PDF - Wallace Online

iv ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS 97fearlessness of being lost, his accurate perception of directionand of distance, and he is thus able very soon to acquire aknowledge of the district that seems marvellous to a civilisedman ;but my own observation of savages in forest countrieshas convinced me that they find their way by the use of noother faculties than those which we ourselves possess. Itappears to me, therefore, that to call in the aid of a new andmysterious power to account for savages being able to do thatwhich, under similar conditions, we could almost all of usperform, although perhaps less perfectly, is almost ludicrouslyunnecessary.In the next essay I shall attempt to show that much ofwhat has been attributed to instinct in birds can be alsovery well explained by crediting them with those faculties ofobservation, memory, and imitation, and with that limitedamount of reason, which they undoubtedly exhibit.