Do animals reason?

Having grown up on TV episodes of Lassie and Flipper, most of us bought' that they figured out how to rescue Timmy and others. But most of us don't credit animals with the ability to think out a problem.

A dear friend of mine recently e-mailed me about a chipmunk she has befriended. She started putting an ear of corn in a clearing under a window, and the chipmunk would come and take it away. My friend is very fond of corn, so it is a frequent occurrence.

A few days ago, she looked out that window and was surprised to see three corncobs, stripped of every bit of nutrition, sitting in that little clearing!

What was the chipmunk thinking, she wondered. Maybe he was recycling! She placed a fresh cob next to the spent ones and is awaiting further developments.

REASON OR INSTINCT?

I'm a fan of the Animal Planet network on TV, and I remember scientists commenting on monkeys using a twig to dig bugs out of a tree trunk. They were astounded to seem using a tool. That indicated some reasoning ability on the part of the animals, I would think.

As a child, I saw seagulls fly high in the sky to drop a snail or clam to break on the rocks below. Then they would swoop down to eat the lunch that had hidden inside the shell.

I thought at the time that they were pretty smart to have figured that out.

Animals frequently amaze me. How do migrating birds remember the routes south in the fall? They fly hundreds -- even thousands -- of miles to another seasonal home. And I have trouble remembering where I left my car in the parking lot!

Baby sea turtles break out of their shells and scamper to the ocean without any adult guidance. Embryonic kangaroos blindly crawl into Mom's pouch to finish developing. Instinct is mysterious and wonderful.

INHERITED APTITUDES

Human infants don't seem to enjoy much instinctive knowledge. Do you think the day will come when we will instinctively know the multiplication tables? Will evolution eventually provide our bodies with pockets in which to keep our cell phones?

Some aptitudes seem to be inherited. My father and my brother both had great skill at billiards. Each year, one of them would take the trophy at a competition. I bought a billiard table years ago, assuming I would be good at it, too. Wrong! I couldn't snooker anyone.

If there are further developments on the corncob-swapping chipmunk, I'll be sure to update you.