[114] In the case of the cat and dog the use of this stratagem is not instinctive; it is the rational use of means to obtain a certain desired end. The fact that the dog "inherited the act" from its mother is not a proof of inherited instinct. Instincts are not formed in a single generation.--W. Most animals are slain for food by other animals. There is a continual struggle for existence. The carnivora and insectivora, with certain exceptions, prefer freshly killed food. They will not touch tainted meat when they can procure the recently killed, blood-filled bodies of their prey. The exigencies of their surroundings in their struggle for existence, however, often compel them to eat carrion. Dogs will occasionally eat carrion, but sparingly, and apparently as a relish, just as we sometimes eat odoriferous and putrid cheeses, and the Turks, assafoetida. Carnivora and insectivora would much prefer to do their own butchery; hence, when they come upon their prey apparently dead, they will leave it alone and go in search of other quarry, unless they are very hungry. Tainted flesh is a dangerous substance to go into any stomach, unless it be that of a buzzard. Heredity and environment have made this bird a carrion-eater, hence, like the jackal, the hyena, and the alligator, companion scavengers, it can eat putrid flesh with impunity. Other flesh-eating animals avoid carrion when they can, for long years of experience have taught them that decaying meat contains certain ptomaines which render it very poisonous; hence, they let dead, or seemingly dead, creatures severely alone. Again, these creatures can see no object in mutilating an animal which, in their opinion, is already dead. In this discussion of the means and methods of protection that are to be observed in the lower animals, I have brought forward only those in which mind-element was to be discerned. Mimicry and kindred phenomena hardly have a place in this treatise, for they are, undoubtedly, governed and directed by unconscious mind, a psychical phase which, as I intimated in the introductory chapter of this book, would be discussed only incidentally. CONCLUSION Judging wholly from the evidence, I think that it can be safely asserted and successfully maintained that mind in the lower animals is the same in kind as that of man; that, though instinct undoubtedly controls and directs many of the psychical and physical manifestations which are to be observed in the lower animals, intelligent ratiocination also performs an important rôle in the drama of their lives.[115] [115] Kirby and Spence, _Entomology_, p. 591.