The courier., 1901-11-30

what dniihalS KNOW ABOUT mans habits
could be put in one big book and what
man knows about the habits of am
mails could be put in another book and
everything excluded from both that -
not authentic, how small the man-booL
would be and how big the book COM
piled from what the animals know of
the habits of man.
Animals inherit what their ancestors
have discovered; and everything they
learn, besides adding to their own spa-
cial treasure of knowledge. is finally
transmitted to their Offspring. Tho
young of animals are born wise, with
the wisdom of a thousand years gath
cred by fOreSt-bright eyes hidden he
hind a covert, too cunningly devised
for an animal on two legs to discover
an animal with his nose five feet up
from the ground and not a very high
ly developed nose for smelling either.
Mans habit of killing every animal
whose meat he has taste for or which
fights hard enough for its life to put
him on his mettie as Il sportsman. made
it necessary for the animals to learn
his habits and tastes. They have
learned it without prejudice or tradi-
tional or boOkish precOnceptions. They
know so much that any old crow could
tell given man more about his out
door habits than Cheiro. the palmist.
nf,IN- =
not care to maintain the pose of a ne
crOmancer.
Rudyard Kipling was the first To-
mancer to feel the reprOach of an am
mails superior education. But h.
studies animals from a distance and
with oftish manners and the haughtinrss
of an EngliShman and a novelist Dis
tinguished biologists, and especially
ornithOlOgists, have studied the ami
NAL world and learned to divide them
into species and make endless subdiyis-
ions. Nearly everything from micro
scopic bugs to the new horse thing that
has been discovered recently in central
Africa has been ascribed to its remote
subdivisions. Its functions, number of
toes, choice of a menu, manner of suck
ling its young, ct cetera, determine its
name and class.
But all these things are outward and
obvious. Rudyard Kipling. Ernest
Thompson Seton, and a man or two
besides have begun to study animals
from a psychological standpoint. \
writer studies groups of men and the
eccentricities of individuals. knowing
that certain model is different from
every other man that ever lived ana
that success as a writer depends upon
his seiZing and Photographic the char
acteristics which isolate him from all
other men while retaining the essence
of the type and of humanity. But the
novelist is constantly tempted from
truth by the desire for pictureSqueneSS
and sensation. The animal knows no
such temptations. He knows that
upon the absolute accuracy of his oh
servations depends his life. which To
animals-thOugh not to man or there
would be no CZolgosZes-is of the first
Importance. Therefore what the
animals know about man is authentic.
verified by thousands of years OF
patient watching and now partly
turned into instinct, or the body of
knowledge inherited by an animal from
his entire ancestry.
By close observation man may dis
cover the animals fawless character
ization of man. Until lately we have
been unconscious that there was any
science of man among beasts. Animal
psychology has not been exhausted.
A few chapters of the first primer nave
been published by Mr.. Seton to the
edificatiOn of heretofore contemptuOuS