Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-07-19
Reason In Animals.

Who has not admired the wonderful
precocity of chickens and partridges,
and other little creatures whose wisdom
on the very first day of existence ap-
pears equal, if it does not surpass, many
of the finest efforts of elaborate reason?
The knowledge which they seem to pos
sess of the world into which they have
lust been introduced, of the food which
is agreeable to their palates and suitable
for their digestive organs, their fear Of
danger. and their confidence of security
in circumstances Of which they can have
no experience, the facility with which
they use their legs and their beaks,
walk and run, eat and drink-a facility
which reason itself could not equal-are
quite unintelligible to man, who gains
all his knowledge by labor and expert
ence, and is but little indebted to instinct
for anything. Indeed, the difficulty
which reason experiences in understand
ing the movements of instinct, would be
quite sufficient for sceptical philosophers
to deny its existence, we're the evidences
not as palpable and undeniable as the
thing itself is incomprehensible.
There is little spider, called the
water-spider, which actually constructs
diying-b bells, not only upon the most sci
entifc principles, but in so mysterious
and recondite a manner that natural phi
losophers have not even yet discovered
the secret Of its patent This diving
bell is a little cylinder lined with silk,
and fastened with threads on every side
to the water-plants. 1t is open only be
low, so that the spider has TO dive under
the water before it can get into it. But
when it is in, how can it live unless there
be air? 1t solves this difficulty in !
manner that puzzles the philosophers.
1t carries down, round its body, a bub-
bic of air, and lets it escape at the
mouth of the bell; the air ascends to
the top of the bell. and displaces a
quantity of water equal to its own bulk
The spider goes on diving with these ali
bubbles until it has filed the diving bel
with air; and being now furnished with
an atmosphere, and secure from all mo
lestation from without, it rejOices in the
seclusion of its own domestic retirement
But the question is, how does the little
animal discover this ingenious and intri
cate process of ouse-building, so far be
yond the inventive powers of man him
self? No doubt it is furnished with al
apparatus for carrying the air-bubble
and power to force itself under th'
water with air bladders around it. Bu
how it comprehends the manner of using
the apparatus, shaping the bell, fasten
ing it, making its opening in the water
instead of in the air, and then filling i
with an invisible gas, is problem diff
/ cult of solution.
The industry and ingenuity of mason
bees, mining bees, carpenter-bees, anc
wasps- ps-upholsterer, carder, lapidary
( and humble bees, and social wasps-th'
carpentery of tree-hoppers and saw
fies-the ingenuity of leaf-rolling, nest
building, carpenter and tent-making
and stone-mason caterpillars-the ex
tTaOrdinary architecture of ants of ever,
description, the galleries which they ex
cavate in trees, the towers which the,
build, the government which they or
ganise, their military establishments
their nurseries, and their maiden ants,
or females exclusively set apart like tn
nuns of the Roman Catholic church, 70
experimenting the nurture and admoni
ton of the young-the almost infnit
variety of modes of industry exhibite
by worms, moths, and spiders, and man
other classes of articulated animals, ar
all so many illustrations of the wonder
of instinct in contradistinction to reason
or intelligence derived from experience
Instances, however, might be brougb
forward which inevitably imply that AM
mails possess and eyince faculties pre-
cisely of the same kind as those of mai
differing from him in degree onl.
From the simple fact that dog wi
recognise his master, we may argue thi
a dog possesses the power of recogn
ton, which to a certain extent involy'
memory also. The dog will recolleo
too, any person who has inflicted on hi