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ADAPTIVENESS.

CHAPTER XX.

GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS.

INSTANCES or illustrations are simply innumerable in the lower animals of their power or faculty of adaptation to circumstances; of accommodation to new, unforeseen, accidental, unusual, or exceptional conditions; of appropriateness of behaviour to time and place; of the use of proper and the best means to an end; of spontaneous modification of action. This adaptability-the range of which is as great as its character is sometimes remarkable this determination of action by external conditions, which may readily be artificially produced for experimental purposes by man, implies or includes the operation of a number of important mental qualities or aptitudes, such as the following :-

1. Ingenuity, contrivance, cleverness, or inventiveness in device or design, in the variation of the means of accomplishing an object, including fertility of resource, which again involves originality, both in conception and execution.

2. Definite purpose, object, aim-with intention, deliberation, firmness, resolution, perseverance, and force of will to attain it.

3. Capability of surveying and comparing, one with another, each of a series of diverse means, and of judging and selecting the most suitable.

4. Skill, dexterity, adroitness, expertness, address in employing or adapting means.

5. Profiting by experience; the acquisition of knowledgemuch of it experimental-as has been pointed out in another chapter.

6. Shaping a definite course or plan of action.

7. Seizure of opportunity, including vigilance and patience, watching and waiting for it, with discrimination in judging of its suitability.

8. Use of strategy, involving cunning and artifice, or deception.

9. Actuation by motive.

10. Caution and discretion.

11. Balancing of probabilities, implying thought or reflection, and frequently hesitancy or doubt.

12. Decision and courage, including promptitude in action.

13. Self-possession and self-control.

14. Association of ideas.

15. Knowledge of the relation of cause and effect, including an appreciation of consequences.

16. Knowledge and use of advantage, natural or artificial, fair or unfair.

17. Providence, prudence, foresight-including certain kinds of forecasting future events or conditions.

18. Perception or feeling of necessity.

The adaptation of means to an end; the variation of these means with the nature of the end, or with the difficulty of attaining it; and the manifold mental qualities that are called into operation by such adaptation and variation, are all illustrated by the following common phenomena of animal life or habit :

1. The capture and use of slaves or servants, or other forms of subjection of the weak to the use of the strong.

2. The wars of certain animals-whatever be their object -including the arrangements both for defence and attack. 3. The overcoming of obstacles or difficulties, whatever be their nature.

4. The arrangements made for cleanliness, safety, and

salubrity of person or dwelling, including ventilation and elevation, and the removal of refuse.

5. The obtaining and use of food.

6. The construction of dwellings, including the selection of material.

7. The pursuit, capture, and disposal of prey.

8. Mutual assistance of all kinds.

9. Avoidance of disagreeables in work, duty, or otherwise; or of obstacles, enemies, or dangers.

10. Use of tools, instruments, or weapons-natural and artificial, including the use of baits and of money—all as pointed out in a special chapter thereanent.

11. Organisation in all its forms; also as discussed in a special chapter.

12. Preservation of life, either of each other or of man. 13. Storage of food for future use.

14. The stoppage of runaway animals-for instance, of horses and ponies, by dogs.

15. Discovery of, and action in, fires of man's dwellings. 16. The modes of murder and revenge.

17. Repair of injury to dwellings or other works of construction.

18. Taking selfish advantage of the labours of others.
19. Behaviour in emergency.

20. Correction of error-as shown in the chapters on 'Error:'

21. Discharge of duties, self-imposed or imposed by man, including the economization of labour.

22. Means of attracting attention-each other's or man's -as pointed out in the chapters on Language.'

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23. Perpetration and concealment of crime.

24. Destruction or concealment of instruments of punishment, such as whips.

25. Arrangement of decorations to please taste, or to suit a special purpose, such as a nuptial assembly or ceremony.

26. The phenomena of charming, of making the best use of their personal attractions.

27. Succouring the wounded.

Among ants are to be found two distinct classes or kinds of slaves, viz.

1. Slaves proper, equivalent to the helots of ancient Greece, the negro slaves of the southern United States, of Cuba or other West Indian islands or possessions, or those that are still kidnapped and sold by the Portuguese in central Africa-slaves that are employed as body servants, ministering to all the personal wants and comforts of their masters. 2. Domestic animals-equivalent to our milk kine-animals subjected to domestication for the sake of saccharine or other fluids or substances they secrete, and of which ants in particular are fond.

The relation of ant helots to their masters is much more intimate than that of any human slaves usually is to their owner; for, in certain cases, not the comfort only, but the very existence of the master depends on the service of the slave. Sir John Lubbock tells us that certain slave-keeping ants 'not only cannot clean themselves, but will die because they cannot feed themselves, even when surrounded by the best of food, if the slaves are not there to give it them.' These slaves are indispensable then as nurses to their adult masters; but they act also as domestic servants, doing all the ordinary household work of the ant-nest.'

Of other animals domesticated by ants for the sake of their useful products, the most familiar are Aphides, or plant lice, which yield a much-prized honeydew. Ants own whole 'flocks' of these plant-lice, which they have subjected to as true and as kindly a domestication as in the case of the common cow by man. The Hypoclinea, a Nicaraguan ant, milks leaf-hoppers, or scale insects, as well as Aphides. Certain other ants keep brown scale insects for the sake of their honeylike secretion. To use Belt's expression, they 'farm' them, just as we do milch cows. These Aphides and scale insects are made to exude their honeydew by stroking their sides with the antennæ of their masters, the sagacious ants. Ants also feed beetles for the sake of their saccharine secre

1 'Daily Telegraph' report and comments on his lecture on ants at the Royal Institution, London, in January 1877.

tions. According to Lubbock,' 'some ants have small blind beetles in their nests, kept there apparently as domestic animals. A kind of small wood-louse also lives with them on amicable terms, much as cats and dogs do with men.'

'Aphides,' says Belt, ' are the principal ant-cows of Europe. In the tropics their place is taken, in a great measure, by species of Coceida and genera of Homoptera, such as Membracis and its allies.' At least four genera of ants in Nicaragua keep scale insects as we do cows, these genera being Solenopsis, Pheidole, Pseudomyrma, and Hypoclinea. Solenopsis builds domed galleries, or byres, for the protection of its insect cattle, and otherwise tends them carefully (Belt). Baird, again, mentions the use of Cercopida as milk cattle by ants.

Slavery and domestication, however, are by no means the only forms in which one animal is rendered subservient to the convenience, use, or sport of another-a younger or weaker generally to an older and stronger individual. One of the most signal, as well as amusing and instructive, instances of direct subjection of one genus and species to the stronger force of will, greater ingenuity and masterfulness. of another is the riding of dogs, horses, asses or pigs, by baboons and other apes or monkeys (Cassell). A cat has been known to make use of a dog's back to get ferried across streams.

Bullyism-petty tyranny-is perhaps as common among other animals as in man. Thus one determined horse sometimes bullies another (submissive) one into its service by biting, teasing, nagging or driving; that is to say, it exacts a forced, unwilling, compulsory service.

In various forms of usurpation certain animals take selfish, unfair, and sometimes violent advantage of the labours of others; and to them are quite as applicable as to man Virgil's lines, well known to every schoolboy, beginning 'Sic vos non vobis.'

The wars of ants exhibit a number of interesting phenomena, including

1. The use of reinforcements.

As reported in the Daily Telegraph' in January 1877.

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