Book: The Human Side of Animals

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[Illustration: RECREATION IS AS COMMON AMONG ANIMALS AS IT IS AMONG
CHILDREN.]




THE
HUMAN SIDE
OF ANIMALS

BY
ROYAL DIXON
AUTHOR OF "THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS," "THE HUMAN SIDE OF TREES,"




"THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS," ETC.

_WITH TWO ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLORS AND
THIRTY-TWO IN BLACK-AND-WHITE_




NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


_Copyright, 1918, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

_All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages_

MADE IN U. S. A.




TO
MARCELLUS E. FOSTER
WHO BELIEVED




NOTE


The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to his
fellow-naturalist and friend, Mr. Franklyn Everett Fitch, for carefully
reading the entire manuscript and making many scholarly and valuable
criticisms and corrections.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

FOREWORD xiii

I ANIMALS THAT PRACTISE CAMOUFLAGE 1

II ANIMAL MUSICIANS 18

III ANIMALS AT PLAY 32

IV ARMOUR-BEARING AND MAIL-CLAD ANIMALS 46

V MINERS AND EXCAVATORS 61

VI ANIMAL MATHEMATICIANS 88

VII THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS 99

VIII IN THEIR BOUDOIRS, HOSPITALS AND CHURCHES 120

IX SELF-DEFENCE AND HOME-GOVERNMENT 130

X ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, AND HOUSE-BUILDERS 150

XI FOOD CONSERVERS 170

XII TOURISTS AND SIGHT-SEERS 181

XIII ANIMAL SCAVENGERS AND CRIMINALS 199

XIV AS THE ALLIES OF MAN 210

XV THE FUTURE LIFE OF ANIMALS 234




ILLUSTRATIONS


Recreation is as common among animals as it is among children
(_in Colours_) _Frontispiece_

The Indians claim that the mother bison forced her calf to roll often
in a puddle of red clay, so that it might be indistinguishable against
its clay background 6

The zebra is one of the cleverest of camouflagers. The black-and-white
stripes of his body give the effect of sunlight passing
through bushes 7

Monkeys are the most musical of all animals. When they congregate
for "concerts," as some of the tribes do, the air is filled with weird
strains of monkey-music 20

Cats, unlike dogs, are very fond of music. And it has been proved that
their music-sense can be developed to a remarkable degree 21

A happy family of polar bears. The young cubs wrestle and tumble,
as playfully as two puppies. This play has much to do with their
physical and mental development 34

Dryptosaurus. The prehistoric animals, too, undoubtedly had their
play time, with games and "setting up" exercises 35

The mother opossum is never happier than when she has her little ones
playing hide-and-seek over her back 38

This young fox came from his home in the woods daily to play with a
young fox-terrier. He is now resting after a romp 39

Naosaurus and Dimetrodon, two extinct armour-bearers who should
have been well able to protect themselves 50

An armour-bearer of prehistoric times whose shield was an effective
protection against enemy horns 51

To the polar bear the ice and snow of the Far North means warmth
and protection. The mother bear digs herself into a snowbank,
where she lives quite comfortably throughout the winter 84

The sharp claws of the ground squirrel are efficacious tools in digging
his cosy underground burrow 85

The coyote can readily distinguish whether a herd of sheep is guarded
by one or more dogs, and will plan his attack accordingly 94

The zebu, the sacred bull of India, in spite of its domestication,
has an agile body and a quick, alert mind 95

Roosevelt's Colobus. These horse-tailed monkeys chatter together in
a language exclusively their own, yet they seem to have no difficulty
in making themselves understood by other monkey-tribes 112

A tamed deer of Texas, whose constant companion and playmate was
a rabbit dog. Between the two, there developed, necessarily, a
common language 113

Water-loving animals, like the beavers, seemingly take great pride in
their toilets. Their fur is always sleek and clean 122

Great forest pigs of Central Africa. Like the common domesticated
hogs, they will seek a clay bath to heal their wounds 123

