George John Romanes

“ To such a height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own party in the mêlée and confusion, has been driven into the enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted to insinuate himself within the circle which they had formed for common security. ”

“ I have seen the same rage manifested by a fine cockatoo at the sight of his mistress carrying on her wrist and stroking affectionately a little green parrot. Such jealousy seems to me a very advanced emotion, as it has passed beyond the stage when it may be supposed to be caused by a fear of other animals monopolising material benefits which they desire for themselves; it is excited solely by seeing affection or attention bestowed by those they love upon other animals. ”

“ Most remarkable among rodents for instinct and intelligence unquestionably stands the beaver. Indeed, there is no animal—not even excepting the ants and bees—where instinct has risen to a higher level of far-reaching adaptation to certain constant conditions of environment, or where faculties, undoubtedly instinctive, are more puzzlingly wrought up with faculties no less undoubtedly intelligent. So much is this the case that, as we shall presently see, it is really impossible by the closest study of the psychology of this animal to distinguish the web of instinct from the woof of intelligence ”

“ The workers, therefore, never allow the old queen to approach the prisons of the younger ones. They establish a guard all round these prisons or royal cells, and beat off the old queen whenever she endeavours to approach. But if the swarming season is over, or anything should prevent a further swarm from being sent out, the worker bees offer no further resistance to the jealousy of the mother queen, but allow her in cold blood to sting to death all the young queens in their nursery prisons. ”

“ No one can understand the extent of their infatuation until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees. I have seen thousands strained out from the syrup in which they had perished; thousands more alighting even upon the boiling sweets, the floor covered and windows darkened with bees, some crawling, others flying, and others still, so completely besmeared as to be able neither to crawl nor fly, not one in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoils, and yet the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers. ”

“ A bell is attached to its neck, and a box or basket with one side open is securely strapped on its back. This at night is lighted with flambeaux of wax, and the buffalo bearing it is slowly driven into the jungle. The huntsmen with their fowling-pieces keep close under the darkened side, and as it moves slowly onwards, the wild animals, startled by the sound and bewildered by the light, steal cautiously towards it in stupefied fascination. ”

“ That is to say, if we observe an ant or a bee apparently exhibiting sympathy or rage, we must either conclude that some psychological state resembling that of sympathy or rage is present, or else refuse to think about the subject at all; from the observable facts there is no other inference open. Therefore, having full regard to the progressive weakening of the analogy from human to brute psychology as we recede through the animal kingdom downwards from man, still, as it is the only analogy available, I shall follow it throughout the animal series. ”

“ Common sense, however, universally feels that analogy is here a safer guide to truth than the sceptical demand for impossible evidence; so that if the objective existence of other organisms and their activities is granted—without which postulate comparative psychology, like all the other sciences, would be an unsubstantial dream—common sense will always and without question conclude that the activities of organisms other than our own, when analogous to those activities of our own which we know to be accompanied by certain mental states, are in them accompanied by analogous mental states. ”

“ As the young cuckoo was blind, it must have known the part of the nest to choose by feeling from the inside that that part was unsupported.
Such being the facts, we have next to ask how they are to be explained on the principles of evolution. At first sight it seems that although the habit saves the bird which practises it much time and trouble, and so is clearly of benefit to the individual, it is not so clear how the instinct is of benefit to the species ”

“ Few words in our language have been subject to a greater variety of meanings than the word instinct. In popular phraseology, descended from the Middle Ages, all the mental faculties of the animal are termed instinctive, in contradistinction to those of man, which are termed rational. But unless we commit ourselves to an obvious reasoning in a circle, we must avoid assuming that all actions of animals are instinctive, and then arguing that because they are instinctive, therefore they differ from the rational actions of man. ”

