Intelligence in Plants and Animals / Being a New Edition of the Author's Privately Issued "Soul and Immortality."

by Thomas G. Gentry

WONDERFUL EQUINE INTELLIGENCE.
A Horse That Knew When His Day’s Work Was Done.

Enough has been said to show that animals have and do exercise powers of reason. That they have the means of transmitting ideas to their fellows is not to be questioned. Language is the means of transmission. Not only are they able to interchange thoughts with each other, but with man also when they are brought into contact with him. They must possess a language of some kind, whereby they can understand each other, can comprehend human language, and make themselves intelligible to man. All these conditions are fulfilled in the lower animals, but there is one distinction between the capability of understanding their own language and that of man, and that is, that they are born with the one and have to learn the other. Newly-hatched chickens, although they have only entered the world an hour or so ago, understand perfectly well their mother. They know what to do when she calls them to find what food she has unearthed, and they know what to do when she warns them of danger. Who has not heard them talk to her? But how different are their tones under various circumstances. The little piping notes of content when all is going on well can never be confounded with the cry of alarm when they have lost their way or are otherwise frightened.

Wasps, as everybody knows who has studied these insects, carry out one of the first principles of military art. They always have the gate of their fortress guarded by a sentinel. Should danger be imminent, the alarm is given by the sentinel, and out rush the inhabitants to wreak vengeance upon the offender. Out of a full-sized nest, consisting of many hundred wasps, it is evident that the individual who is to act as sentinel must be selected, and its task appointed. How the selection is made, no one knows. But that such is done, there can be no question, for the rest of the community acknowledge their sentinel, trust to it for guarding the approaches of the nest, while they busy themselves with the usual task of collecting food for the young and new material for the nest.

Nearly related to wasps are the ants. Some of their performances are truly astonishing. They have armies commanded by officers, who issue orders, insist on obedience, and will not permit, while on the march, any of the privates to stray from the ranks. There are other ants which till the ground, weed it, plant the particular grain on which they feed, cut it when ripe, and store it in their subterranean granaries. Arrant slaveholders are others, who make systematic raids upon neighboring species, carry off their yet unhatched cocoons, and rear them in their own nests to be their servants. Somewhat recent discoveries show that there are ants which bury their dead. Two pairs of bearers are chosen to carry the corpse, one pair relieving the other when tired, while the main body, often several hundred in number, follow behind. So much could be said about ants, so closely do their performances resemble the customs of human civilization, that the subject could never grow uninteresting, but we must, for the present, forbear. All these various performances could not be possible were there not some way by which communication, or interchange of ideas, could be carried on among the individual members of the same community. Sometimes one species of ant is capable of carrying on a conversation, so to speak, with another. Bees, wasps and ants are the best linguists of the insect race, their language being chiefly conducted by means of their antennæ.

Who has not often observed two dogs, members of the same household, holding sweet converse with each other? Pug and Gyp were two animals that belonged to the family where I spent a summer vacation. They thought much of each other when romping together in the yard, or in foraging the neighboring woods and fields for rabbits and ground-hogs. Never would they start out on an expedition for game without having previously laid their plans. It was interesting and amusing to watch them. They would bring their heads into close contiguity, remaining in this position for two or three minutes, when, by mutual consent, they would separate, look each other in the eyes, and then start off in different directions for the scene of their projected enterprise. Times out of number I have observed such behavior and have always discovered that they meant something of the kind. There were no audible utterances, no visible gestures, yet there was an interchange of ideas. Through the medium of the eye were the thoughts conveyed. It was spirit speaking directly to spirit, conveying by a single glance of the eye thoughts which whole volumes would fail to express.

