HOW THE BIRDS KNOW 335 



birds. There is no way in which to make a fair 

 comparison between the mentality of a creature, 

 gifted with speech and reason, and a fowl. Re- 

 cently I have*heard people compare the length of 

 time a bird droops, cries, and mourns the loss of a 

 mate with human grief in the same circumstances. 

 A human child, during my days of motherhood, was 

 nourished at the breast of its mother on an average 

 of fourteen months. In that length of time a 

 pair of birds mate, brood, and raise three sets of 

 four nestlings to become self-supporting. These 

 nestlings make their southern migration, return, go 

 through the building and brooding process, and 

 rear their three broods of four birds each, train 

 them to become self-supporting and ready for their 

 first migration, while the human child is still help- 

 less at the breast of its mother. Man's allotted 

 span of years is seventy; five is a good average for 

 the birds; so that they must know more when they 

 come into this world, be ready for the ordinary 

 functions of life much earlier, and complete them 

 in a shorter time than does a human. Reasoning 

 on this basis, birds are old enough when they leave 

 the nest to know what sort of nest it is; they are 

 old enough when left to care for themselves to 

 know on what they have been fed, what sort of 

 food it is, and where to find it; they know their 

 locality before they migrate, and how to return 

 to it or a similar place suitable to their needs; 

 while if the few days a bird mourns a mate are to 



