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Cornugaya Directory 05
Page 10
The real question, however, as to the substantial underlying
identity between the language of the lower animals and our own,
turns upon that other question whether or no, in spite of an
immeasurable difference of degree, the thought and reason of man and
of the lower animals is essentially the same. No one will expect a
dog to master and express the varied ideas that are incessantly
arising in connection with human affairs. He is a pauper as against
a millionaire. To ask him to do so would be like giving a street-
boy sixpence and telling him to go and buy himself a founder's share
in the New River Company. He would not even know what was meant,
and even if he did it would take several millions of sixpences to
buy one. It is astonishing what a clever workman will do with very
modest tools, or again how far a thrifty housewife will make a very
small sum of money go, or again in like manner how many ideas an
intelligent brute can receive and convey with its very limited
vocabulary; but no one will pretend that a dog's intelligence can
ever reach the level of a man's. What we do maintain is that,
within its own limited range, it is of the same essential character
as our own, and that though a dog's ideas in respect of human
affairs are both vague and narrow, yet in respect of canine affairs
they are precise enough and extensive enough to deserve no other
name than thought or reason. We hold moreover that they communicate
their ideas in essentially the same manner as we do--that is to say,
by the instrumentality of a code of symbols attached to certain
states of mind and material objects, in the first instance
arbitrarily, but so persistently, that the presentation of the
symbol immediately carries with it the idea which it is intended to
convey. Animals can thus receive and impart ideas on all that most
concerns them. As my great namesake said some two hundred years
ago, they know "what's what, and that's as high as metaphysic wit
can fly." And they not only know what's what themselves, but can
impart to one another any new what's-whatness that they may have
acquired, for they are notoriously able to instruct and correct one
another.
The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more or less repair, for
several years. Many of our common birds do the same. The birds may be
divided, with respect to this and kindred points, into five general
classes. First, those that repair and appropriate the last year's
nest, as the wren, swallow, blue-bird, great-crested flycatcher, owls,
eagles, fish-hawk, and a few others. Secondly, those that build anew
each season, though frequently rearing more than one brood in the same
nest. Of these, the phoebe-bird is a well-known example. Thirdly, those
that build a new nest for each brood, which includes by far the
greatest number of species. Fourthly, a limited number that make no
nest of their own, but appropriate the abandoned nests of other birds.
Finally, those who use no nest at all, but deposit their eggs in the
sand, which is the case with a large number of aquatic fowls. Thus the
common gull breeds in vast numbers on the sand bars or sand islands
off the south coast of Long Island. A little dent is made in the sand,
the eggs are dropped, and the old birds go their way. In due time the
eggs are hatched by the warmth of the sun, and the little creatures
shift for themselves. In July countless numbers of them, of different
ages and sizes, swarm upon these sandy wastes. As the waves roll out,
they rush down the beach, picking up a kind of sea gluten, and then
hasten back to avoid the next breaker.
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