The Nearness of Animals to Man.

Evening Star, Issue 8826, 16 May 1892, Page 3

The Nearness of Animals to Man.

There is a very interesting article in the ‘Atlantic Monthly’ for February entitled 1 The Nearness of Animals to Man,’ by Mr E. P. Esans. The writer takes as his text the paper by the late Professor Van Prandl, chiefly for the purpose of refuting Prandl’s theories. THE TERRIER AND THE TRAIN.

Brand), for instance, says that animals have no time sense, which Mr Evans refutes by the following story of a terrier dog: “A Polish artist, residing in Rome, had an exceedingly intelligent and faithful terrier, which, as he was obliged to go on a journey, he left with a friend, to whom the dog was strongly attached. Day and night ths terrier went to the station to meet every train, carefully observing and remembering the fme of their arrival, and never misting one. Meanwhile he became so depressed that be refused to eat, and would have died of starvation if the friend had not telegraphed to his master to return at once if ho wished to find the animal alive.”

MARRIAGE AMONG BIRDS

There is evidence, Mr Evans says, of the love, devotion, sense of duty, and of selfsacrifice of animals, and many well-authenti-cated instances of suicide. Many anima's and birds are stricter monogamists than men and women, and, with beasts as with men, the standard of sexual morality is higher with the females than with the males. The attempt to force canaries into bigamy is usually followed by fatal results to the young, and the second wife breaks up the household. Rooks, ravens, storks, and flamingoes hold courts of justice and inflict penalties upon offenders, The crows in the Shetland Islands hold regular assizes at stated times and usually in the same place, and sometimes a week or more is spent in trying the cases, and when the court rises the condemned are killed upon the spot. There are any number of stork stories in which the female stork has been killed for assumed incontinence after a mass meeting of all the storks in the neighborhood. Sometimes the female stork will conspire with a young paramour to kill her husband just as if she had been a human being. Cooks in several instances have been said to have killed hens which have hatched eggs of ducks and partridges, but that is surely very rare. THE BAT THAT FED THE DOVE. la dealing with ants and bees Mr Evans has great scope for his argument. Ants do almost everything but talk. Rats are not supposed to be philanthropists, but Mr Evans says A gentleman who had a great number of doves used to feed them near the barn ; at such times not only chickens and sparrows, but also rats were accustomed to come and share tne meal. One day he saw a large rat fill its cheeks with kernels of corn and run to the coachhouse, repeating this performance several times. On going thither he found ® lame dove eating the corn which the rat nan brought.”

FIRE-USING ANIMALS. Animals do not know bow to light a fare, but when it is lit they know how to keep it going. Monkeys have been frequently seen bringing brushwood and throwing it upon the camp fires left by travellers. Havens are very fond of bringing pieces of paper and throwing them on glowing coals in order to see them blazs up. The chimpanzee, called the Soko, seems to be much higher in the moral scale than the aboriginals, in the midst of whom it lives in Central Africa. The Soko will sometimes kidnap a child and carry it up a tree, where it is kept without being injured until it is exchanged for a bunch of bananas, They assemble in remote parts of remote forests drumming on hollow trees, and accompanying with loud yells as if they were opera singers trying to outshriek the clash and clang of a Wagnerian orchestra. Mr Evans concludes by declaring that “ indeed the idea of personal property, in distinction from communal propertysuch, for example, as the provisions stored by ante for winter— is quite as strongly de-

veloped In many of the higher species of animals as in some of the lower raoea of men.”

The application forms for shares In the new Salvation Army headquarters building scheme, Christchurch, contains the following passage “I fully understand that there will be no repayment of principal, and that interest on the shares will be paid direct from Heaven, in the shape of spiritual blessings alone, as promised in Malaohl Hi., 10.” This beats Dean Swifts charity sermon: "He that giveth to the poor lendeth unto the Lord; if you like the erms, down with the dust.”