Animal world

“ Starting from this base, it may be observed that the liturgical interpreters of the animal world distinguished beasts from animals, including under the former head wild and untamable creatures, and under the second gentle and timid creatures and domestic animals. ”

“ And such, in the main, is the condition of the animal world;—it consists of its two classes,—animals of prey, and the animals upon which they prey: its wars are simply those of the butcher and fisher, lightened by a dash of the enjoyments of the sportsman. ”

“ Take the animal world, for example—the creatures themselves, and not their names— and look at the diversity of cats and dogs, goats and sheep, beetles and butterflies, soles and shrimps, that even the ordinary unlearned man knows and recognizes, and mostly remembers. ”

“ You will better understand what I mean by the animal’s aliveness, his uncloying pleasure in the sensation of living, if you can forget any tragical theories or prejudices of animal life which you have chanced to read, and then frankly observe the first untrammeled creature you meet in the outdoor world. Here at your back door, for example, is a flock of birds that come trooping from the snowy woods to your winter feast of crumbs. ”

“ The wonderful world in which we live is full of animal life. In the great forests, under the ground, on the steep mountainsides, in the depths of the oceans, rivers, streams, from the frigid north to the torrid south, in the parched deserts, are animals of every size, colour, and form, all of which are, in their general form, adapted to their [Pg 211] peculiar places in nature. Their lives and habits undeniably demonstrate proofs of divine wisdom, intelligence, and beneficence. In fact they show an aptitude in many arts and sciences second only to that shown in man. ”

“ This is what anyone interested in the ways of wild animals has to go through when he seeks for knowledge concerning them—life written very small indeed, and death, with contortions, in great flaring capital letters. Seldom, indeed, do we get the light and joy of the one unclouded by the gloom of the other. ”

“ I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life. ”

“ But for all healthy people accustomed to the outdoor world, the study of animal life has always possessed an interest. Its interest has, however, been increased a hundred fold by the progress of modern discovery, which has taught us to see in the animal kingdom one large family, working its way upwards from humble beginnings, to more perfect structure of body, and more complete intelligence of mind. ”

“ The aim of The World of Animal Life is to give in non-scientific language an account of those inhabitants of the land, sea, and sky with whose names we are all familiar, but concerning whose manner of life the majority of us have only the haziest conceptions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we see the animals going about, living their lives in many ways as we live ours, seeking their food, avoiding their enemies, building their nests, digging their holes, laying up stores, migrating, courting, playing, fighting, showing cunning, courage, fear, joy, anger, rivalry, grief, profiting by experience, following their leaders,—when we see all this, I say, what more natural than that we should ascribe to them powers akin to our own, and look upon them as thinking, reasoning, and reflecting. A hasty survey of animal life is sure to lead to this conclusion. ”

“ How far have we at present accounted for the varied animal colouration which we see around us? the glory of our cabinetdrawers, the mysterious wonder in the galleries of our museums, the charm of travellers abroad, and appreciative lovers of nature at home. Very much, when the difficulty of the problem is considered, and especially where the utility of animal disguises and mimicking appearances has been unravelled by the magic wand of "natural selection," or "the survival of the fittest." ”

“ One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering. ”

“ He brought to his writings of animal life a new point of view—namely, that human beings and wild animals are kin; that animals are motivated with passions and desires and, to some extent, ideas, just as human beings are. Thus he wrote with sympathy and with creative imagination and revealed the new life and being of wild animals, and he hoped to achieve the practical result of quickening the sympathies of man toward animals and stopping the thoughtless extermination of many of our harmless wild creatures. ”

“ Folk who loved their animal comrades—their dogs, horses, cats, parrots, elephants—were observing, with the wonder and interest of discoverers, the astonishing fashion in which the mere instincts of these so-called irrational creatures were able to simulate the operations of reason. ”

“ The proper place in which to study the minds, manners and morals of wild animals is in the most thickly populated haunts of the most intelligent species. The free and untrammeled animal, busily working out its own destiny unhindered by man, is the beau-ideal animal to observe and to study. ”

“ This is especially the case with the many stories that can be told of their powers of thought and special habits and modes of action, and the reader will find here many striking anecdotes of animal intelligence selected out of the multitude that are on record. The story of the whole animal kingdom is pleasing and instructive, and that of the domestic animals, those which have come under man's special care, is specially so, as it is hoped the readers of this work will discover. ”

