REASONING IN ARCTIC FOXES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 6, 7 January 1879, Page 4

REASONING IN ARCTIC FOXES.

For eotns good instances of reasoning in animals I am indepted to Dr Rae. Desiring to obtain eorae Arctic foxes, he get various kinds of traps; but as the foxes knew these trap 9 from previous experience; be was unsuccessful. Accordingly he set a kind of trap with which the foxes io that part of the country were not acquainted. This consisted of a loaded gun set upon a stand pointing at tbe bait. A string connected tbe trigger of the gun with tbe bait, so that when tbe fox seized the bait, he discharged tbe gun, and thus committed Buicida. In this arrangement the gun was separated from tbe bait by a distance of about 20 yards, and the string which connected the trigger with (he bait was concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the enow. The gac-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, hut not in killing a second; for the foxes afterwards adopted either of two devices whereby to secure the bait without iDJtrring themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device was to borrow up to the bait through tbe snow at right angles to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they escaped without injury — the bait being pulled below the line of fire before tbe string wasjdrawn sufficiently tiibt to discbarge tbe gun. Now both of the devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what I think must be fairly called power of reasoning. I have carefully interrogated Dr Rag on ali the circumstances of the case, nod he tells me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings, so that there can have been no special association in ihe foxes' minds between strings and trapp. Moreover, after the death of fox number one, the track on ibe boow showed that fox number two, notwithetaodiog the temptation offered by tbe bait, had expended a great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to Bever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire, Dr Rae and a friend in whom he has confidence observed the fact a suflicient number of times to satisfy themselves that tlio direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed to thought and not to ch*Dce.— The Nineteenth Century.