PETLAND.*
Toe dumb brutes have fared ill in the combat of the giant school- men about the immortality of the soul. " Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi " upplies with singular truth to the animals who, in man's jealous desire to engross all the higher attributes of mind, are only allowed instinct and denied sense, intelligence, affection, reason, in flat contradiction to the ocular proofs which they daily thrust upon the blindeet eyes. Nothing is more curious than the strange incousistencies into whicls educated people fall—indeed, educated people in this respect are blinder than the uneducated—with regard to the actions and feelings of animals. They see a dog, for instance, giving the most manifest tokens of affection, coupled with delicacy of per- ception, ingenuity of manner, adaptation of means to ends ; or, at other tunes, evidence, as clear as pantomime can make it, of pride, jealousy, resentment, disgust, mental anguish, and all the finer shades of complicated feeling, and yet, while calling all these symptoms by their right names, they persist in clubbing them all under time imaginary abstraction— instinct ; as if sight in a dog were not the same as vision in a man, or as if anger in a monkey were generically different from anger in a child. The mischief of this preconception is, that an immense body of valuable observation and inquiry, which might otherwise be obtained from the joint attention of civilized men, into the mental characteristics of animals, and the relation of tin se characteristics to their organization, is lost to natural science, and the far wider results of the fruitful analogy suggested, but only suggested, by Lavater, between form and character, sacri- ficed to a mere name.
A distinguished tutor at Cambridge used to say, that if men could have outward forms given to them corresponding to their inward characters, they would differ more from one another than the lion and the giraffe, or the eagle and the toad. This, though it undoubtedly contains much truth, would seem to prove too much. For if, according to Lavater, the character really does correspond to the form, it would follow that the similarity in men's bodily appearance must denote equal similarity in their minds. But it seems more safe and plausible to conclude, that in animals the typical character and the typical form really are related, and that the characteristic moral feature of it given species of animals, is as much the resultant of the organize tiou as the peculiar physiognomy of that species. In the " Miserables," M. Victo Hugo,. unconsciously following Plato, lays great stress on the radical difference of character of different men, and accounts for it on the supposition that man is in a fashion the harmonized encyclopaedia of all the mental and moral characteristics diffused throughout the lower animal creation. And, certainly, animals have eyes, ears, noses, and palates. They have orgens, dimensions, senses,
* Glimpses into Petland. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, F.L.S., ke. author of "illustrated Natural History," "Common Objects of the Seashore end Country," "My Feathered Friends," de. Loudon: Bell and Liddy, 180 Fleet street.
affections, and passions. They are fed with food, subject to disease, and capable of cure. If we prick them, they bleed. If we tickle them, they appreciate it after their own fashion. If we poison them, they die. If we wrong them, they resent it.
Mr. Wood's "Glimpses into Petland" will do much, we hope, to diffuse the intelligent and sympathetic observation of animal life. The apparently trivial character of his excellent little book contrasts strangely with its importance. At first sight a casual reader might suppose that Mr. Wood's stories are designed for children, so simply and earnestly are they told. But the stu- dent of natural history will quickly perceive that they are written by a man of scientific observation and feminine delicacy of intuition, gifted with that sort of second sight into dumb motive with which a mother easily follows the recondite work- ings of an infant mind. Mr. Wood's account of the education of his pet cats is exceedingly instructive, and proves, we think, conclusively-, that cats, besides their wonderful social intelligence, are necessarily neither treacherous nor coldhearted.
The nature of cats appears to be the nearest approach to the natural character of a woman. They are exquisitely organized, exquisitely sensitive to pain and rough treatment, easily con- verted into hypocrites, rendered selfish only by harshness, want of appreciation, or brutality, more difficult to attach than dogs, but being attached, devoted, and loving with a fastidious, playful delicacy, not content with limited constitutional, strictly defined fiiendship, but in short, requiring all or nothing, yet not surfeit- ing by over demonstrativeness or over exactingness. On the other hand, cats, like women, are courtiers, and easily take, in a bland, civil way, to sympathetic natures, discerning them with indefinable subtlety.
Mr. Wood, who strongly urges the claim of cats to be con- sidered as affectionate as dogs, though not so demonstrative, is not at all inclined to depreciate the latter. But while we have felt it due to him to speak very highly of his book, we are equally compelled to add that it is exceedingly unequal. His account of his dog Roughie, though faithful and life- like, is, on the whole, trivial. The incidents recorded throw no light upon the logical connection between the animal's thoughts. They only show that here and there a dog, like many a man, is subject to a selfish and petty vacuity of mind, incapable of attachment or devotion, a slave to every casual emotion, passing from house to house, and from master to master, as a stone rolls from one place to another. Obser- vations of this kind may be true, but they remind one too much of the infantine attempts at observation made by the first microscopists upon grains of sand and bits of straw, the wing of a fly or the proboscis of a gnat. The psychological element is lost. We earnestly recommend to Mr. Wood's notice the wonderful work of MM. Leuret and Gratiolet on the connection between the habits of groups of animals and their organization. Their masterly method of analysis supplemented by his popular style and delicate instinct could not fail, we think, to produce valuable results. One remark, however, in the chapter on dogs deserves attention, that, namely, where he dwells upon the ex. treme sensitiveness of some dogs to the emotion of shame. "Some dogs are so sensitive of shame, that a single word of reproach renders them miserable for days together, and they can neither eat nor sleep till they have asked pardon." This is a very remarkable and pregnant fact,, corroborated by our own experience. We have known dogs, long after they could fear any bodily consequences, indeed when none were ever threatened, pine until they had effected an affectionate reconciliation, and show unbounded joy at the removal of the cloud between them and their master.
