DO ANIMALS REASON?
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9 SIR,—The following facts I can vouch for from personal knowledge, as I was at the time resident in my father's house where they occurred. Rats had got into the house, presumably through imperfect drains,—a matter not so much considered in those days as now. In the dining-room was a sideboard of old hard polished mahogany with two lockers, in one of which bread, &c., were kept. This was always kept locked till one night when it was inadvertently left open to the extent of two or three inches. Next morning a small pile of mahogany- chips was found on the carpet, and a space had been gnawed out of the door at the corner, so that when the door was closed and the press locked there was still an aperture sufficient to afford ingress and egress to a rat. The opening was made from the inside outwards, the wood inside not being polished, and therefore affording a 'vulnerable surface. But the strange circumstance is this. In the locker there was on the same level as the rat-hole, and within some six inches of it, a loaf of bread, which was untouched ! That is, the animal bad toiled all night, not for present gratification, but in order to secure a permanent source of supply, for such a chance oppor- tunity might not occur again. Daylight and the housemaid (I suppose) deprived him of any immediate reward. I may add that the sideboard was repaired by introducing a piece of polished wood to match; and if any one cared to see it, it can still be shown. If that rat did not reason, what is reason ? I doubt if many needy and hungry men would have reasoned with such exactness in preferring future benefit with present self-sacrifice to present gratification.—I am, Sir, &c., Donnycarney House, Dublin. A. M. PORTER.
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