Explore "The Reflective Stag" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The more we study the habits and natures of animals the more firmly are we convinced that, in many of them, what we call instinct is very much like what we call reason.
In the case of a domestic animal, we may attribute, perhaps, a great deal of its cleverness to its association with man and its capability of receiving instruction. But wild animals have not the advantages of human companionship, and what they know is due to the strength and quality of their own understanding. And some of them appear to know a great deal.