ANIMAL MORALITY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LII, Issue LIII, 3 February 1908, Page 2

ANIMAL MORALITY.

Mr Thompson beton, the well-known American naturalist, thinks that animals obey moral commandments just as human beings do. Nature, he admits, i 3 "red in tooth and claw," but he j asks us to note that animals do not , prey on animals belonging to their own specieß. A new-born rattlesnake will strike instantly at a stranger of any other species, but never at a "rattler." Mr Seton has seen a mink kill a cat which mothered it, but a mink would never attack its real mother. There is cannibalism in many species, hut it is rare except in the lowest forms, and among creatures demoralised by domesticity and captivity. The higher animals are in the scale, the more repugnant is cannibalism to them. Young animals do what their parents tell them with a promptitude which human parents, might envy. Those young which dj not keep close to the mother are liable to be destroyed. Animals, as well as men, have been groping for an ideal marriage. There is a popular impression, says Mr Seton, that promiscuity prevails among all animals, but that is by no means the case. Animals have gone through the same stages in evolution of mating as man, and monogamy is their best solution of the marriage question, and the rule among all the higher and most successful animals. Animals have a definite law as to property, corresponding to the command-, ment which forbids us to steal. "The producer owns the product; unproduced property belongs to him who discovers and possesses it." Anything savoring of dishonesty is frowned upon ; a wolf who leads a pack on false trails is shunned by his fellows. Mr Seton even thinks he can detect signs of spirituality in animals.. He cites as evidence of its existence the readiness | of some animals in time of dire peril { to throw themselves on the mercy of* an unknown power. For instance, he has seen a rabbit pursued by a weasel run round and round his camp fire until nearly paralysed with fear, and then take refuse with him. On another occasion a deer, pursued by some ani- j mal, and in danger of being overtaken, took refusre with a hunting party. Mr I Seton is apparently quite convinced j that animals haye s a moral sense. I