shell itself into his mouth. This act was not instinctive. It was the work of pure reason. Evidently his race was not familiar with the use of eggs and had acquired no instincts regarding them. He would do it better next time. Reason is an inefficient agent at first, a weak tool; but when it is trained it becomes an agent more valuable and more powerful than any instinct.

The monkey Jocko tried to eat the egg offered him in much the same way that Bob did, but, not liking the taste, he threw it away.

The confusion of highly perfected instinct with intellect is very common in popular discussions. Instinct grows weak and less accurate in its automatic obedience as the intellect becomes available in its place. Both intellect and instinct are outgrowths from the simple reflex response to external conditions. But instinct insures a single definite response to the corresponding stimulus. The intellect has a choice of responses. In its lower stages it is vacillating and ineffective; but as its development goes on it becomes alert and adequate to the varied conditions of life. It grows with the need for improvement. It will therefore become impossible for the complexity of life to outgrow the adequacy of man to adapt himself to its conditions.

Many animals currently believed to be of high intelligence are not so. The fur-seal, for example, finds it way back from the long swim of two or three thousand miles through a foggy and stormy sea, and is never too late or too early in arrival. The female fur-seal goes two hundred miles to her feeding grounds in summer, leaving the pup on the shore. After a week or two she returns to find him within a few rods of the rocks where she had left him. Both mother and young know each other by call and by odor, and neither is ever mistaken, though ten thousand other pups and other mothers occupy the same rookery. But this is not intelligence. It is simply instinct, because it has no element of choice in it. Whatever its ancestors

were forced to do the fur-seal does to perfection. Its instincts are perfect as clockwork, and the necessities of migration must keep them so. But if brought into new conditions it is dazed and stupid. It can not choose when different lines of action are presented.

The Bering Sea Commission once made an experiment on the possibility of separating the young male fur-seals, or “killables,” from the old ones in the same band. The method was to drive them through a wooden chute or runway with two valve-like doors at the end. These animals can be driven like sheep, but to sort them in the way proposed proved impossible. The most experienced males would beat their noses against a closed door, if they had seen a seal before them pass through it. That this door had been shut and another opened beside it passed their comprehension. They could not choose the new direction. In like manner a male fur-seal will watch the killing and skinning of his mates with perfect composure. He will sniff at their blood with languid curiosity; so long as it is not his own it does not matter. That his own blood may flow out on the ground in a minute or two he can not foresee.

Reason arises from the necessity for a choice among actions. It may arise as a clash among instincts which forces on the animal the necessity of choosing. A doe, for example, in a rich pasture has the instinct to feed. It hears the hounds and has the instinct to flee. Its fawn may be with her and it is her instinct to remain and protect it. This may be done in one of several ways. In proportion as the mother chooses wisely will be the fawn's chance of survival. Thus under difficult conditions, reason or choice among actions rises to the aid of the lower animals as well

as man.

314. Mind. The word mind is popularly used in two different senses. In the biological sense the mind is the collective name for the functions of the sensorium in men and animals. It is the sum total of all psychic changes,

actions and reactions. Under the head of psychic functions are included all operations of the nervous system as well as all functions of like nature which may exist in organisms without specialized nerve fibers or nerve cells. As thus defined mind would include all phenomena of irritability, and even plants have the rudiments of it. The operations of the mind in this sense need not be conscious. With the lower animals almost all of them are automatic and unconscious. With man most of them must be so. All functions of the sensorium, irritability, reflex action, instinct, reason, volition, are alike in essential nature though differing greatly in their degree of specialization.

In another sense the term mind is applied only to conscious reasoning or conscious volition. In this sense it is mainly an attribute of man, the lower animals showing it in but slight degree. The discussion as to whether lower animals have minds turns on the definition of mind, and our answer to it depends on the definition we adopt.

CHAPTER XXVII

ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY

315. Uses of animals to man.-Economic zoology treats of the value of animals for the purposes of man. These services are enormously varied, and in this chapter we can give only a bare enumeration of some of the most conspicuous lines of service, leaving the student to develop the details. At the outset we may remember that most of the species of animals have inhabited the earth longer than man has, and that we have no right to suppose that the reason for their creation was to render him some service. Thousands and thousands of species can be of no possible use in human affairs, and a few are related to man only through their ability to inflict positive injury. Of harmful nature are the insects with poison glands connected with the mouth, many of those with stings, the snakes with venom fangs, the poisonous Gila monster among lizards, some of the great beasts of prey, and, perhaps most of all, the noxious types of mosquitoes, who transfer to the human body the germs of certain diseases, as malaria, yellow fever, and filariasis. Other noxious animals are the vermin-rats and mice and the like-which infest houses and may carry disease, the many forms of internal and external parasites, intestinal worms, ticks, mites, and the like. Harmful in other ways are the hordes of insects injurious to vegetation; and some mammals, as rabbits and gophers, are at times extremely destructive to valuable plants.

316. Domestic animals.-The very earliest records of man show that he trained those animals about him which

could be made to minister to his needs or his pleasure. The young of almost any species can be rendered friendly and fearless by kind treatment. Naturally those most easily tamed and most useful when reared received the most attention. Of the young born in domestication, those most tractable or most helpful would be most cherished. Thus during the lapse of ages by a process of selection, conscious or unconscious, distinct breeds were formed, many of these differing from the original stock more than distinct species differ from each other. Varying needs. brought greater and greater differences among breeds; thus all dogs are domesticated wolves of different species, but the distinctions between St. Bernard dogs, Eskimo dogs, greyhounds, pugs, lap-dogs, and the tiny hairless Pelon dogs of Mexico are far greater than the differences separating different kinds of wolves.

317. Formation of new races.-With the advance of civilization unconscious selection has developed into conscious choice, and new and improved races can be planned and developed with almost absolute certainty of success. Selective breeding has been called "the magician's wand," by which the breeder can summon up new forms useful to man or pleasing to his fancy. In general, new varieties are formed by crossing old ones, each of which has certain desirable traits. These may be combined in certain of the young, or other qualities, new or unforeseen, may appear. These are retained as the basis of the improved race, while those individuals not possessing the desired characters are discarded. By pursuing this method for a certain. number of generations the new type may become more or less perfectly established. In this regard almost any desired result is possible with time and patience. Those species most widely domesticated have, in general, developed the greatest number of distinct races or breeds. Among these are the dog, the horse, the donkey, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hog (descended from the wild boar), the rabbit,