INDIVIDUALITY IN BIRDS. 225 



bird. He seemed fearful lest I should think him 

 over-imaginative in his recital, so he gave me de- 

 tails about the sparrow and its ways which would 

 have convinced a jury of the bird's identity and 

 strong individuality. The secret of my friend's 

 friendship with these birds was that, by living 

 together, each had, by degrees, learned to know 

 the other. A man had become the man, and in 

 time he had developed into protector, provider, 

 and companion. They, from being chickadees, 

 catbirds, and song sparrow, had separated them- 

 selves from their several species, and, by little 

 habits and peculiarities of color, had made 

 themselves plainly recognizable as individuals, 

 having characteristics not common to all their 

 species. 



It is easier to feel sure that these individual 

 peculiarities of a bird are real if the bird is a 

 captive, or if, as a wild bird, it is marked in 

 some unmistakable way. My chief experience 

 with birds of whose identity I could feel no 

 doubt while watching them, hearing their voices, 

 or seeing their pictures, has been with a number 

 of owls which I have retained as captives for 

 various terms of months or years. To a stran- 

 ger, these birds would be quite indistinguishable 

 both from one another and from wild birds of 

 the same species. He would notice only the 

 points of resemblance, the marks by which he 