The Rocky Mountain goat has many means of defence, not the least of
which is his agility in climbing to inaccessible places 134

Wild boars are among the most ferocious of animals. By means of
their great strength alone they are well able to defend
themselves 135

Brontosaurus. The animals that seemed best equipped to defend themselves
are the ones that, thousands of years ago, became extinct 144

This prehistoric monster was equipped not only with a pair of strong
horns but with a shield back of them as well 145

The beaver is the greatest of all animal architects. His skill is
equalled only by his patience (in Colours) 158

The skunk mother tries to keep on hand a good supply of such delicacies
as frogs and toads, so that her young may never go hungry 172

The porcupine and the hedgehog have a unique method of collecting
food for their young. After shaking down berries or grapes,
they roll in them, then hurry home with the food attached to
their quills 173

The black bear is not one of the great migrating animals. The thickness
of his coat must therefore change with the seasons 188

Rabbits seem to have a well-devised system in their road-building,
running their paths in and out of underbrush in a truly ingenious
manner 189

The mongoose, a scavenger of the worst type, feeding on rats and
mice and snakes, and even poultry 202

Diplodocus. The prehistoric animals, also, undoubtedly had their
scavengers and criminals 203

The Esquimo-dog is man's greatest friend in the Far North 218

Chipmunks are among the most easily tamed of man's wild friends,
and they even seem fond of human companionship 219

Men cruelly take the lives of these denizens of the wildwood, rejoicing
in their slaughter, but the animal soul they cannot kill 244

Two pals. There is between man and dog a kinship of spirit that cannot
be denied 245




FOREWORD

_"And in the lion or the frog--
In all the life of moor or fen--
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes of men."_

More and more science is being taught in a new way. More and more men
are beginning to discard the lumber of the brain's workshop to get at
real facts, real conclusions. Laboratories, experiments, tables,
classifications are all very vital and all very necessary but sometimes
their net result is only to befog and confuse. Occasionally it becomes
important for us to cast aside all dogmatic restraints and approach the
wonders of life from a new angle and with the untrammelled spirit of a
little child.

In this book I have attempted to bring together many old and new
observations which tend to show the human-like qualities of animals. The
treatment is neither formal nor scholastic, in fact I do not always
remain within the logical confines of the title. My sole purpose is to
make the reader self-active, observative, free from hide-bound
prejudice, and reborn as a participant in the wonderful experiences of
life which fill the universe. I hope to lead him into a new wonderland
of truth, beauty and love, a land where his heart as well as his eyes
will be opened.

In attempting to understand the animals I have used a method a great
deal like that of the village boy, who when questioned as to how he
located the stray horse for which a reward of twenty dollars had been
offered, replied, "I just thought what I would do if I were a horse and
where I would go--and there I went and found him." In some such way I
have tried to think why animals do certain things, I have studied them
in many places and under all conditions, and those acts of theirs which,
if performed by children, would come under the head of wisdom and
intelligence, I have classified as such.

Life is one throughout. The love that fills a mother's heart when she
sees her first-born babe, is also felt by the mother bear, only in a
different way, when she sees her baby cubs playing before her humble
cave dwelling. The sorrow that is felt by the human heart when a beloved
one dies is experienced in only a little less degree by an African ape
when his mate is shot dead by a Christian missionary. The grandmother
sheep that watches her numerous little lamb grandchildren on the
hillside, while their mothers are away grazing, is just as mindful of
their care as any human grandparent could be. One drop of water is like
the ocean; and love is love.

The trouble with science is that too often it leaves out love. If you
agree that we cannot treat men like machines, why should we put animals
in that class? Why should we fall into the colossal ignorance and
conceit of cataloging every human-like action of animals under the word
"instinct"? Man delights in thinking of himself as only a little lower
than the angels. Then why should he not consider the animals as only a
little lower than himself? The poet has truly said that "the beast is
the mirror of man as man is the mirror of God." Man had to battle with
animals for untold ages before he domesticated and made servants of
them. He is just beginning to learn that they were not created solely to
furnish material for sermons, nor to serve mankind, but that they also
have an existence, a life of their own.

