rocks.

I was amused at the case of a robin that recently came to my
knowledge. The bird built its nest in the south end of a rude shed
that covered a table at a railroad terminus upon which a locomotive
was frequently turned. When her end of the shed was turned to the
north she built another nest in the temporary south end, and as the
reversal of the shed ends continued from day to day, she soon had two
nests with two sets of eggs. When I last heard from her, she was
consistently sitting on that particular nest which happened to be for
the time being in the end of the shed facing toward the south. The
bewildered bird evidently had had no experience with the tricks of
turn-tables!

An intelligent man once told me that crabs could reason, and this was
his proof: In hunting for crabs in shallow water, he found one that
had just cast its shell, but the crab put up just as brave a fight as
ever, though of course it was powerless to inflict any pain; as soon
as the creature found that its bluff game did not work, it offered no
further resistance. Now I should as soon say a wasp reasoned because
a stingless drone, or male, when you capture him, will make all the
motions with its body, curving and thrusting, that its sting-equipped
fellows do. This action is from an inherited instinct, and is purely
automatic. The wasp is not putting up a bluff game; it is really
trying to sting you, but has not the weapon. The shell-less crab
quickly reacts at your approach, as is its nature to do, and then
quickly ceases its defense because in its enfeebled condition the
impulse of defense is feeble also. Its surrender was on physiological,
not upon rational grounds.

Thus do we without thinking impute the higher faculties to even the
lowest forms of animal life. Much in our own lives is purely
automatic--the quick reaction to appropriate stimuli, as when we ward
off a blow, or dodge a missile, or make ourselves agreeable to the
opposite sex; and much also is inherited or unconsciously imitative.

Because man, then, is half animal, shall we say that the animal is
half man? This seems to be the logic of some people. The animal man,
while retaining much of his animality, has evolved from it higher
faculties and attributes, while our four-footed kindred have not thus
progressed.

Man is undoubtedly of animal origin, but his rise occurred when the
principle of variation was much more active, when the forms and forces
of nature were much