“ I have been particularly struck with the fact that black rabbits inherit the crouching instinct as strongly as do normally coloured ones, with the effect of rendering themselves highly conspicuous. This shows that the instinct is not necessarily correlated with the colour which alone renders the instinct useful, but that both have developed simultaneously and independently, and by natural selection. The fact also shows that the crouching of rabbits is purely instinctive, and not due to any conscious process of comparing their own colour with that of the surfaces on which they crouch. ”

“ Coming now to general habits, our attention is claimed by the only general habit that is of interest—namely, that of web-building. The instinct of constructing nets for the capture of prey occurs in no other class of animals, while in spiders it not only attains to an extraordinary degree of perfection (so that, in the opinion of some geometers, the instinct is not less wonderful in this respect than is that displayed by the hive-bee in the construction [208] of its cells) , but also ramifies into a number of diverse directions. ”

“ At this time the winged members of the slave species (F. fusca and F. cunicularia) have left the nest, and the Amazons will not take the trouble to bring back useless consumers. When the sky is clear our robbers leave their town in the afternoon at about three or four o'clock. At first no order is perceptible in their movements, but when they are all gathered together they form a regular column, which then moves forward quickly, and each day in a different direction. They march closely pressed together, and the foremost always appear to be seeking for something on the ground. ”

“ He forms, with astonishing labour and perseverance, a pit in the shape of a funnel, in a dry sandy soil, under some old wall or other spot protected from the wind. His pit being finished, he buries himself among the sand at the bottom, leaving only his horns visible, and thus waits patiently for his prey. When an ant or any other small insect happens to walk on the edge of the hollow, it forces down some of the particles of sand, which gives the ant-lion notice of its presence. ”

“ At last it stumbled across its prey, seized it eagerly, and as there was nothing more to come back for, flew straight off to its nest, without taking any further note of the locality. Such an action is not the result of blind instinct, but of a thinking mind; and it is wonderful to see an insect so differently constructed using a mental process similar to that of man. ”

“ Akin to jealousy is the sense of justice. If a master is not equal in his ways towards his dogs, the dogs are very apt to discover the injustice and to resent it accordingly. The well-known observation of the great Arago may be taken as a typical one in this connection. Having been detained by a storm at a country inn, and having ordered a chicken for his dinner, Arago was warming himself by the kitchen fire, when he saw the innkeeper put the fowl on the spit and attempt to seize a turnspit dog lying in the kitchen. ”

“ At every moment of leisure they fanned themselves with a bunch of leaves, and the graceful ease with which an elephant uses his trunk on such occasions is very striking. It is doubtless owing to the combination of a circular with a horizontal movement in that flexible limb; but it is impossible to see an elephant fanning himself without being struck by the singular elegance of motion which he displays. ”

“ Whether we look to the growing child or to the ascending scale of animal life, we find that instinct shades into reason by imperceptible degrees, or, as Pope expresses it, that these principles are 'for ever separate, yet for ever near.' Nor is this other than the principles of evolution would lead us to expect, as I shall afterwards have abundant occasion to show. Here, however, we are only concerned with drawing what distinction we can between instinct and reason as these faculties are actually presented to our observation. ”

“ As with man, so with the friend of man, it is only those whose lines of fortune have fallen in pleasant places, and whose feelings may therefore be said to have profited by the refining influences of culture, that display in any conspicuous measure the emotions in question. 'Curs of low degree,' and even many dogs of better social position, have never enjoyed those conditions essential to moral refinement, which alone can engender a true sense of self-respect and dignity. A 'low-life' dog may not like to have his tail pulled, any more than a gutter child may like to have his ears boxed ”

“ While one flies to fetch the materials, the other sits upon the tree to guard it; and thus in the space of three or four days, with a skirmish now and then between, the pair have filled up a commodious nest, composed of sticks without, and of fibrous roots and long grass within. From the instant the female begins to lay, all hostilities are at an end; not one of the whole grove, that a little before treated her so rudely, will now venture to molest her, so that she brings forth her brood with perfect tranquillity. Such is the severity with which even native rooks are treated by each other ”