Man has long preached this doctrine that he is not an animal, but a
kinsman of the gods. For this reason, he has claimed dominion over
animal creation and a right to assert that dominion without restraint.
This anthropocentric conceit is the same thing that causes one nation to
think it should rule the world, that the sun and moon were made only for
the laudable purpose of giving light unto a chosen few, and that young
lambs playing on a grassy hillside, near a cool spring, are just so much
mutton allowed to wander over man's domain until its flavour is
improved.

It is time to remove the barriers, once believed impassable, which man's
egotism has used as a screen to separate him from his lower brothers.
Our physical bodies are very similar to theirs except that ours are
almost always much inferior. Merely because we have a superior intellect
which enables us to rule and enslave the animals, shall we deny them all
intellect and all feeling? In the words of that remarkable naturalist,
William J. Long, "To call a thing intelligence in one creature and
reflex action in another, or to speak of the same thing as love or
kindness in one and blind impulse in the other, is to be blinder
ourselves than the impulse which is supposed to govern animals. Until,
therefore, we have some new chemistry that will ignore atoms and the
atomic law, and some new psychology that ignores animal intelligence
altogether, or regards it as under a radically different law from our
own, we must apply what we know of ourselves and our own motives to the
smaller and weaker lives that are in some distant way akin to our own."

It is possible to explain away all the marvellous things the animals do,
but after you have finished, there will still remain something over and
above, which quite defies all mechanistic interpretation. An old war
horse, for instance, lives over and over his battles in his dreams. He
neighs and paws, just as he did in real battle; and cavalrymen tell us
that they can sometimes understand from their horses when they are
dreaming just what command they are trying to obey. This is only one of
the myriads of animal phenomena which man does not understand. If you
doubt it, try to explain the striking phenomena of luminescence,
hybridization, of eels surviving desiccation for fourteen years,
post-matrimonial cannibalism, Nature's vast chain of unities, the
suicide of lemmings, why water animals cannot get wet, transparency of
animals, why the horned toad shoots a stream of blood from his eye when
angry. If you are able to explain these things to humanity, you will be
classed second only to Solomon. Yet the average scientist explains them
away, with the ignorance and loquaciousness of a fisher hag.

By a thorough application of psychological principles, it is possible
to show that man himself is merely a machine to be explained in terms of
neurones and nervous impulses, heredity and environment and reactions to
outside stimuli. But who is there who does not believe that there is
more to a man than that?

Animals have demonstrated long ago that they not only have as many
talents as human beings, but that under the influence of the same
environment, they form the same kinds of combinations to defend
themselves against enemies; to shelter themselves against heat and cold;
to build homes; to lay up a supply of food for the hard seasons. In
fact, all through the ages man has been imitating the animals in
burrowing through the earth, penetrating the waters, and now, at last,
flying through the air.

When a skunk bites through the brains of frogs, paralysing but not
killing them, in order that he may store them away in his nursery-pantry
so that his babes may have fresh food; when a mole decapitates
earth-worms for the same reason and stores them near the cold surface of
the ground so that the heads will not regrow, as they would under normal
conditions, only a deeply prejudiced man can claim that no elements of
intelligence have been employed.

There are also numerous signs, sounds and motions by which animals
communicate with each other, though to man these symbols of language may
not always be understandable. Dogs give barks indicating surprise,
pleasure and all other emotions. Cows will bellow for days when mourning
for their dead. The mother bear will bury her dead cub and silently
guard its grave for weeks to prevent its being desecrated. The mother
sheep will bleat most pitifully when her lamb strays away. Foxes utter
expressive cries which their children know full well. The chamois, when
frightened, whistle; they might be termed the policemen of the animal
world. The sentinel will continue a long, drawn-out whistle, as long as
he can without taking a breath. He then stops for a brief moment, looks
in all directions, and begins blowing again. If the danger comes too
near, he scampers away.

