as its vertical growth
is checked, till it has surrounded the central stalk on all sides with
a dense, thorny hedge. Then as this stalk is no longer cropped, it
leads the tree upward. The lateral branches are starved, and in a few
years the tree stands with little or no evidence of the ordeal it has
passed through. In like manner the nature of the animals prompts them
to the deeds they do, and we think of them as the result of a mental
process, because similar acts in ourselves are the result of such a
process.

See how the mice begin to press into our buildings as the fall comes
on. Do they know winter is coming? In the same way the vegetable world
knows it is coming when it prepares for winter, or the insect world
when it makes ready, but not as you and I know it. The woodchuck
"holes up" in late September; the crows flock and select their rookery
about the same time, and the small wood newts or salamanders soon
begin to migrate to the marshes. They all know winter is coming, just
as much as the tree knows, when in August it forms its new buds for
the next year, or as the flower knows that its color and perfume will
attract the insects, and no more. The general intelligence of nature
settles all these and similar things.

When a bird selects a site for its nest, it seems, on first view, as
if it must actually think, reflect, compare, as you and I do when we
decide where to place our house. I saw a little chipping sparrow
trying to decide between two raspberry bushes. She kept going from one
to the other, peering, inspecting, and apparently weighing the
advantages of each. I saw a robin in the woodbine on the side of the
house trying to decide which particular place was the best site for
her nest. She hopped to this tangle of shoots and sat down, then to
that, she turned around, she readjusted herself, she looked about, she
worked her feet beneath her, she was slow in making up her mind. Did
she make up her mind? Did she think, compare, weigh? I do not believe
it. When she found the right conditions, she no doubt felt pleasure
and satisfaction, and that settled the question. An inward,
instinctive want was met and satisfied by an outward material
condition. In the same way the hermit crab goes from shell to shell
upon the beach, seeking one to its liking. Sometimes two crabs fall to
fighting over a shell that each wants. Can we believe that the hermit
crab thinks and reasons? It selects the suitable shell instinctive