ABSTRACT
I keep two frogs in my bath, and also ducks and a small fish. They wind up, working by waterproof clockwork. May I commend clockwork frogs and fishes to ethologists and all who study animal, and also human, behaviour? They are wonderful for revealing and calibrating the observer’s – including one’s own – projections of intelligent intention into the world of moving things. We could swear, we do indeed swear, that the clockwork frogs are behaving in response to each other. They circle each other warily. They approach one another gingerly. Then they shy away until one slyly spins round to creep up on the other while it’s not looking. Is it avoiding, or ignoring the advance, until bump!, they meet willy-nilly in mid-bath? Or, as secretly as a bath allows, under the taps, one of them stops (feigning death?), and its friend creeps up to find out the worst. Then after wildly spinning round he seeks the soap for solace.
