Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — Intelligence of Animals. [ARTICLE]

Intelligence of Animals.

It is sometimes said that animals do not reason, but man does. But animals are quite capable of at least two modes of reasoning: that of comparisonand that of inference. They compare two modes of action, or two substances, and judge the one to be preferable to the other, and accordingly select it. Sir Emerson Tennent tells us that elephants employed to build stone walls in Ceylon will lay each stone in its place, then stand ofl and look to see if it is plumb, ,and, if not, will move it with their trunk till it lies perfectly straight. This is a pure act of reflective judgment. He narrates an adventure which befell himself in Ceylon while riding on a narrow road through the forest. He heard a rumbling sound approaching, and directly there came to meet him an elephant, bearing on his tusks a large log or wood, which he had been directed to carry to the place where it was needed. Sir Emeason Tennent’s horse, unused to these monsters, was alarmed and refused to go forward. The sagacious elephant, perceiving this, evidently decided that he must himself go out of the way. But to do this he was obliged first to take the log from his tusks with his trunk and lay it on the ground, which he did, and then back out of the road between the trees till only his head was visible. But the horse was still too timid to go by, whereupon the judicious pachyderm pushed himself further back till all his bodv, ex cept the end of his trunk, had disappeared. Then Sir Emerson succeeded in getting his horse by, but stopped to witness the result. The elephant came out, took the log up again, laid it across his tusks and went on his way. This story, told by an unimpeachable witness, shows jQgjbearerJnferred from the horse’s terror that it would not pass; he again inferred that in that case he must himself get out of the way; that to do this he must lay down his log; that he must go further back; and accompanying this was his sense of duty, making him faithful to his task; and, most of all, his consideration of what was due to this human traveler, which kept him from driving the horse and man before him as he went on. There is another well-authenticated anecdote oil an elephant; he was following an ammunition wagon and saw the man who was seated on it fall off just before the wheel. The man would have been crushed had not the animal instantly run forward and, without an order, lifted the wheel with his trunk and held it suspended in the air till the wagon had passed over the man without hurting him. Here were combined presence of mind, good-will, knowledge of the danger to the man and a rapid calculation of how he could be saved. A gentleman who has recently died in Paris, belonging to a well-known Boston family, was in his early life a sea-captain. He had a dog which he sometimes took to sea with him, and sometimes left behind, at his father’s house in Somerset street. He once sailed for India, taking his dog. Some three or four months after the family in Somerset street were astonished by the arrival of a dog, very lean and dirty, but who claimed acquaintance with them by many unmistakable signs, and whom they recognized at last as the captain’s dog. But how had he got home? The vessel on which he sailed had hardly arrived in India, much less returned. Inquiring on the wharves they at last learned that he had come to the port of Boston on a vessel just from Marseilles. The captain could only say that this dog had come on board in Marseilles and had insisted on remaining till they arrived in Boston, when he instantly leaped on the wharf and disappeared. The difficulty now was 'To know how he got to Marseilles. This mystery was solved on the return of his ownftr wme months after, who said that at sea h|£ had received such kindness from a French captain, who took a great fancy to his dog, that he could not refuse to give him to the Frenchman. The dog, therefore, had been carried to France, and then had found his way to a vessel bound for Boston and had come home. "Whether he smelt a certain Boston aroma hanging round the ship, or merely observed that the crew spoke the language with which he was familiar, we cannot say. But it is not every man who can succeed in getting home so readily from a foreign Perhaps I may properly introduce here an account of the manifestations of mind in the I have had the most opportunity of observing. I have a horse, who was named Rubezahl, after the Mountain Spirit of the Harz, made famous in the stories of Musaeus. We have contracted his name to Ruby for convenience. Now, I have reason to believe that Ruby can distinguish Sunday from other days. On Sunday I have been in the habit of driving to Boston to church; but on other days I drive to the neighboring village, where are the postoffice, shops of mechanics, and other stores. To go to Boston I usu ally turn to the right when I leave my driveway; to go to the village, I turn to the left. Now, on Sunday, if I leave the reins loose, so that the horse may do as he pleases, he invariably turns to the right, and goes to Boston. On other days he as invariably turns to the left and goes to the village. He does this so constantly and regularly that none of the family have any doubt of the fact that he knows that it is Sunday; how he knows it we are unable to discover. I have left my house at the same hour on Sunday and on Monday; in the same carriage; with the same number of persons in it; and yet on Sunday he always turns to the right, and on Monday to the left: He is fed at the same time on Sunday as on other days, but the man comes back to harness him a little later on Sunday than at other times, and that is possibly his method of knowing that it is the day for going to Boston. But see how much of observation, memory and thought is implied in all this. Ruby has shown a very distinct feeling of the supernatural. Driving one day up a hill near my house, we met a horse-car coming down toward us running without horses, simply by the force of gravity. Mv horse became so frighb

ened that he ran into the gutter and nearly overturned me; and I got him past with the greatest difficulty. Now he had met the cars coming down that hill drawn by horses a hundred times and had never been alarmed. Moreover, only a day or two after, in feoing up the same hill we saw a car moving up-hill before us, where the horses were entirely Invisible, being concealed by the car itself, which was between us and the horses. But this did not frighten Ruby at aIL He evidently said to himself, “ The horses are there, though I do not see him.” But in the other case it seemed to him an effect without a cause—something plainly supernatural. There was nothing in the aspect of the car itself to alarm him; he had seen that often enough. He was simply terrified by seeing it move without any adequate cause—lust as we would be if we saw our chairs begin to walk about the room. That the love of approbation is common to many animals we all know. Dogs and horses certainly can be influenced by praise and blame as easily as men. Many years ago we had occasion to draw a load of gravel and we put Ruby into a tip-cart to do the work. He was profoundly depressed and evidently felt it as a degradation. He hung his head and showed such marks of humiliation that we have never done it since. But, on the other hand, when he goes out under the saddle by the side of a young horse this veteran animal tries as hard to appear young as any old bachelor of sixty years who is still ambitious of social triumphs. He dances along and goes sideways and has all the airs and graces of a young colt. All this, too, is excessively human. At one time my dog was fond of going to the railway station to sec the people, and I always ordered him to go home, Tearing- he should-be hurt by the cars. He easily understood that if he went there it was contrary to my wishes. Nevertheless he often went, and Ido not know but this fondness for forbidden fruit was rather human, too. So whenever he was near the station if he saw me coming he would look the other way and pretend not to know me. If he met me anywhere else he always bounded to meet me with great delight. But at the station it was quite different. He would pay no attention to my whistle or my call. He even pretended to be another dog, and would look me right in the face without apparently recognizing me. He gave me the cut direct in the most impertinent manner; the reason evidently being that he knew he was doing what was wrong, and did not like to be found out. Possibly he may have relied a little on my near-sightedness in this maneuver. —James Freeman Clarke, in October Atlantic.- =