Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

210 ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS.
able very soon to acquire a knowledge of the district
that seems marvellous to a civilized man; but my own
observation of savages in forest countries has convinced
me, that they find their way by the use of no other
faculties than those which we ourselves possess. It
appears to me, therefore, that to call in the aid of a
new and mysterious power to account for savages
being able to do that which, under similar conditions,
we could almost all of us perform, although perhaps
less perfectly, is almost ludicrously unnecessary.
In the next essay I shall attempt to show, that much
of what has been attributed to instinct in birds, can be
also very well explained by crediting them with those
faculties of observation, memory, and imitation, and
with that limited amount of reason, which they undoubtedly exhibit.