Animal behavior

“ All we can say is, that it is possible to trace in animal behaviour some of the instinctive tendencies and intelligent modes of accommodation to social circumstances, together with the germs of imitation, intercommunication, and tradition, and the establishment of bonds of sympathy, without which the subsequent stages of evolution would be inconceivable. ”

“ Still more dimly does the animal feel that, apart from external interests which prompt nine-tenths of its behaviour, chiefly through the senses of sight, hearing, and smell, there are also matters in which the interest has somehow shifted to his own body. ”

“ We shall have to consider, not only the kind of animal behaviour which implies intelligence, sometimes of a high order; not only such behaviour as animal play and courtship, which suggests emotional attributes; but also forms of behaviour which, if not unconscious, seem to lack conscious guidance and control. We shall deal mainly with the behaviour of the animal as a whole, but also incidentally with that of its constituent particles, or cells ”

“ Under the first will fall those relatively definite modes of behaviour which fit the animal to deal at once, on their first occurrence, with certain essential or frequently recurring conditions of the environment. Under the second head will fall the power of dealing with special circumstances as they arise in the course of a varied life. ”

“ Sufficient has now been said to illustrate some of the ways in which instinct and intelligence interact in the evolution of behaviour. Such interaction is further exemplified in the social life of animals, which will be dealt with in the next chapter. ”

“ Hence I said that the animals in our zoological gardens, even if born and reared in captivity, may exhibit a craving for freedom and a yearning to perform their instinctive activities. This craving may be regarded as a blind and vague impulse, prompting the animal to perform those activities which are for its own good and for the good of the race to which it belongs. ”

“ Their care is to catch the varying, elusive personalities which dwell back of the luminous brain windows of the dog, the horse, the deer, or wrap themselves in reserve behind the inscrutable eyes of all the cats, or sit aloof in the gaze of the hawk and the eagle. The animal story at its highest point of development is a psychological romance constructed on a framework of natural science. ”

“ For instance, we have had many books, brochures, magazine articles, &c., devoted to the subject of "animal instinct v. reason," and I would mention such standard works as 'Animal Behaviour' and 'Habit and Instinct,' by Principal Lloyd Morgan. ”

“ I would merely take this occasion to reaffirm with confidence the belief, which I find shared by practically all observers whose lives are passed in the closest relationship with animals,—by such vitally interested observers, for instance, as keepers, trainers, hunters, and trappers,—that the actions of animals are governed not only by instinct, but also, in varying degree, by processes essentially akin to those of human reason. ”

“ When we meet with instances of a nature calculated to overturn this theory—such as wild animals attacking and destroying travellers, or preying upon the shepherd as he guards his flock, with others of a similar description—instead of hastily presuming upon the falsity of the above position, we should rather seek for some explanation of the reasons which in these cases checked for the time the workings of the animal’s natural instinct. ”

“ For it is probable that all the situations with which pleasure and satisfaction are in high degree associated are, in primary origin, closely connected with behaviour directed, through natural or sexual selection, to some definite biological end, or, in brief, with behaviour of biological value. And it is, perhaps, not improbable that the states of consciousness most highly toned with strong emotion have their origin in those situations which arise amid the pairing, parental, and companiable relations of animal life. ”

“ The stimulus intensifies the want, or may in some cases call it into existence. Just as a whiff from the kitchen may lead us to realize that we need the satisfaction that will erelong be presented at table, so may the sight of his mate in the spring evoke in the breast of the yearling sparrow a need, having its source in morphological and physiological changes, that spurs him on to the courtship that shall lead to its due satisfaction. ”

“ And might we not with equal truth say that the play of youth depends on the fact that certain acquired habits, especially useful in preserving the species, are gained before the animal seriously needs them? ”

“ The history of this peculiar herd-dog shows us how marvellously pliant the body and mind of this species has become under the conditions of civilization. The rude process of unconscious selection, acting without steadfastness of purpose or rationally developed skill, serves to sway the qualities of the animal this way or that to meet the ever-changing requirements of use or fancy. ”

“ Because, observing that carnivorous propensities among Animals are accompanied by a total want of sympathetic Feelings, and humane Sentiments, as in the hyaena, the tyger, the vulture, the eagle, the crocodile, and the shark; he conceives that the practices of those carnivorous brutes afford no worthy example for the imitation or justification of rational, reflecting, and conscientious, Beings. ”

“ Such change would, of course, be relative, and might be due, either to new conditions brought to bear on the animal, or to the animal being itself brought, in the expansion of its life, within their influence. The old instinct is no longer quite adapted to the changed circumstances. ”

“ We may say, as the result of observation, that instinctive acts are performed under such circumstances as exclude the possibility of guidance in the light of individual experience, and render it in the highest degree improbable that there exists any idea of the end to be attained. But this is a very different position from that of asserting the presence of a positive faculty or propensity which impels an animal to the performance of certain actions. ”

“ Animals differ as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work. ”

“ It is, however, becoming more and more clearly evident that the discussion of the relation of the animal to the human mind, if it is to be made a subject of scientific inquiry, must be conducted on psychological lines by those who have devoted years of study to the subject. In this work such a discussion will be attempted, and animal behaviour will be treated as the precursor of human conduct, and as affording evidence of the germs from which the distinctively human mental attributes may have been evolved. ”

