WISDOM OF ANIMALS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 8, 20 February 1892, Page 179

WISDOM OF ANIMALS.

Science is daily pushing back to show that intellect and ethics belong to the lowest forms of life. A careful observer of nature is astounded at the wisdom of insects and very low organism. In South America tadpoles are carried overland on the back of the parent, attached by the mouth, to a new pond when the home pond dries up. Dr. Cope emphasizes the wisdom of birds in trying to lead dangerous characters away from their nests. What marvellous mechanical skill is shown by spiders ! A racoon is reported by Cope as having shown remarkable logical acumen He was fastened by a chain in the stable. He tried to catch the chickens, but failed. But one day he spread a part of his dinner inside the stretch of his chain in a circle. He then pretended to go to sleep, but still spying carefully. The chickens, seeing him asleep and the food at band, went within his fatal trap, and were pounced on and caught. Owning on another occasion a cebus, a monkey of low grade, the professor found him a continuous study, for his displays of intelligence. His curiosity covered all things. His powers of observation were accurate. He used sticks and stones much as man does—reaching for things out of his reach and striking with human precision. Hitting the bald head of a friend was a peculiar source of pleasure. These notes are voluminous nowadays, and I believe no one of average good sense any longer feels annoyed at being classified in the animal kingdom. Nothing is more strikingly remarkable than the reports of M. Fat io before the Physical Society of Geneva, in Switzerland. The snipe, he tells us, he has repeatedly detected exercising medical and surgical powers. It makes a dressing for wounds, and even applies ligatures to broken limbs. He on one occasion killed a snipe which had on its chest a large dressing of down, pulled from its own body and placed in the flowing blood. This, coagulating, soon created a perfect dressing. He goes so far as to tell us of a snipe whose limbs he had accidentally broken, and the next day, catching it, found its legs so bound up as to be essentially splintered. Another observer tells of a snipe that was found to have bound its broken leg with moss and feathers. Around the leg was wound grass, and this was fastened with a glue. A correspondent of Nature tells us that as he was going to the train one morning he saw a brown retriever dog coming full speed with a letter in his mouth. He went first to the mural letter box, but the postman had just cleared the box and was about twenty or thirty yards on when the dog arrived. Seeing him, the sagacious animal went after him and had the letter transferred to the bag. He then quietly trotted homeward. I have seen half a dozen recent instances of lives saved by canine sagacity. Hassan, a Chicago dog, was chained in a yard. His master was owner of a saloon, and six men, heavy with drinking, slept in a room over the bar. A fire broke out, and was creeping steadily over the roof of a shed into the room of the sleepers. The dog by determined efforts broke his chain. He could not force the door, and was obliged to dash through the transom. Then he leaped up the staircase and broke into the room where his master lay. He was obliged to pull him from the bed to the window. The man was at last aroused, and in turn aided in getting out of the house all of the occupants. But poor Hassan was so exhausted that he fell back into the flames and perished. Ido not believe him to have been less moral or less worthy of immortality than the people he rescued. M. Maurice.