Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (9-11)

ARISTOTIMUS. The court is open for the litigants⋯[*] And there are some fish that waste their milt by pursuing the female while she is laying her eggs.[*]

There is also a type of mullet called the grayfish[*] which feeds on its own slime[*]; and the octopus sits through the winter devouring himself,

In fireless home and domicile forlorn,[*]

so lazy or insensible or gluttonous, or guilty of all of these charges, is he. So this also is the reason, again, why Plato[*] in his Laws enjoined, or rather prayed, that his young men might not be seized by a love for sea hunting. For there is no exercise in bravery or training in skill or anything that contributes to strength or fleetness or agility when men endure toil in contests with bass or conger or parrot-fish; whereas, in the chase on land, brave animals give play to the courageous and danger-loving qualities of those matched against them, crafty animals sharpen the wits and cunning of their attackers, while swift ones train the strength and perseverance of their pursuers. These are the qualities which have made hunting a noble sport, whereas there is nothing glorious about fishing. No, and there’s not a god, my friend, who has allowed himself to be called conger-killer, as Apollo is wolf-slayer, [*] or surmullet-slayer, as Artemis[*] is deer-slaying. [*] And what is surprising in this when it’s a more glorious thing for a man to have caught a boar or a stag or, so help me, a gazelle or a hare than to have bought one ? As for your tunny[*] and your mackerel and your boriito ! They’re more honourable to buy than to catch oneself. For their lack of spirit or of any kind of resource or cunning has made the sport dishonourable, unfashionable, and illiberal.

ARISTOTIMUS. In general, then, the evidence by which the philosophers demonstrate that beasts have their share of reason is their possession of purpose[*] and preparation and memory and emotions and care for their young[*] and gratitude for benefits and hostility to what has hurt them; to which may be added their ability to find what they need and their manifestations of good qualities, such as courage[*] and sociability and continence and magnanimity. Let us ask ourselves if marine creatures exhibit any of these traits, or perhaps some suggestion of them, that is extremely faint and difficult to discern (the observer only coming at long last to the opinion that it may be descried); whereas in the case of terrestrial and earth-born animals it is easy to find remarkably plain and unanswerable proofs of every one of the points I have mentioned.

In the first place, then, behold the purposeful demonstrations and preparations of bulls[*] stirring up dust when intent on battle, and wild boars whetting their tusks.[*] Since elephants’ tusks are blunted by wear when, by digging or chopping, they fell the trees that feed them, they use only one tusk for this purpose and keep the other always pointed and sharp for defence.[*] Lions[*] always walk with paws clenched and claws retracted so that these may not be dulled by wear at the point or leave a plain trail for trackers; for it is not easy to find any trace of a lion’s claw; on the contrary, any sign of a track that is found is so slight and obscure that hunters lose the trail and go astray. You have heard, I am sure, how the ichneumon[*] girds itself for battle as thoroughly as any soldier putting on his armour, such a quantity of mud does it don and plaster about its body when it plans to attack the crocodile. Moreover, we see house-martins[*] preparing for procreation: how well they lay the solid twigs at the bottom to serve as a foundation, then mould the lighter bits about them; and if they perceive that the nest needs a lump of mud to glue it together, they skim over a pond or lake, touching the water with only the tips of their feathers to make them moist, yet not heavy with dampness; then they scoop up dust and so smear over and bind together any parts that begin to sag or loosen. As for the shape of their work, it has no angles nor many sides, but is as smooth and circular as they can make it; such a shape is, in fact, both stable and capacious and provides no hold on the outside for scheming animals.[*]

There is more than one reason[*] for admiring spiders’[*] webs, the common model for both women’s looms and fowlers’[*] nets; for there is the fineness of the thread and the evenness of the weaving, which has no disconnected threads and nothing like a warp, but is wrought with the even continuity of a thin membrane and a tenacity that comes from a viscous substance inconspicuously worked in. Then too, there is the blending of the colours that gives it an airy, misty look, the better to let it go undetected; and most notable of all is the art itself, like a charioteer’s or a helmsman’s, with which the spinner handles her artifice. When a possible victim is entangled, she perceives it, and uses her wits, like a skilled handler of nets, to close the trap suddenly and make it tight. Since this is daily under our eyes and observation, my account is confirmed. Otherwise it would seem a mere fiction, as I formerly regarded the tale of the Libyan crows[*] which, when they are thirsty, throw stones into a pot to fill it and raise the water until it is within their reach; but later when I saw a dog on board ship, since the sailors were away, putting pebbles into a half empty jar of oil, I was amazed at its knowing that lighter substances are forced upward when the heavier settle to the bottom.

