Animal Behaviour

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E. Arnold, 1900 - Animal behavior - 344 pages

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Page 288 - In other words, those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life...
Page 306 - The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery.
Page 149 - ... When put into the box the cat would show evident signs of discomfort and of an impulse to escape from confinement. It tries to squeeze through any opening ; it claws and bites at the bars or wire; it thrusts its paws out through any opening and claws at everything it reaches ; it continues its efforts when it strikes anything loose and shaky; it may claw at things within the box. It does not pay very much attention to the food outside, but seems simply to strive instinctively to escape from confinement....
Page 223 - When we see an ant-hill, tenanted by thousands of industrious inhabitants, excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making roads, guarding their home, gathering food, feeding the young, tending their domestic animals, — each one fulfilling its duties industriously, and without confusion, — it is difficult altogether to deny to them the gift of reason ; and the preceding observations tend to confirm the opinion that their mental powers differ from those of men, not so much in kind as in degree.
Page 63 - For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism, but, according to the best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate impression from the first mover, and the divine energy acting in the creatures.
Page 306 - It may be assumed, then, that molecular changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness of brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness may, conversely, cause those molecular changes which give rise to muscular motion? I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims, and goes through his gymnastic performances quite as well without consciousness, and consequently without volition, as with it; and, if a frog, in his natural state, possesses anything corresponding...
Page 226 - Jaeger remarks,' how difficult it is to approach animals in a herd or troop. Wild horses and cattle do not, I believe, make any danger-signal; but the attitude of any one of them who first discovers an enemy warns the others. Rabbits stamp loudly on the ground with their hind feet as a signal; sheep and chamois do the same with their forefeet, uttering likewise a whistle.
Page 22 - Thornton. A SPORTING TOUR THROUGH THE NORTHERN PARTS OF ENGLAND AND GREAT PART OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. By Colonel T. THORNTON, of Thornville Royal, in Yorkshire. With the Original Illustrations by GARRARD, and other Illustrations and Coloured Plates by GE LODGE. 'Sportsmen of all descriptions will gladly welcome the sumptuous new edition issued by Mr. Edward Arnold of Colonel T. Thornton's Sporting Tour," which has long been a scarce book.
Page 128 - In filling up her nest she put her head down into it and bit away the loose earth from the sides, letting it fall to the bottom of the burrow, and then, after a quantity had accumulated, jammed it down with her head. Earth was then brought from the outside and pressed in, and then more was bitten from the sides. When, at last, the filling was level with the ground, she brought a quantity of fine grains of dirt to the spot and picking up a small pebble in her mandibles, used it as a hammer in pounding...
Page 50 - That therefore, on the whole, the theory of Wallace and Bates is supported by the facts detailed in this and the author's former papers, so far as they deal with birds (and with the one mammal used).

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