It is a good idea for boys and girls to keep pets. Often it is rather hard on the pets; but the boys and girls get much happiness out of their animal companions, and they learn a great deal about the ways of animals besides.

Any of you who keep pets could, I have no doubt, tell me many wonderful tales of the extraordinary intelligence of these horses, dogs, cats, pigeons, cavies, mice, parrots, rabbits, squirrels, and what not, which, according to their nature, share our hearth rugs or our back yards. You who do not, have only to ask the man next door who keeps a horse or a dog, or the woman on the other side who has a cat or a parrot, to learn that animals are only just a little short of human, and if they could only talk, would soon prove, as we say, to “know more than most men.”

Now there is no doubt that many animals are extraordinarily clever. I could easily fill this whole book with stories of their sagacity. At the same time, they are often extraordinarily ignorant, and sometimes extraordinarily stupid. And because you will always be hearing abundant stories of their cleverness, I am going to tell you sundry tales of their stupidity. Between the two, perhaps we shall strike a just balance.

Let me begin by telling about my own dog, a white and brown collie, whom I, in common with all owners of dogs, regard as uncommonly intelligent. When I tie the dog up, I use a light chain, one end of which runs on a long trolley wire fastened between the house and a tree. This, by the way, is a good way to tie a dog, for then he can run the length of his trolley wire and the length of his chain besides, and yet not have to drag much weight or tangle up a long chain. Very often, however, my dog, after running out beyond the tree as far as he can go, starts to come back again on the other side of the tree. Of course he can’t do it, for the chain is fast about the trunk. Now what would you do, if you were tied up that way, and found that your trolley wouldn’t work? I am sure you would look at once to see whether you had not got your chain twisted round the tree; and when you found you had, you would run round the other way and untwist it. Of course you would, and you wouldn’t stop to think twice. But my silly dog has never caught the idea. When he first finds himself caught up short, he pulls and struggles. Then he sits down and howls for me. I go out and walk round the tree the other way. The dog follows me; and at once is free. I suppose I have done this in exactly the same way fifty times. Yet the foolish dog never has learned to do it for himself. And yet he is a wise dog—as dogs go. I suppose the reason is that his wild ancestors never were fastened up on trolleys, so there is no chain-untwisting instinct to start him learning.

Or perhaps you think monkeys are especially wise little creatures. Then consider this case: A man had a monkey, and was trying to find out exactly what it did know. So he used to put the monkey’s food in a box, lock the door with a key, leave the key in the lock; and after many trials, taught the monkey to turn the key, open the door and get his food. Then he tried taking the key out of the lock and laying it down beside the door, to see whether the monkey would have sense enough to pick it up. But the monkey didn’t. No matter how hungry he might be, he would simply stand and wait until the man picked up the key for him and put it in the lock. Then he would unlock the door as usual and get his dinner. Fifty times in succession the man picked up the key and put it in the lock, while the monkey stood two feet away and watched every movement—but the monkey never learned to do this simple act for himself.

Should you like to try for yourself an experiment that will show you how little the wisest animal understands? Then get a wide-mouthed bottle (a milk jar will do nicely), put in it a piece of fresh meat or fish; hold it above the head of a hungry cat so that she will see the food first thru the bottom; then set the bottle upright on the floor, and watch the cat try to get the morsel out. She will probably not go to work at all the way you would; and your way will be decidedly the better.

Cats suggest coons; and coons, like cats, are commonly thought to be especially clever little animals. So they are; but always with an animal’s kind of cleverness, not our kind. Somebody who has been studying coons more carefully than they have ever been studied before, reports facts such as these: A coon is taught to open a box to get his food. The door of the box fastens with a bolt, and the coon has learned to pull the bolt and open the door as readily as you or I could do it. The bolt is now changed over to the other side of the door. The change completely baffles the coon, who has to learn his trick all over again, and that with almost as much difficulty as when he learned it the first time. Even coming up to the box from a different direction would throw the beast off, so that he would boggle a long while over a door which he had been unfastening with the greatest ease.

Another coon was given a food-box with a door fastened by a simple latch. The youngest child would have merely looked at the latch, lifted it with his hand, and taken his food. But it was too much for the coon. He scratched and scrambled and hunted all over the box; until in the violence of his efforts he fell off the top of the box and landed on his head. As he stood on his head in front of the box, pawing the air with all four legs at once, one hind foot chanced to catch on the latch, lifted it, and opened the door. So Mr. Coon got his dinner.

Next time he was hungry, what does he do but go and stand on his head in front of the box, and paw the air with his hind legs, till he hit the latch again, and got another dinner. In the course of half-a-dozen trials, the coon learned to put his paw in exactly the right place, and give just the right push to open the door at once. But all the time he continued to stand on his head to do it. It was not until the twenty-eighth attempt and the twenty-eighth dinner, that it occurred to the silly coon that he could lift the latch just as well standing right side up.

Still another student of animals has been testing rats. Now an old rat is proverbial for wisdom; they laugh at cats, and it is pretty nearly impossible to get them to go near a trap, unless they are nearly starved. Let’s see, then, some things that a wise rat does not know.

Rats, of course, are used to running thru holes in the walls of houses, drain pipes, and the like, and are clever enough at finding their way in such places. So this man made a set of passages, such as a rat would naturally live in, and put seven rats in it. These soon became at home, and would find their way at once thru the maze of passages to the spot where their food was kept, running at full speed. Then the man took a long straight passage with a sharp turn at the end, and shortened it up by three feet. The next time the rats were put in, they all started pell-mell for their food; but when they came to the shortened passage, tho it was broad day light, every one of the rats ran smash against the end wall; and it actually took as long for them to learn that the length of the passage had been changed, as it took to learn the way round in the first place. But when the passage was made longer than before, the rats ran their customary distance to the place where the side opening used to be; then turned and butted into the side wall. This they did time after time, and even after they had learned to turn at the right point one day, they were just as likely to butt the wall the next. Really, they did not seem able to think about the matter at all.

But I am saving the strangest case for the last. This is about a cow. The cow used to make a great deal of fuss for her owner because she would not stand to be milked unless she were allowed all the while to lick her calf. One day the calf died; then there was much trouble, and no milk at all. But the farmer understood the ways of cows. He took the calf’s skin, stuffed it with hay, and gave the mother that to lick at milking time. To be sure, the stuffed calf had neither head nor legs and didn’t look the least bit like a calf—but it was all right to lick, and the mother cow licked it contentedly and gave down her milk as before. One day, when the tender parent was caressing her little calf at milking time, she happened to unrip the seam where the skin was sewed up. The hay fell out; and the mother cow, without the slightest surprise or agitation, proceeded to devour the unexpected provender, and never left off until the little hay calf had entirely disappeared down her throat.

I understand that this practice of giving a cow the stuffed skin of its calf is the regular thing in some countries, where the cattle are wilder than with us. I am told also that a like device has to be employed with camels. Each camel refuses to be milked, unless she can have her little one to lick. But the natives are accustomed to kill and eat the little camel, and give the mother its skin. This answers exactly as well; but if they try to palm off another skin on her, she knows the difference at once. Out of a hundred living camel-calves or their stuffed skins, the mother camel will always pick her own, and never be content with any other. Yet she doesn’t bother her head over the difference between her live calf, and its dead skin lacking legs and head, with the hay stuffing sticking out of the seams! Truly, animals are as stupid about some matters as they are wise about others.