Still she has not the least idea what the eggs are for. She merely feels that her one desire is to settle down on top of them and sit there; just as you, my reader, at night when you are tired and sleepy, just plain want to lie down on something soft. A little later, and instead of wanting to sit quietly on her nest, the mother bird is possessed to rush round the country, picking up things to eat and stuffing them into hungry little mouths. She can not possibly know what it is all for. She just has a sort of hunger for feeding her babies, as at other times she has a hunger for feeding herself. But a few weeks later, she hasn’t the slightest interest in these children of hers, doesn’t know them by sight, and is just as likely to fight them away if they trouble her as if they were total strangers. The hurry-round-and-find-something-to-feed-the-babies instinct has served its purpose and gone back into cold storage. Another instinct is taking its place, and pretty soon the birds will be off for the south to spend the winter. Next year they will do the same thing right over again. But how much they remember of what happened the year before is just one of those things that I, among others, would give something to find out.
XVI
Certain Stupidities of Animals
It is a good idea for boys and girls to keep pets. Often it is rather hard on the pets; but the boys and girls get much happiness out of their animal companions, and they learn a great deal about the ways of animals besides.
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.”
Now there is no doubt that many animals are extraordinarily clever. I could easily fill this whole book with stories of their sagacity. At the same time, they are often extraordinarily ignorant, and sometimes extraordinarily stupid. And because you will always be hearing abundant stories of their cleverness, I am going to tell you sundry tales of their stupidity. Between the two, perhaps we shall strike a just balance.
Let me begin by telling about my own dog, a white and brown collie, whom I, in common with all owners of dogs, regard as uncommonly intelligent. When I tie the dog up, I use a light chain, one end of which runs on a long trolley wire fastened between the house and a tree. This, by the way, is a good way to tie a dog, for then he can run the length of his trolley wire and the length of his chain besides, and yet not have to drag much weight or tangle up a long chain. Very often, however, my dog, after running out beyond the tree as far as he can go, starts to come back again on the other side of the tree. Of course he can’t do it, for the chain is fast about the trunk. Now what would you do, if you were tied up that way, and found that your trolley wouldn’t work? I am sure you would look at once to see whether you had not got your chain twisted round the tree; and when you found you had, you would run round the other way and untwist it. Of course you would, and you wouldn’t stop to think twice. But my silly dog has never caught the idea. When he first finds himself caught up short, he pulls and struggles. Then he sits down and howls for me. I go out and walk round the tree the other way. The dog follows me; and at once is free. I suppose I have done this in exactly the same way fifty times. Yet the foolish dog never has learned to do it for himself. And yet he is a wise dog—as dogs go. I suppose the reason is that his wild ancestors never were fastened up on trolleys, so there is no chain-untwisting instinct to start him learning.
Or perhaps you think monkeys are especially wise little creatures. Then consider this case: A man had a monkey, and was trying to find out exactly what it did know. So he used to put the monkey’s food in a box, lock the door with a key, leave the key in the lock; and after many trials, taught the monkey to turn the key, open the door and get his food. Then he tried taking the key out of the lock and laying it down beside the door, to see whether the monkey would have sense enough to pick it up. But the monkey didn’t. No matter how hungry he might be, he would simply stand and wait until the man picked up the key for him and put it in the lock. Then he would unlock the door as usual and get his dinner. Fifty times in succession the man picked up the key and put it in the lock, while the monkey stood two feet away and watched every movement—but the monkey never learned to do this simple act for himself.
Should you like to try for yourself an experiment that will show you how little the wisest animal understands? Then get a wide-mouthed bottle (a milk jar will do nicely), put in it a piece of fresh meat or fish; hold it above the head of a hungry cat so that she will see the food first thru the bottom; then set the bottle upright on the floor, and watch the cat try to get the morsel out. She will probably not go to work at all the way you would; and your way will be decidedly the better.
Cats suggest coons; and coons, like cats, are commonly thought to be especially clever little animals. So they are; but always with an animal’s kind of cleverness, not our kind. Somebody who has been studying coons more carefully than they have ever been studied before, reports facts such as these: A coon is taught to open a box to get his food. The door of the box fastens with a bolt, and the coon has learned to pull the bolt and open the door as readily as you or I could do it. The bolt is now changed over to the other side of the door. The change completely baffles the coon, who has to learn his trick all over again, and that with almost as much difficulty as when he learned it the first time. Even coming up to the box from a different direction would throw the beast off, so that he would boggle a long while over a door which he had been unfastening with the greatest ease.