“ But both of these animals agree in possessing in common the capability of performing those processes such as taking food, breathing, reproducing, etc., to which attention has been called as being indispensable to all animal life. ”

“ To reinforce, from a somewhat different point of view, that which has again and again been urged in the preceding sections of this inquiry, that much of animal behaviour is an organic legacy. A going mechanism of great delicacy, with ready-made co-ordinations, the products of biological evolution, affords to consciousness a vast body of its primary data. ”

“ And if, instead of trusting to such general a priori considerations, we study with attention the conditions under which an animal so behaves as to lead us to infer that it profits by experience, we find that it is not the consciousness that [44] accompanies the behaviour which leads to future guidance, but the consciousness that arises from the results of the behaviour. Let us willingly grant that the newly hatched, and as yet inexperienced chick, when it pecks at a small object is conscious of a visual impression, and is conscious also of movements of its neck and beak. ”

“ What generalization, then, can be drawn from this somewhat indefinite group of facts, to which many others of like import could be added from observations on the young of mammals? What is their relation to instinctive procedure in general? It would seem that they are characterized by a special relation of the external stimulus to the response. When this stimulus is afforded by the behaviour of another animal, and the responsive behaviour it initiates is similar to that which affords the stimulus, such behaviour may be termed imitative. A chick sounds the danger note ”

“ First of all I study the animal’s nature and disposition. No two animals are alike, any more than any two children are alike. Some animals are very nervous, are easily excited, while others are placid and docile and nothing seems to disturb them. But whatever the natural disposition nothing can be done without gaining the animal’s complete confidence. This I do by uniformly kind treatment. I always speak gently, mildly, never angrily or impatiently. Then I pet the animal at every opportunity, though with some, one must approach them at first, cautiously. ”

“ The behaviour of living cells is dependent on changes in their environment; that of deciduous trees, as they put forth their leaves in the spring or shed them in the autumn, is related to the change of the season; instinctive, intelligent, and emotional behaviour are called forth in response to those circumstances which exercise a constraining influence at the moment of action. Used in this comprehensive sense, the term “behaviour” neither implies nor excludes the presence of consciousness. ”

“ All natural philosophers and historians who have made the nature and habits of the animal creation their study have agreed upon this fact; that all healthy animals, unless their lives are terminated by violence, live five times as long as it takes them to grow up. ”

“ Seeing that this attitude permeates the whole discussion, it is somewhat disconcerting to read in the concluding remarks that, "to fully understand mimicry, we must appreciate general animal intelligence, and then we shall probably comprehend how much activity has been displayed by animals seeking protection by adaptive and assimilative efforts. ”

“ Sharp as the logical distinction is, the behaviour of animals is in the main a joint-product, and whether we term it instinctive or intelligent depends upon whether the hereditary or the acquired factor predominates. ”

“ In a general view of the social habit in animals certain outstanding facts are readily to be observed. It is of wide distribution and sporadic occurrence, it varies much in the completeness of its development, and there seems to be an inverse relation between its completeness and the brain power of the animal concerned. ”

“ Section 44 If anyone were to undertake to tame and train an animal of many forms and shapes, compounded of many animals of various sizes and degrees of tameness and wildness, his principal task, involving a considerable struggle, would be the government of so extraordinary and heterogeneous a nature, since each of the animals of which it is compounded would, according to its nature or habit, be differently affected with joy, pleasure or dislike, by the same words, or food, or stroking with the hand, or whistling, or other modes of treatment. ”

“ Hence the innumerable forms assumed by the Animal, the results of its combinations with that Substance. The Animal's instincts are the product of the coercion of the environment in which it develops. Hence its variety. ”

“ There is a more uniform character and greater similarity of temperament among wild animals, and the more refined the civilization and the more cultivated the senses, the more sensitive will the whole animal become. ”

“ But no sooner does the chick, when it is hatched, begin to show wider modes of instinctive behaviour, than we invoke conscious intelligence for their explanation, seemingly forgetful of the fact that there is no logical ground for affirming that, while the marvellous delicacies of structure are of unconscious organic origin, the early modes of instinctive behaviour are due to the guidance of consciousness. ”

“ The ability to perform [123] acts in special adaptation to new circumstances, and the individuality manifested in dealing with the complex conditions of a variable environment,—these seem to be distinctive features of intelligence. On the other hand, in instinctive behaviour there seems to be no choice; the animal is impelled to their stereotyped performance through impulse, as by a stern necessity; they are so far from novel that they are performed by every like individual of the species, and have been so performed by their ancestors for generations ”

“ Instinctive behaviour would remain unmodified throughout life. The chick, however, or the imago insect is something more than this. It affords evidence of the accommodation of behaviour to varying circumstances. ”

“ But though we cannot accept the view that habit is the mother of instinct, we regard it as not improbable that habit may be the nurse of congenital propensities. Remembering that similar habits are acquired by animals of the same species throughout a series of succeeding generations, and assuming that congenital variations are constantly occurring in many directions, it seems probable that some of these variations will be coincident in direction with the acquired habits. ”