they can procure the recently killed, blood-filled bodies of their
prey. The exigencies of their surroundings in their struggle for
existence, however, often compel them to eat carrion.

Dogs will occasionally eat carrion, but sparingly, and apparently as a
relish, just as we sometimes eat odoriferous and putrid cheeses, and the
Turks, assafoetida.

Carnivora and insectivora would much prefer to do their own butchery;
hence, when they come upon their prey apparently dead, they will leave
it alone and go in search of other quarry, unless they are very hungry.

Tainted flesh is a dangerous substance to go into any stomach, unless it
be that of a buzzard. Heredity and environment have made this bird a
carrion-eater, hence, like the jackal, the hyena, and the alligator,
companion scavengers, it can eat putrid flesh with impunity. Other
flesh-eating animals avoid carrion when they can, for long years of
experience have taught them that decaying meat contains certain
ptomaines which render it very poisonous; hence, they let dead, or
seemingly dead, creatures severely alone. Again, these creatures can see
no object in mutilating an animal which, in their opinion, is already
dead.

In this discussion of the means and methods of protection that are to be
observed in the lower animals, I have brought forward only those in
which mind-element was to be discerned. Mimicry and kindred phenomena
hardly have a place in this treatise, for they are, undoubtedly,
governed and directed by unconscious mind, a psychical phase which, as I
intimated in the introductory chapter of this book, would be discussed
only incidentally.

CONCLUSION

Judging wholly from the evidence, I think that it can be safely asserted
and successfully maintained that mind in the lower animals is the same
in kind as that of man; that, though instinct undoubtedly controls and
directs many of the psychical and physical manifestations which are to
be observed in the lower animals, intelligent ratiocination also
performs an important role in the drama of their lives.[115]

[115] Kirby and Spence, _Entomology_, p. 591.

The wielders of the instinct club bitterly deny that any of the lower
animals ever show an intelligent appreciation of new surroundings, that
they ever evince intelligent ratiocination. They close their eyes even
to the data collected by the chiefs of their tribe, Agassiz, Kirby,
Spence, _et al._, and go on their way shouting hosannas t