De sollertia animalium

In general then, since the usual arguments by which philosophers demonstrate that beasts partake of reason are these following,—purpose, contrivance, memory, passions, care of their young ones, gratefulness to those from whom they receive kindnesses, and the remembrance of shrewd turns, to which we may add the search after and choice of what is needful and beneficial for them, together with apparent shows of virtue, as of fortitude, society, continence, and magnanimity,—if we consider the marine creatures, we shall not find that our strictest observation can perceive in them any of these excellences, or at best they are such obscure and imperfect glimmerings as are scarce discernible. But in terrestrial and land animals, there is not any man but may behold the most luculent, the most evident and uncontrollable demonstrations in the world of all that has been said. In the first place, observe the designs and preparations of bulls provoked to combat, and of wild boars whetting their teeth. Again, elephants— since, by digging up or tearing down the trees which they intend to feed upon, they blunt and wear out their tushes —make use of only one for those purposes, but reserve the other strong and sharp for their own defence. The lion also always walks with his feet inverted, hiding his claws withinside his paw, to prevent the hunter from tracing him easily by his footing. For the track of a lion’s claw is not easily to be found, so that the hunters are frequently at a loss, and wander after the obscure and scarce discernible footsteps of those beasts. You have heard also, I suppose,

of the ichneumon, how that he arms himself as completely as a soldier with his breastplate and cuirass prepared for battle; in such a manner does that creature surround and wrap himself about with a coat of mail, when he attacks the crocodile.

Admirable are the preparations of swallows before they go to lay their eggs, how they place the more solid stubble for foundations, and upon that build up the slighter straws; and if they perceive that the nest wants mud to serve as glue, you may observe how they fly to the next lake or sea, and after they have skimmed the superficies of the water with their wings,—so as to make them moist, yet not heavy with wet,—they lick up the dust, and so daub and bind together the loose and ill-cohering parts of the nest. As for the form of their architecture, it is composed neither of angles nor of many sides, but smooth and, as much as may be, spherical; for that such a figure is lasting and capacious, and not easily affording entrance to creatures that lie in wait for their destruction from without.

Who is there that does not admire, for more reasons than one, the labor of the spiders, which seems as pattern for the threads that women spin and the nets that are used in hunting? For the extraordinary fineness of the spinning, and the evenness of the thread, not discontinued or snapped off like the yarn upon a quill, but having the smooth and subtle texture of a thin membrane, and knit and spun together with a certain clammy moisture imperceptibly mixed; besides the tincture of it, causing a kind of airy and misty color, the better to deceive; but above all, the conduct and governing of this little engine, in which when any thing happens to be entangled, you see how presently, like an expert huntsman, the subtle artist contracts her net and binds her prey within it;—all this, being every day obvious to our sight and contemplation,

gives credit to my discourse, which otherwise might be accounted no less fabulous than what is reported of certain Libyan crows, that, when they are a-thirsty, throw stones into the water, by that means to raise it to such a height that they may be able to reach it with their bills. Then again, when I saw a ship dog, in the absence of the seamen, putting in stones in a half-empty jar of oil, it was to me a wonder how that dog should understand that the pressure of the heavier weight would make the lighter rise.

And the same artifices are reported of Cretan bees and Cilician geese. For the first of these, being to take their flight about some windy promontory, ballast themselves with little stones, to prevent their being carried away by the stronger blasts. And as for the geese, they being afraid of the eagles, every time they cross the mountain Taurus, carry great stones in their mouths, to the end that by that means (as it were) bridling their gaggling tongues, they may cross the mountain in silence, without alarming their enemies.

Extraordinary also is the caution which the cranes observe in their flight. For they fly, when the wind is very high and the air very tempestuous, not as in fair weather, all afront or in manner of the half-moon; but forming a triangular body, with the sharp angle of that figure they penetrate the wind that ruffles round about them, and by that means preserve their order unbroken. On the other side, when they fill upon the ground, those that are upon the night-watch stand with the whole weight of their bodies upon one leg, holding a stone in the claw of the other foot. For the holding of the stone keeps them awake for a long time together, and wakes them again with the noise of the fall if they happen to drop asleep. So that it was no wonder that Hercules laid his quiver under his arm-pit, and with his strenuous arm embracing his bow,

Slept all the night, where’er he laid his load,

With his right-handed weight upon the wood.

Nor do I so much admire at him who was the first that hit upon the way to open an oyster, when I meet with and consider the artifices of the herons. For a heron, when he has swallowed a closed oyster, endures the trouble and vexation of it for so long time, till he perceives it soften and relaxed by the heat of his stomach; then casting it up again gaping and divided, he takes out that which is fit for food.

