Baboons use poles as levers, stones as hammers, and seem to understand the more simple mechanical devices. Prantl claims that man is the only animal capable of using fire but not a few baboons know how to strike a match, heap dried leaves over the blaze to make it burn, and then heap on dead wood to feed the fire. This knowledge with them, exactly as with primitive peoples, is a product of long experience and does not show any mathematical truths or principles any more than making a direct cut across a field implies "knowledge of the relation of a hypothenuse to the two other sides of a right-angled triangle." This is what Prantl calls "spontaneous mathematical thinking."
I knew of a tame ape in Chicago that learned to swing from the end of a clothes-line and seemed to enjoy it very much. The line was just the right length and properly hung so as to allow the ape to swing out from a kitchen window and touch the ground. Just for fun, some one cut a piece from the line so that he could not reach the ground; immediately the ape hunted another piece of cord, tying it to the end of his line so as to increase its length, and much to his delight, continued to swing on the line.
The distinctive features of animal protection and home government, especially in the higher groups, may compare favourably with any of the methods used by civilised man. This is true both of their offensive and defensive contrivances and for their monarchies and republics. They use shells, scales, plates of every kind, with innumerable modifications for various purposes—spines and allied armaments—all shapes and sizes; poisonous secretions, deadly odours, strong claws and teeth wielded by strong muscles, and form colonies that are more than a gregarious association. In most cases, they have communities composed of individuals living individual lives, yet which act in cases of need as one unit.
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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, AND HOUSE BUILDERS
"The heart is hard that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own."
The most popular and perhaps the most interesting department of natural-history study is that which treats of the manner in which animals utilise the various materials of the universe for purposes of protection, for war and defence, for raiment, food, and even the luxuries of life. Man, by his superior power of adaptation, excels the lower animals in providing for the comforts of life; but, on the other hand, in such practical arts as engineering and domestic architecture man frequently finds himself an amateur in comparison. With all man's inventions he has not been able to equal some of the remarkable results produced by some animals. The beaver, for example, shows a more profound knowledge of hydraulics than man himself. The power possessed by these craftsmen, not only in felling trees, but in duly selecting the best places for making homes and in appropriating substances suitable for their needs, is a never-ending marvel!
Nowhere can we find a greater animal-workman than the beaver. He belongs to the great burrowing family, and is also extremely graceful in the water. Long ago he learned the advantages of co-operation, and he unites with his fellows in building dams of felled trees, which have been cut up into suitable length for use in damming up water places. These are skilfully placed, and with the aid of mud, control the level of the water in selected places as efficiently as man could do. As a social animal, the beaver should be ranked among the first; of course, the various marmots are extremely sociable, but they ordinarily live quite independently of each other, except in cases where they chance to congregate because of favourable conditions. The beavers, on the other hand, thoroughly understand the benefits of united labour, and work together for the good of the community.
Beavers, if their skill were generally known, would have a great reputation among their human friends. Recently, at the New York Zoological Gardens, a visitor was pointing out different animals to his little son, and when he came to the beaver pond, referred to two of these dam-builders and tree-cutters, which were swimming through the water with large sticks in their mouths, as big rats!