Animal behavior; Animal intelligence; Natural history -- Outdoor books
Thus, I think, the line between animal and human psychology may be
pretty clearly drawn. It is not a dead-level line. Instinct is
undoubtedly often modified by intelligence, and intelligence is as
often guided or prompted by instinct, but one need not hesitate long
as to which side of the line any given act of man or beast belongs.
When the fox resorts to various tricks to outwit and delay the hound
(if he ever consciously does so), he exercises a kind of
intelligence,--the lower form which we call cunning,--and he is
prompted to this by an instinct of self-preservation. When the birds
set up a hue and cry about a hawk or an owl, or boldly attack him,
they show intelligence in its simpler form, the intelligence that
recognizes its enemies, prompted again by the instinct of
self-preservation. When a hawk does not know a man on horseback from a
horse, it shows a want of intelligence. When a crow is kept away from
a corn-field by a string stretched around it, the fact shows how
masterful is its fear and how shallow its wit. When a cat or a dog,
or a horse or a cow, learns to open a gate or a door, it shows a
degree of intelligence--power to imitate, to profit by experience. A
machine could not learn to do this. If the animal were to close the
door or gate behind it, that would be another step in intelligence.
But its direct wants have no relation to the closing of the door, only
to the opening of it. To close the door involves an after-thought that
an animal is not capable of. A horse will hesitate to go upon thin ice
or upon a frail bridge, even though it has never had any experience
with thin ice or frail bridges. This, no doubt, is an inherited
instinct, which has arisen in its ancestors from their fund of general
experience with the world. How much with them has depended upon a
secure footing! A pair of house wrens had a nest in my well-curb; when
the young were partly grown and heard any one come to the curb, they
would set up a clamorous calling for food. When I scratched against
the sides of the curb beneath them like some animal trying to climb
up, their voices instantly hushed; the instinct of fear promptly
overcame the instinct of hunger. Instinct is intelligent, but it is
not the same as acquired individual intelligence; it is untaught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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