But as it is a task of great labor accurately to relate the economy and contrivances of the emmets, so it would argue too much of negligence to pass them over in silence. For there is not in Nature a smaller creature; and yet it is a most absolute mirror of the greatest and most noble performances, and (as it were) in a transparent drop the appearance of all virtue. There is friendship to be discerned in their mutual society. There is the image of fortitude in the patient undergoing of labor. In them are to be seen many seeds of continence, many of wisdom and justice. Insomuch that Cleanthes, who denied that beasts were endued with reason, could not forbear reporting how he met with the following accident of a crowd of emmets, that came to another ant-hill, bringing along with them a dead emmet. Presently other emmets ascending out of their ant-hill seemed (as it were) to meet them, and then disappeared again; and this was done twice or thrice. Till at length the one side brought up from under ground a worm, as the price of the dead emmet’s redemption, which the other party of pismires receiving, delivered the dead emmet, and so departed. But that which is apparent to all is their equity to each other when they meet one another, while they that carry nothing always give way to those that are burdened; nor are their divisions and partitions of things too weighty for single carriage less remarkable,

to the end the burdens may be divided among many. But when they bring forth their little eggs and expose them to the cold, Aratus makes it a sign of rainy weather.

When from her hollow cells th’ industrious ant

Her hidden store of eggs brings forth.

For in that sense many read ἤια (provision) for ὤεα (eggs), referring it to the providence of those little creatures, who, when they find their provision in their magazines to begin to taint and grow rotten, bring it forth and expose it to the open air, to prevent the progress of the putrefaction. But that which above all things demonstrates the surpassing excellency of their understanding is their preapprehension of the germinating of wheat. For the wheat does not remain dry and void of putrefaction, but grows moist and turns into a kind of milky substance, when it changes from seed to become an herb. For fear therefore that preserving the quality it should become useless for food, they eat out the very principal part of the grain, from whence the wheat sends forth its blossom. I must confess, I do not approve of those who dig up ant-hills on purpose to improve their learning (as it were) by anatomy. However, they tell us by virtue of that cruel information, that the passage or descent from the top of the hill to the nest is not directly straight nor easily penetrated by any other creature, but intercepted with several turnings and windings, leading through several underminings and perforations into three cavities; of which the one is the common place of feeding and converse for the whole community, the next is the general magazine of their provision, and the third is the apartment where they dispose of their dead.

I am afraid you may deem me too impertinent in joining elephants with pismires, and yet I cannot but think it seasonable to show the nature and force of understanding,

as well in the smallest as in the greatest bodies, neither obscured in the one nor deficient in the other.

Some there are that admire in an elephant his aptness to learn and to be taught, and the many various postures and alterations of movement which he shows upon the theatres, not easily to be equalled by human assiduity, as subtle and abounding in memory and retention as man is. But for my part, I rather choose to prove his evident understanding from the passions and inclinations of the creature, that were never taught him, but only infused by Nature, as being altogether unmixed and pure without the help of art.

At Rome, not very long ago, there were many elephants that were taught many dangerous postures, many winding and turnings and circular screwings of their bulky bodies, hard to be expressed; among which there was one, which, being duller than the rest, and therefore often rated and chastised for his stupidity, was seen in the night-time, by moonlight, without being forced to it, to practise over his lessons with all the industry imaginable.

Agno tells a story of an elephant in Syria, that was bred up in a certain house, who observed that his keeper took away and defrauded him every day of half the measure of his barley; only that once, the master being present and looking on, the keeper poured out the whole measure; which was no sooner done, but the elephant, extending his proboscis, separated the barley and divided it into two equal parts, thereby ingeniously discovering, as much as in him lay, the injustice of his keeper.

Another in revenge that his keeper mixed stones and dirt with his barley, as the keeper’s meat was boiling upon the fire, took up the ashes and flung them into the pot.

Another being provoked by the boys in Rome, that pricked his proboscis with the sharp ends of their writingsteels, caught one of them in his proboscis, and mounted

him up into the air, as if he intended to have squashed out his guts; but upon the loud outcries of the spectators, set him gently down again upon his feet, and so went on, believing he had sufficiently punished the boy in scaring him. Many other things are reported of the wild elephants that feed without control, but nothing more to be admired than their passing, of great rivers. For first of all the youngest and the least flounces into the stream; whom the rest beholding from the shore, if they see that the less bulky leader keeps steady footing with his back above water, they are then assured and confident that they may boldly adventure without any danger.