In studying the behaviour of wild animals under natural conditions, it must always be difficult to distinguish the congenital basis from the acquired elements; for both tend to bring about a working adjustment to the conditions of life, and we can seldom have opportunities of tracing the interplay of the factors which produce the instinct-habits of adult life. But under domestication we seek to bring about a new working adjustment to conditions imposed by man. The skilful trainer utilizes the natural instinctive tendencies as a basis; and, by a system of rewards and punishments, leads the intelligent modifications of behaviour along lines directed by his deliberate purpose. The conditions are largely those of experiment, and they bring out the play and range of intelligence in a way which would otherwise elude our observation. The training of falcons for the chase affords a good illustration, since they cannot be bred in confinement, and the effects of training cannot therefore be hereditary. The falconer’s object is to modify the congenital instinctive behaviour of a bird of prey for the purposes of sport. She is trained to the lure at first at short distances, and step by step through longer flights; she is taught by snatching away the lure to stoop at it repeatedly as often as it is jerked aside; and then she is trained on living quarry, at first under easy conditions, till eventually she can be flown at a wild bird. And as a result a well-trained falcon will follow her master from field to field, regulating her flight by his movements, always ready for a stoop when the quarry is sprung. The fact that she can be thus educated for her work shows that her behaviour is plastic, and can be moulded by intelligence. Experimental conditions reveal the fact; but under nature the moulding influence of intelligence is presumably not less important, though it is more directly in line with the congenital instinctive tendencies.
That much of the behaviour of the higher animals is guided by experience similar to that which plays so large a part in their training under the experimental conditions of domestication is generally admitted. But what are the range and limits of animal intelligence, and whether it attains the level of rational conduct, in the restricted sense of the term “rational,” are questions open to discussion, to which answers are more likely to be obtained through experiment than by chance observations.