Each species of animal has its own dialect. Yet there is another language, a sort of animal lingua franca, which is common to all. A cry of warning, no matter from what bird or animal it emanates, is understood by them all, as is well known to many a sportsman who has lost his only chance of a shot by reason of an impertinent crow, jay or magpie which has espied him, and has given its cry of alarm. There is not a bird of garden or orchard, or a fowl of the barnyard or doorside, that does not understand the peculiar cry of the rooster when a hawk is seen careering overhead, or perched upon the summit of a near-by tree. With one accord they flee to their coverts, and there remain until the danger is past.

No more quarrelsome and pugnacious species of bird exists than the English sparrow. He appropriates every available locality for nesting purposes, and our native species are driven to the necessity of fighting for their rights, or of seeking quarters in the rural districts which these birds do not infect. Thus it is that many a useful robin, bluebird or martin is driven from our midst. Many have witnessed encounters between these birds and the robins. The author once saw a contest between a pair of sparrows and a pair of robins for the possession of a certain tree that grew in his yard. Now the robin, single-handed, is more than a match for a sparrow. In the engagement referred to, the robins were getting the better of the sparrows, which the latter were not slow in perceiving. Instantly the sparrows set up the wild, ear-piercing harangue for which they are peculiarly noted, when more than a score of friends from the immediate vicinity gathered to their assistance. But the war-cry which they sounded not only summoned help to their standard, but it was equally understood by all the other birds of the neighborhood, who flocked to the defence of their brethren against the alien. The battle waged warm and fiercely for some minutes, when the sparrows were forced to seek safety in retreat.

Not only can crows and rooks assemble, hold council and agree to act on the result of their deliberations, but other birds are known to do the same things. Birds are able to communicate their thoughts to each other by means of a language, but it is not likely that in their language, or the language of animals in general, there are any principles of construction such as are possessed by all human languages. But the same effect may be produced by different means, and the reader will see that in the above instance no human language, however perfect its construction, could have served its purpose better than did the inarticulate language of the sparrows. They told their friends that their territory was usurped by an intruder too strong to be ejected by them, and implored their assistance. But while it told them this, it did still more, for it conveyed the report to their numerous foes, who winged their way to the support of their opponents. In fact, whenever animals of any kind form alliances and act simultaneously for one common purpose, it is evident that language of some sort must be employed.

That beasts possess a language, which enables them to communicate their ideas to each other, has been clearly shown. It is just as apparent that they can act upon the ideas so conveyed. We have now to see whether they can convey their ideas to man, and so bridge over the gulf between the higher and the lower beings. Were there no means of communicating ideas between man and animals, domestication, it is true, would be impossible. Every one who has possessed and cared for some favorite animal must have observed that they can do so. Their own language becomes in many instances intelligible to man. Just as a child, that is unable to pronounce words, can express its meaning by intimation, so a dog can do the same by its different modes of barking. There is the bark of joy or welcome, when the animal sees its master, or anticipates a walk with him; the furious bark of anger, if the dog suspects that anyone is likely to injure himself or his master, and the bark of terror when the dog is suddenly frightened at something which it cannot understand. Supposing, now, that its master could not see the dog, but could only hear its bark, would he not know perfectly well the ideas which were passing through the animal’s mind? Most certainly he would. There is a difference between the mew of distress and the ordinary conversation, the purr of pleasure, of a cat. A pet canary always knows how to call its mistress, and when it sees her will give a glad chirrup of recognition quite distinct from its ordinary call. Bees and wasps have quite a different sound in their wings when angry than when in the discharge of their ordinary work. Any one conversant with their ways understands the expression of anger and makes the best of his way off.

All the foregoing are but examples of sound-language. The gesture-language of animals, however, is wonderfully extensive and expressive. A cat, could it say in plain words, “Please open the door for me,” could not convey its ideas more intelligently than it does by going to the door, uttering a plaintive mew to show that it wants help, and then patting the door. Dogs, or, in fact, all animals that are accustomed to live in the house, will act after a similar fashion. There, then, we perceive that the lower animals can form connected ideas, and can convey them to man, so that the same ideas are passing at the same moment through the minds of man and beast, evidencing that they possess the same faculties, though of different extent.