In their ability to take care of their wounded bodies, in their reading
of the weather and in all forms of woodcraft, animals undoubtedly
possess superhuman powers. Even squirrels can prophesy an unusually long
and severe winter and thus make adequate preparations. Some animals act
as both barometers and thermometers. It is claimed that while frogs
remain yellow, only fair weather may be expected, but if their colour
changes to brown, ill weather is coming.

There is no limit to the marvellous things animals do. Elephants, for
example, carry leafy palms in their trunks to shade themselves from the
hot sun. The ape or baboon who puts a stone in the open oyster to
prevent it from closing, or lifts stones to crack nuts, or beats his
fellows with sticks, or throws heavy cocoanuts from trees upon his
enemies, or builds a fire in the forest, shows more than a glimmer of
intelligence. In the sly fox that puts out fish heads to bait hawks, or
suddenly plunges in the water and immerses himself to escape hunters, or
holds a branch of a bush over his head and actually runs with it to hide
himself; in the wolverine who catches deer by dropping moss, and
suddenly springing upon them and clawing their eyes out; in the bear,
who, as told in the account of Cook's third voyage, "rolls down pieces
of rock to crush stags; in the rat when he leads his blind brother with
a stick" is actual reasoning. Indeed, there is nothing which man makes
with all his ingenious use of tools and instruments, of which some
suggestion may not be seen in animal creation.

Great thinkers of all ages are not wanting who believe that animals have
a portion of that same reason which is the pride of man. Montaigne
admitted that they had both thought and reason, and Pope believed that
even a cat may consider a man made for his service. Humboldt, Helvitius,
Darwin and Smellie claimed that animals act as a definite result of
actual reasoning. Lord Brougham pertinently observes, "I know not why so
much unwillingness should be shown by some excellent philosophers to
allow intelligent faculties and a share of reason to the lower animals,
as if our own superiority was not quite sufficiently established to
leave all jealousy out of view by the immeasurably higher place which we
occupy in the scale of being."

From the facts enumerated in this book I find that animals are possessed
of love, hate, joy, grief, courage, revenge, pain, pleasure, want and
satisfaction--that all things that go to make up man's life are also
found in them. In the attempt to establish this thesis I have been led
mentally and physically into some of Nature's most fascinating highways
and hedges, where I have had many occasions to wonder and adore. I will
be happy if I have at least added something to the depth of love and
appreciation with which most men look upon the animal world.

ROYAL DIXON.

New York, April, 1918.




THE HUMAN SIDE OF ANIMALS




I

ANIMALS THAT PRACTISE CAMOUFLAGE

_"She was a gordian shape of dazzling line,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd,
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the glorious tapestries...."_

--KEATS (_on Lamia, the snake_).


The art of concealment or camouflage is one of the newest and most
highly developed techniques of modern warfare. But the animals have been
masters of it for ages. The lives of most of them are passed in constant
conflict. Those which have enemies from which they cannot escape by
rapidity of motion must be able to hide or disguise themselves. Those
which hunt for a living must be able to approach their prey without
unnecessary noise or attention to themselves. It is very remarkable how
Nature helps the wild creatures to disguise themselves by colouring them
with various shades and tints best calculated to enable them to escape
enemies or to entrap prey.

The animals of each locality are usually coloured according to their
habitat, but good reasons make some exceptions advisable. Many of the
most striking examples of this protective resemblance among animals are
the result of their very intimate association with the surrounding flora
and natural scenery. There is no part of a tree, including flowers,
fruits, bark and roots, that is not in some way copied and imitated by
these clever creatures. Often this imitation is astonishing in its
faithfulness of detail. Bunches of cocoanuts are portrayed by sleeping
monkeys, while even the leaves are copied by certain tree-toads, and
many flowers are represented by monkeys and lizards. The winding roots
of huge trees are copied by snakes that twist themselves together at the
foot of the tree.

