But there are other and more legitimate or commendable forms of boarding out the young by certain animals. Thus the effect of the experience of kind treatment of its kittens by a human mistress has led a cat in a subsequent confinement to quarter one kitten after another on this human foster-mother, to leave them as foundlings at her hearth; a kind of desertion of offspring, dictated by no want of natural affection, but apparently by the same kind of policy that leads so many poor human parents to agree to the adoption and up-bringing of one or more of their loved young by some wealthy and childless, but kindly, widow or couple. A cat of feeble nursing power carried her kitten to another feline mother, who at once, for friendship's sake, or from a liberal maternal love, accepted the new and additional duties imposed upon her (Wynter). One of the most interesting forms of foster-parentage is the tender nursing of human children by the elephant (Watson), horse, and dog. Such nursing shows that there is no necessary impossibility or improbability in human children becoming sometimes foster-young to beasts-such as wolves -in the so-called Wolf-children' of India, for instance, being really tended, as story reports, by forest wolves. Just as there is so frequently a transfer of maternal love to the young of another individual or species, so there is a much more natural and intelligible, an easy and rapid, transfer of filial affection and attachment on the part of fosteryoung to their foster-mother. There is a very natural and intelligible reciprocity of affection: the young that are so lovingly catered for, fostered and cherished, respond to all this care and attention as they would have done to that of their own mothers, provided these mothers had displayed a natural kind or degree of maternal solicitude. But there are other results in the foster-young that are of even greater interest and importance, to wit-the acquisition of habits alien to the species or genus-of the habits of the foster-parents-an acquisition begotten either by mere imitation and association, by special training, or by both. The same thing happens when an animal from birth is brought up exclusively with companions of a different species or genus. FALLIBILITY. CHAPTER XXXI. LIABILITY TO ERROR. ONE of the commonest popular attributes of that comprehensive faculty in the lower animals, which, when contrasted with human reason, is generally described as instinct; that quality of instinct, which is perpetually brought into greatest and admiring prominence by writers, especially of the theological or pietistic class, on the marvels of the animal economy, is the unerringness, infallibility, perfection of instinct. But it is a fact utterly fatal to such a view of the infallibility of animal instinct that the lower animals make mistakes; they exhibit errors both of omission and commission, of the same kind, under the same sort of circumstances, as numerous and varied in their character, as man himself does, or as those of man are-that is to say, they are such as man commits, or would commit, under similar circumstances. So infinite indeed, both in number and variety, are the proofs of the fallibility of what is absurdly, restrictively called instinct in the lower animals, that it is impossible, in the present work, to do much more than merely catalogue and comment upon a few illustrations. non Among errors may perhaps be regarded the variation of instinct with circumstances, the want of adaptability to external or surrounding conditions, that characterises certain animals, such as beavers and monkeys in artificial confinement. The mistakes of other animals, as of man, are mostly attributable to 1. Thoughtlessness, ignorance, or inexperience, as these are embodied in youth; or they belong to the category of— 2. Errors of judgment, discrimination, or discretion, in maturity; or, they arise from 3. Natural stupidity, or the various forms or degrees of mental defect or derangement. These errors may be classified in various ways, arranged in various natural groups. Thus in reference to the kinds of error, which are also causes thereof, we may consider separately and specially errors of 1. Observation: such as identity or resemblance. 2. Way-finding. 3. Calculation of distance, size, height, time, position, motion. 8. Interpretation, inference, or conclusion. 9. Covetousness, or acquisitiveness. 10. Imagination. 11. The senses: vision, smell, hearing. 12. Reflection. 13. Caution, haste, eagerness, impatience. 14. Impulse and impulsiveness. 15. Temptation. 16. Providence and forethought. 17. Prudence and policy. 18. Confidence. 19. Memory. 20. Affection or attachment. 21. Fidelity and obedience. 22. Self-sacrifice and generosity. 24. Gratitude and respect. 26. Will and self-control. 27. Instinct. 28. Panic, fright and fear. 29. Combativeness and temper: obstinacy. 30. Rivalry and jealousy. 31. Destructiveness. 32. Perseverance, pertinacity, importunity. 33. Supposition and causality. 35. Delusion. 36. Dreaming and sleep. 37. Wildness. 38. Civilisation, or domesticity. 39. Language, knowledge of words and their significa tion. 40. Feeding and appetite. 41. Intoxication. 42. Sexual passion or lust. 43. Pairing. 44. Pregnancy and parturition. 45. Incubation. 46. Cleanliness. 47. Construction, and constructiveness or ingenuity: as regards material, form, locality. 48. Domicile or shelter. The mistakes of animals may also be divided into those characteristic of youth, maturity, and age; or into those which affect species, such as the bee, or dog; or into those which are 1. Natural, excusable or pardonable, as the fruit of ignorance; and those that are 2. Inexcusable and punishable, sins against knowledgeof the nature, in other words, of crime; or into those that are 3. Capable of ready explanation as to their obvious causation; and those that are 4. Unaccountable, incapable at present of satisfactory explanation; or into 5. Errors of health and disease, mental and bodily, including all the stages of debility. There are certain disadvantages, as well as advantages, from arranging the errors of the lower animals under such heads as have just been given. And indeed, the disadvantages so preponderate over the advantages, that it is preferable not to fetter ourselves by, or to, any given classification, because it will soon appear obvious that any one animal, such as the bee, or dog, may commit errors referable to a great many categories or classes; while any given error may involve observation, judgment, reflection, memory, and a number of other mental qualities. Moreover, there are whole groups of mistakes that cannot as yet, or at present, be properly explained, though they may become quite capable of explanation when the errors of the lower animals have attracted the kind and degree of study that they deserve. Not only, however, do animals make mistakes innumerable; but they themselves discover, or detect and rectify, their own mistakes, while they notice equally those of other animals, and of man himself. There is, in the first place, a consciousness, recognition, or perception of error, which frequently leads to an avowal or confession of it in the form of shame, chagrin, or self-blame. This sense of error is often followed by efforts at rectification, by obvious and earnest desire to make amends, or atonement. There may be at first but a suspicion of error, which begets expressions of anxiety and distrust, and leads to investigation, inquiry, or examination, testing or experiment; and the latter process, which may be very cautious, careful and thorough, usually leads to conviction, either of error, or of freedom from it. As in man, this correction of first errors is the result, usually, either of: 1. The use of other senses than the one originally at fault; 2. The acquisition of experience; or 3. The application of judgment, involving reflection, comparison, the sense of the relation of cause and effect, and other mental qualities assignable to the domain of reason. The parrot, and other birds, make 'false notes' in song; but they immediately recognise their blunders and correct them (Percy Anecdotes'). Dray horses and mules fre |