Category: Science - Biology

Intelligence in Plants and Animals Being a New Edition of the Author's Privately Issued "Soul and Immortality."

Nothing is more charming to the mind of man than the study of Nature. Religion, moderation and magnanimity have been made a part of his inner being through her teachings, and the soul has been rescued by her influence from obscurity. No longer doth man grovel in the dust, seek...

Chapters

28. Part 28

That the lower animals do possess generosity in the sense of Liberality will now be proved from circumstances that have occurred within my own observation. My first proof is a v...

29. Part 29

Taking these characteristics in order, Pride, or Self-esteem, is developed as fully in many animals as in the proudest of the human race. Most conspicuously is this shown in ani...

14. Part 14

Belonging to the lower vertebrates is a family of animals called scientifically Ranidæ, but which are, popularly speaking, best known as frogs. They are queer-looking creatures,...

22. Part 22

The season being dry, one morning early the person to whom reference has been made repaired to the lawn and poured a pitcher of water over some plants that grew near her porch,...

37. Part 37

Turning to Ecclesiastes, in which book occurs the solitary passage which is held to disprove a future existence to the lower animals, there are passages which are even more emph...

17. Part 17

The young are very timid creatures and keep close to their parents. Considerable solicitude is shown by the latter for their well-being. Their helpless infancy, so to speak, is...

10. Part 10

The grubs are hideous hunchbacks, but possessed of brains and stomach. They live in the same localities as their parents, the anxious mother, with wise precision, having careful...

6. Part 6

Three species of pine-leaves are mentioned by Darwin as being regularly drawn into the mouths of worm-burrows on the gravel-walk in his garden. These leaves consist of two needl...

30. Part 30

While capable of showing sympathy for near as well as distant kin, the lower animals have also the capacity to sympathize with human beings in distress. Cats occasionally manife...

4. Part 4

Groping about with its flexible arms, which are closely invested with fine jelly-hairs, with which it seemingly feels, or attached to some leaf or bit of floating stick, its ten...

13. Part 13

Such patience as these finny housekeepers manifest is not appreciated by man. The gleaners of the golden fields, in whose waters our little friends are found, have not discovere...

18. Part 18

As a delicate article of food the Quail is highly esteemed, and during the time the law allows the markets are filled with bunches of them. Various devices in the form of snares...

27. Part 27

Some few examples must suffice to show the power of gesture-language in the lower animals. I once owned a dog, a variety of hound, which was as companionable as any animal could...

20. Part 20

Two eggs generally constitute a nest-full, although instances are known where but a single egg was deposited. On the Falkland Islands they are said to lay three occasionally. In...

26. Part 26

Whether or not all the facts that have been adduced show that plants are conscious organisms in the particulars for which it is claimed, it matters not, for enough have been set...

32. Part 32

As we pass from the older rocks into the newer, we not only find that the animals of each successive formation become gradually more and more like existing species upon the glob...

3. Part 3

After contraction has endured for a greater or less time, dependent upon circumstances which we do not well understand, re-expansion of the leaves is effected at an insensibly s...

16. Part 16

Very amusing it was to watch him, as with praiseworthy deliberation he ate round after round of the cap of the fungus. He would bite off a mouthful of the toadstool, chew it car...

23. Part 23

No little difficulty is experienced in settling the species of the Capuchins, for their fur is rather variable in tint, and some individuals differing so greatly as to cause the...

19. Part 19

Toward the close of March, or in the beginning of April, the hens separate from the males, and seek for themselves nesting-places in secluded localities. The nest is anything bu...

5. Part 5

Some remarks about the structure of the earth-worm now appear apropos. Its body consists of from one hundred to two hundred almost cylindrical rings, each provided with minute b...

31. Part 31

That birds should manifest a love for the young which they hatch has always seemed a strange problem to me. I can see how that, in the case of a mammal, the mother should feel a...

21. Part 21

Certainly no more beautiful nests in shape exist than the spherical in form. The Long-billed Marsh Wren builds a nest of this type. Upon its arrival in the spring it seeks the i...

8. Part 8

So delicately constructed are the Lepismas, and so seemingly feeble the breath of life which animates their frail houses of clay, that nature has endowed them with qualities of...

9. Part 9

As its name implies, this insect generally requires seventeen years to complete its transformations, a fact that was first pointed out many years ago by the botanist Kalm. The l...

12. Part 12

But when the days have grown longer and warmer, and the trees are arrayed in their livery of green, she is in the fields bright and early, and often ere the dew has disappeared...

7. Part 7

But the matter does not always go on pleasantly. Two house-hunters may find the same tenement. Should they both desire it, then comes the tug of war. Dwell together they neither...

36. Part 36

From the opinions advanced, it is evident that the belief in God has been the ultimate outcome of belief in unseen spiritual agencies. There has been a gradual leading up throug...

15. Part 15

As snakes do not tear or mutilate their prey, their teeth are not set in sockets, but serve merely to poison and stupefy the prey, or to prevent its escape, acting as hooks by w...

2. Part 2

Descending the scale to the very bottom, we reach a class of animals, the Protozoa, which cannot be separated in many cases from the Protophyta by these distinctions, since many...

35. Part 35

While thus it has been shown that life has been progressive, successive forms of life being the result of modification through descent, those faring the best in the Struggle for...

11. Part 11

Late in June, growing abundantly in the edges of woods throughout this region, may be seen the _Cimicifuga racemosa_ of botanists, popularly called Rattleweed, or Black Snakeroo...

33. Part 33

All organic beings are exposed to severe competition. Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult than constantly to...

25. Part 25

No structure in plants seems more wonderful, as far as its functions are concerned, than the tip of the radicle. Lightly pressed or burnt or cut, it transmits an influence to th...

34. Part 34

We shall best understand the probable cause of Natural Selection by taking a country undergoing some physical change, as of climate for example. The proportional number of its i...

1. Part 1

Nothing is more charming to the mind of man than the study of Nature. Religion, moderation and magnanimity have been made a part of his inner being through her teachings, and th...

38. Part 38

To have given the many opinions that have been expressed by the good and wise of the past in favor of the belief that animals received, in common with man, a particle of the div...

24. Part 24

Not even are quadrupeds and men living souls, but they are vivified by the same breath and spirit. _Neshemet chayim_, or the _breath of lives_, and not the _breath_ of _life_ as...