Similar tales are told of Cretan bees and of geese in Cilicia.[*] When the bees are going to round some windy promontory, they ballast themselves with little stones[*] so as not to be carried out to sea; while the geese, in fear of eagles, take a large stone in their beaks whenever they cross Mt. Taurus, as it were reining in and bridling their gaggling loquacity that they may pass over in silence unobserved. It is well known, too, how cranes[*] behave when they fly. Whenever there is a high wind and rough weather they do not fly, as on fine days, in line abreast or in a crescent-shaped curve; but they form at once a compact triangle with the point cleaving the gale that streams past, so that there is no break in the formation. When they have descended to the ground, the sentinels that stand watch at night support themselves on one foot and with the other grasp a stone and hold it firmly[*]; the tension of grasping this keeps them awake for a long time; but when they do relax, the stone escapes and quickly rouses the culprit.[*] So that I am not at all surprised that Heracles tucked his bow under his arm:

Embracing it with mighty arm he sleeps,

Keeping his right hand gripped about the club.[*]

Nor, again, am I surprised at the man who first guessed how to open an oyster[*] when I read of the ingenuity of herons. For they swallow a closed mussel and endure the discomfort until they know that it has been softened and relaxed by their internal heat; then they disgorge it wide open and unfolded and extract the meat.[*]

It is impossible to relate in full detail all the methods of production and storage practised by ants, but it would be careless to omit them entirely. Nature has, in fact, nowhere else so small a mirror of greater and nobler enterprises. Just as you may see greater things reflected in a drop of clear water, so among ants there exists the delineation of every virtue.

Love and affection are found,[*]

namely their social life. You may see, too, the reflection of courage in their persistence in hard labour.[*] There are many seeds of temperance and many of prudence and justice. Now Cleanthes,[*] even though he declared that animals are not endowed with reason, says that he witnessed the following spectacle: some ants came to a strange anthill carrying a dead ant. Other ants then emerged from the hill and seemed, as it were, to hold converse with the first party and then went back again. This happened two or three times until at last they brought up a grub to serve as the dead ant’s ransom, whereupon the first party picked up the grub, handed over the corpse, and departed.

A matter obvious to everyone is the consideration ants show when they meet: those that bear no load always give way to those who have one and let them pass.[*] Obvious also is the manner in which they gnaw through and dismember things that are difficult to carry or to convey past an obstacle, in order that they may make easy loads for several. And Aratus[*] takes it to be a sign of rainy weather when they spread out their eggs and cool them in the open:

When from their hollow nest the ants in haste

Bring up their eggs;

and some do not write eggs here, but provisions, [*] in the sense of stored grain which, when they notice that it is growing mildewed and fear that it may decay and spoil, they bring up to the surface. But what goes beyond any other conception of their intelligence is their anticipation of the germination of wheat. You know, of course, that wheat does not remain permanently dry and stable, but expands and lactifies in the process of germination. In order, then, to keep it from running to seed and losing its value as food, and to keep it permanently edible, the ants eat out the germ from which springs the new shoot of wheat.[*]

I do not approve of those who, to make a complete study of anthills, inspect them, as it were, anatomically. But, be that as it may, they report that the passage leading downward from the opening is not at all straight or easy for any other creature to traverse; it passes through turns and twists[*] with branching tunnels and connecting galleries and terminates in three hollow cavities. One of these is their common dwelling-place, another serves as storeroom for provisions, while in the third they deposit the dying.[*]