometimes they act with violence, and to reduce a swarm they first fall on the queen and kill her with their stings. Disconcerted by her death, the bees allow the pillage of their dwelling, and the cells are robbed from top to bottom. ”

“ In Asia wild dogs do not fear even to attack the tiger. Many no doubt are crushed by a blow of the animal’s paw or strangled in his jaws, but the death of comrades does not destroy either the courage or the greediness of the surviving aggressors. Their number also is such that the great beast, covered by agile enemies who cling to him and wound him in every part, must at last succumb.
Wolves hunt also in considerable bands. Their audacity, especially when pressed by hunger in the bad season, is well known. In time of war they follow armies, to attack stragglers and to devour the dead. ”

“ The small ants endeavour with their burdens to climb to the summits of blades of grass; those who succeed are in safety with the eggs that they carry, for the Amazons do not climb. In the meanwhile a fierce battle is going on in the neighbourhood of the nest between the Formica fusca, who have made a sortie, and the slavers. It is an unequal struggle, because the latter are armed with formidable jaws, strong and sharp, borne by a large head with powerful muscles. ”

“ It has to-day come out of the struggle victoriously. A prodigious quantity of facts, of comparative anatomy and of embryology, inexplicable without it, emerge from the chaos and constitute a whole, truly and marvellously homogeneous. Issued from the natural sciences, the doctrine of evolution now overflows them and tends to embrace everything that concerns man: history, sociology, political economy, psychology. The moralists seek, and will surely find, compromises permitting ethical laws to endure the rule of this overwhelming hypothesis. ”

“ We find among animals not only hunting and fishing but the art of storing in barns, of domesticating various species, of harvesting and reaping — the rudiments of the chief human industries. Certain animals in order to shelter themselves take advantage of natural caverns in the same way as many races of primitive men. Others, like the Fox and the Rodents, dig out dwellings in the earth; even to-day there are regions where Man does not act otherwise, preparing himself a lodging by excavations in the chalk or the tufa. ”

“ One would not think that an animal so well defended as the Hedgehog need fear becoming the prey of the Fox. Rolled in a ball, bristling with hard prickles which cruelly wound an assailant’s mouth, nothing will induce him to unroll so long as he supposes the enemy still in the neighbourhood. It is vain to strike him or to rub him on the earth; he remains on the armed defensive. Only one circumstance disturbs him to the point of making him quit his prudent posture ”