“ I might speak of the use of animals to man for food, for clothing, to bear his burdens, to delight him with their beauty and affection animal. He has animal instincts, desires, passions, tastes, habits, powers, in a word, an animal nature. He possesses not merely the special faculties of one animal. The qualities of all animals are embodied in him. Plants and animals are special forms and qualities of life, all of which are combined in every human being. ”

“ This sympathy, with the aid of our now authoritative science of physiology, and in association with our British love of adventure, will, I hope, enable us to give to the future inhabitants of the globe an almost perfect record of the present forms of animal life upon it, of which many are on the point of being extinguished. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have at least blood in their veins, not mud, and their life is the wild life of animals, with wild animal pleasures and pains; not the slow corroding cark and care and secret viciousness which so often reduce the struggling shopman below the level of even a healthy bestiality. ”

“ What now is the case of animals, especially those which are most highly trained, as for instance the dog, the horse, or the monkey? Have not they likewise a soul? Certainly the animal possesses sensible impressions, feelings, impulses, a memory, and as far as this goes, one may speak of a soul. ”

“ The observant naturalist of the field has the sense—at least he has it if he be endowed with a little imagination—of [216] the immense pleasure which life gives to most wild animals. That instinctive, and in its foundations utterly irrational and animal joy which men have, or should have, in their day, is part of the birthright of all sentient beings. ”

“ We have now arrived at the highest rank in the scale of animal life—the four-footed, hair-clad, milk-nursed denizens of our woods and fields—the subclass Mammalia, mammals.
These are the "animals" of popular speech, but accuracy requires a more distinctive expression, for every living thing not a plant is an "animal." ”

“ These were followed by wild animals, and those remarkable for their beauty, from every part of the world, either led, as in the case of lions, tigers, leopards, by those who from long management of them possessed the same power over them as the groom over his horse, or else drawn along upon low platforms, upon which they were made to perform a thousand antic tricks for the amusement of the gaping and wondering crowds. ”

“ Observe the dog, the birds of different species, the monkeys, the hares, and you find wonderful differences of habit, each adapting the animal differently, but with equal effectiveness, to the life which he in particular is called upon to lead. The ants and bees are notoriously expert in the matter of instinct. ”

“ It is no detraction from the merit of these books, which have done great service in awakening a sympathetic understanding of the animals and sharpening our sense of kinship with all that breathe, to say that their psychology is human. Their animal characters think and feel as human beings would think and feel under like conditions. This marks the stage which these works occupy in the development of the animal story. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us suppose that at any given moment this harmony is perfect. A certain animal is exactly fitted to secure its prey, to escape from its enemies, to resist the inclemencies of the seasons, and to rear a numerous and healthy offspring. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle84 regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life. ”

“ This is the original order to which animal nature is subjected, as applied to every species of it. The beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, with reptiles, and all manner of beings, which are possessed with animal life; nor is pain, sickness, or mortality any part of God's punishment for sin. ”

“ In many cases I have kept a wild animal or bird for a few days to learn something of its ways, possibly to make a drawing of its attitudes or plumage, and then let it go, else nearly all my pets, except imported creatures, have been reared from infancy, an invalid's life and wakefulness making early-morning feeding of young fledglings less difficult than it would have been in many cases, and often have painful hours been made bearable and pleasant by the interest arising from careful observation of the habits and ways of some new pet animal or bird. ”

“ We could fill pages with the account of the differences existing between animals created for such different purposes and fitted to inhabit different climates, their mode of feeding and catching prey. The manner of bringing forth and rearing the young, and the temperament and temper of the animal creation would fill a volume, but we cannot now stay to examine these various characteristics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any of you who keep pets could, I have no doubt, tell me many wonderful tales of the extraordinary intelligence of these horses, dogs, cats, pigeons, cavies, mice, parrots, rabbits, squirrels, and what not, which, according to their nature, share our hearth rugs or our back yards. You who do not, have only to ask the man next door who keeps a horse or a dog, or the woman on the other side who has a cat or a parrot, to learn that animals are only just a little short of human, and if they could only talk, would soon prove, as we say, to “know more than most men.” ”

“ Whether Man should take his place in the animal kingdom? a question which evidently leads to another: Is man distinguished from animals by important and characteristic phenomena, absolutely unknown in the latter? ”

“ But, nevertheless, the relationships of man and his animal associates (slaves, domestic animals, rats, mice, parasites, etc.) form as truly an animal association as do those of the animals which live associated in some forest glade; and in all probability, before any approximately complete understanding can be had of the human associations, their roots and principles of activity must be known and understood in the less aristocratic portion of his animal relatives. ”