The account given by Mr. Wood of his chameleon is more interesting than his account of Roughie, and leaves a very vivid idea of the habits of the reptile. It is absolutely harmless, in spite of the extraordinary grip of its claw. But, nevertheless, it contrives to keep many enemies at bay simply by the terrific aspect of its minatory pantomime. The chameleon possesses the art of assuming a positively venomous aspect—puffs its throat, produces a hissing buzz like that of a swarm of bees, uplifts its fore paws, and assumes a livid aspect of spotted, vivid, yellow upon deep black. This faculty of simulating a power of injury, Mr. Wood reminds his readers, is widely spread throughout the animal kingdom. The angry dove will puff out her feathers, ruffle her wings, and look as combative as a hawk. In this respect there is a difference between doves and women. For women, instead of ruffling their wings, always begin to smooth their petti- coats, and, indeed, seldom look angry, when they most feel so. The anger of a well-bred woman- is generally denoted by the tenseness and elevation of her smile, and a something which we can only describe as an electric sheen of her whole aspect and physiognomy. A true woman is incapable of "the hang- dog look." Mr. Wood's description of the colours of the chame- leon and his observations are not only delicate, they seem to be important. But the most curious speculation concerning the chameleon refers to the apparent and comparative independence of the two sides of its body. It is well known that the chameleon can move its eyes quite independently and accurately. Thus one eye can be fixed on the ceiling and the other on the floor, and each can roll round to any point of the compass, while the other re- mains unmoved. Dr. Weissenborn found that this extraordinary creature might be awake on its right side and asleep on its left. The two sides are often marked with totally different colours. The doctor conceives that they are acted upon by different centres of perception, which are either independent or feebly connected. He oddly compares the chameleon to two animals glued together. Should this lateral independence be the case, it is difficult to realize the importance of the results which may be obtained, and the light they may throw upon the theory of the brain in the higher animals. Thus it may become a subject of inquiry whether consciousness, so far as it is represented, if it is repre- sented, by a material equivalent in the mechanism of the brain, may not be the instantaneous counter-stroke on one side, of an impression on the other side. This view would remove the difficulty of understanding bow a man can say, "I see, that I see." It would even explain, and in the simplest manner, the apparent absurdity of the formula, "I see, that I see, that I see." For the counter-strokes, to and fro, would continue indefinitely until attention was turned to some other point. But this by the way. We shall only in conclusion call the attention of our readers to the account given, with evident good faith, by an invalid lady in a letter to Mr. Wood of two pet butterflies, which she batched and reared in her sick-room.
The first was a little yellow butterfly. Being perplexed how to feed it, she prettily imagined drops of honey and rose-water inserted in rose-buds. The scheme perfectly succeeded. At first the little creature was very wild, and afraid of the lady's hand, but at last became so tame, that it would step off flowers and come when called by its name of Psyche. Three weeks after the advent of Psyche, a fine peacock butterfly was born. They at once fell into one another's ways, and when Psyche was called, the peacock came too, and never could be made to acknowledge any other name. So they shared the name between them. One day in the summer they were let loose, but they remained several days on the window .sill. At last they flew away, but at night were found in their own cabinet. The next day they again sallied forth, but this time for a longer period. They did not return till the September weather set in ; but they did not leave the garden, and would come if called, and rest on her hair or hands. They lived through the winter. In the following June they were again set free, never to return. One day, after a heavy thunderstorm, the inanimate form of a yellow butterfly was found upon the window-sill. The peacock-butterfly was never seen again.
The unobservant little imagine the immense and unexplored, but latent materials of sympathy, which exist between man and the lower creation. Yet we know that an ordinary pig has been trained to stand to game like a pointer, canaries and mice to per- form intricate manceuvres, fleas to draw a vehicle and carry riders —feats of skill more painful than pleasing to behold—yet instruc- tive withal. For even men may be over-educated. The hyena has been proved to possess a temper as grateful and docile as a dog. The wolf attaches itself to a kind master with a strength of affection painful to behold. The leopard, when kindly treated, becomes playful and gentle as a puppy ; and even the tiger can be attached to man, and will learn to share his room as harmlessly as a cat. But the right education of pets is not a very easy matter, and requires a combination of qualities that are not very often found invested in the same person. One thing, and only one thing we will add,—if parents and pedagogues would study Petland better, they would sour fewer tempers, and spoil fewer characters.
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