ANIMAL MORALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14984, 4 May 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

ANIMAL MORALS.

NATURALISTS NARRATIVE.

CODE OF COMMANDMENTS.

Jin. Ernt»t Thompson" Setom, the great naturalist, in an address to The Pilgrims at the Savoy Hotel, gave stories of the morals of animals to show that the Ten Commandments were fundamental laws for all creation. /V He looked for evidence that the animals had any recognition oi property lights, and no one who had studied them could deny, that they had. A squirrel had his tree, in which he had a proprietary right; lie would always be ready to fight for that tree ami what was oft it. A man from Alaska had a troupe of trained dogs which were three-parts wolf. Among them was a big one, a sort of a bully, and all the others were afraid of him. As an experiment he fed a small dog one day with all it could cat and then threw it a big bone. That was too good to lose, and the little dog, remembering that hard times were ahead, removed the bone to a swamp and interred it in a hole under a tree. It then wont away about fifty yards and lay down. - Afterwards the big wolf came along and smelt about. ' The small dog watched him keenly until the big one went so close to where his bone was that there could no longer be any doubt as to his intentions. The small dog then rushed out and snarled at the big one, which looked at the little one as if to say, " Who -wants your bone!" and walked away. What braced up that little dog to make the stand was the instinct of property.

It was an instinct which was exhibited in all the dog tribe. Tho fox would bury ducks' eggs in the summer time and go for them in the winter. The eggs by that time had undergone a good deal of change, but ho wanted the eggs so badly thai he ate them. , Tho Widowed Fox. One of tho most remarkable theories in animal studies was what might be called the evolution of monogamy. If it came to a clash between a polygamist animal and a monogamist animal, the latter always won. The young of the monogamist animal had two adults ix> protect them; the polygamist only one, and that the weaker. The animal par excellence which hold the monogamist theory in the highest form was the grey wolf. The blue foxes in a- certain territory in Alaska understood among themselves what their area was, and beyond that they would scarcely go. They also were absolutely mon ogam if t. If one fox died it was extremely hard to get the other to mate. So strict had the lines been oil which these foxes lived, that the hunter reported to the Senate: " Until wo can break down the high moral standard of, the foxes our profits will be greatly curtailed." £ If a rook was to find a stick in the woods, that stick was lub own and he carried it to his nest. If a rook attempted to take that stick from him he would fight for his property, and the question of the ownership of the stick had. been known to disturb the harmony of a whole rookery. Mr. Seton gave instances of a hare hunted by a weasel and of a moose hunted, by a. dog, which sought the protection of man. There was in the animal nature | a deep laid instinct, strong in proportion as the animal was high in the scale, which prompted it. when m dire extremity, to fling itself on the mercy of some other power. He did not say that it was so, but it might be that in this instinct they would find the foundations and the basis on which was afterwards built something else which found its higher development in man.

. Mr. Patrick" Murphy, commenting on Mr. Seton's reference to monogamy was reminded of the little boy who, 'when asked for a definition Of monotony, said : " Monotony is living with one wife." '