Another very common fish in my pond was likewise very suggestive in connection with the subject of animal intelligence. I refer to the common “sunny,” or “pumpkin-seed.” A shallow sand-nest had been scooped near shore and the precious eggs deposited. A school of silvery-finned minnows had discovered them, and the parent fish was severely taxed in her efforts to protect them.
So long as this school of minnows remained together, the sunfish, by fierce rushes, kept them back; but soon the former—was it accident or design?—divided their forces, and as the parent fish darted at one assaulting party, the other behind it made a successful raid upon the nest. This continued for some time, and the sunfish was getting quite weary, when, as if a sudden thought struck it, its tactics changed, and it swam round and round in a circle and sent a shower of sand out into the space beyond the nest. This effectually dazed the minnows.
Little incidents like this are forever occurring and effectually set aside the once prevalent idea that fish are mere living machines. Look a pike in the eye and you will detect something very different from mere instinctive timidity.
But fish are not the only creatures that live in the water; there are one snake and several species of turtles, and frogs, mollusks, and insects innumerable. These are too apt to be associated with the land, and, except the two latter forms, are usually thought of as taking to the water as a place of refuge, but really living in the open air. This is a great mistake. There is a lively world beneath the surface of the water, and the tragedy of life is played to the very end, with here and there a pretty comedy that wards off the blues when we look too long and see nothing but the destruction of one creature that another may live.
Here is an example of cunning or wit in a water-snake. A friend of mine was recently sitting on the bank of a little brook, when his attention was called to a commotion almost at his feet. Looking down, he saw a snake holding its head above the water, and in its mouth struggled a small sunfish. Now, what was the snake’s purpose? It knew very well that the fish would drown in the air, and not until it was dead could it be swallowed with that deliberation a snake loves. The creature was cunning enough to kill by easy means prey that would otherwise be difficult to overcome, for while crosswise in the snake’s mouth it could not be swallowed, and if put down for an instant the chances of its recapture would be slight.
To suppose that a turtle, as you watch it crawling over the mud, has any sense of humor in its horny head seems absurd; yet naturalists have recorded their being seen at play, and certainly they can readily be tamed to a remarkable degree. Their intelligence, however, shows prominently only in the degree of cunning exhibited when they are in search of food. The huge snapper “lies in wait,” and truly this is a most suggestive and comprehensive phrase. I believe, too, that this fierce turtle buries surplus food, and so gives further evidence of intellectual activity.
To realize what wild life in the water really is it must be observed where Nature has placed it. It is perhaps not so much set forth by exceptional incidents that the student happens to witness as by that general appearance of common sense which is so unmistakably stamped upon even the most commonplace movements. Writers upon animal intelligence do not need to be constantly on the lookout for special exhibitions of cunning in order to substantiate the claims they make in favor of life’s lower forms. It is plainly enough to be seen if we will but patiently watch whensoever these creatures come and wheresoever they go and the manner of their going and coming.
Do not be so intent upon watching for the marvellous that ordinary incidents are not seen. In studying wild life everywhere, and perhaps more particularly in the water, to be rightly informed we must see the average individual amid commonplace surroundings. Doing this, we are not misinformed nor led to form too high an opinion. It is as in the study of humanity. We must not familiarize ourselves with the mountebank, but with man.