In the art of camouflage--an art which affects the form, colour, and
attitude of animals--Nature has worked along two different roads. One is
easy and direct, the other circuitous and difficult. The easy way is
that of protective resemblance pure and simple, where the animal's
colour, form, or attitude becomes like that of its habitat. In which
case the animal becomes one with its environment and thus is enabled to
go about unnoticed by its enemies or by its prey. The other way is that
of bluff, and it includes all inoffensive animals which are capable of
assuming attitudes and colours that terrify and frighten. The colours in
some cases are really of warning pattern, yet they cannot be considered
mimetic unless they are thought to resemble the patterns of some extinct
model of which we know nothing; and since they are not found in
present-day animals with unpleasant qualities, they are not, strictly
speaking, warning colours.

Desert animals are in most cases desert-coloured. The lion, for example,
is almost invisible when crouched among the rocks and streams of the
African wastes. Antelopes are tinted like the landscape over which they
roam, while the camel seems actually to blend with the desert sands. The
kangaroos of Australia at a little distance seem to disappear into the
soil of their respective localities, while the cat of the Pampas
accurately reflects his surroundings in his fur.

The tiger is made so invisible by his wonderful colour that, when he
crouches in the bright sunlight amid the tall brown grass, it is almost
impossible to see him. But the zebra and the giraffe are the kings of
all camouflagers! So deceptive are the large blotch-spots of the giraffe
and his weird head and horns, like scrubby limbs, that his concealment
is perfect. Even the cleverest natives often mistake a herd of giraffes
for a clump of trees. The camouflage of zebras is equally deceptive.
Drummond says that he once found himself in a forest, looking at what he
thought to be a lone zebra, when to his astonishment he suddenly
realised that he was facing an entire herd which were invisible until
they became frightened and moved. Evidently the zebra is well aware that
the black-and-white stripes of his coat take away the sense of solid
body, and that the two colours blend into a light gray, and thus at
close range the effect is that of rays of sunlight passing through
bushes.

The arctic animals, with few exceptions, are remarkable for imitating
their surroundings; their colour of white blends perfectly with the snow
around them. The polar bear is the only white bear, and his home is
always among the snow and ice. The arctic fox, alpine hare, and ermine
change to white in winter only, because during the other seasons white
would be too conspicuous. The American arctic hare is always white
because he always lives among the white expanses of the Far North. Both
foxes and stoats are carnivorous and feed upon ptarmigan and hares, and
they must be protectively coloured that they may catch their prey. On
the other hand, Nature aids the prey by providing them with colours that
enable them to escape the attention of their enemies.

The young of many of the arctic animals are covered with fluffy white
hair, so that while they are too young to swim they may lie with safety
upon the ground and escape the attention of polar bears; but in the
antarctic regions, where there are few enemies to fear, the young seals,
for instance, are exactly the colour of their parents.

The most remarkable exception of mimetic colouring among the animals of
the polar regions is the sable. Throughout the long Siberian winter he
retains his coat of rich brown fur. His habits, however, are such that
he does not need the protection of colour, for he is so active that he
can easily catch wild birds, and he can also subsist upon wild berries.
The woodchuck of North America retains his coat of dark-brown fur
throughout the long, cold winters. The matter of his obtaining food,
however, is easy, for he lives in burrows, near streams where he can
catch fish and small animals that live in or near the water.

A number of the old-school naturalists believed that when an animal's
colouring assumed the snowy-white coat of its arctic surroundings, this
was due to the natural tendency on the part of its hair and fur to
assume the colourings and tints of their habitat. This, however, is
absolutely false; and no better proof of it can be offered than the case
of the arctic musk-ox, who is far more polar in his haunts than even the
polar bear, and is therefore exposed to the whitening influence of the
wintry regions more than the bear. Yet he never turns white, but is
always brown. The only enemy of this northern-dweller is the arctic
wolf, and against this enemy he is protected by powerful hoofs, thick
hair, and immense horns. He does not need to conceal himself, and
therefore does not simulate the colour of his surroundings.

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