280 HIRUNDINID^. 



modern naturalists agree with them ; others, and I must 

 confess that I am among them, suspect a flaw in the 

 evidence. Macgillivray's witnesses, "on whose veracity he 

 depended," and I doubt not with sufficient reason — "a 

 tackle-maker, a slater, a nailor, a miller, the engineer of 

 the mill, and a grazier" — were I make no question trust- 

 worthy men in all matters connected with the ordinary 

 business of life, and in this case asserted what they believed 

 they had seen; but they were none of them naturalists, 

 and no one but a student of nature is aware of the exact 

 precision required both in observing and recording a 

 passage in the life of an animal. In a case of this kind 

 extraordinary precaution is requisite, for if it be true, the 

 theory that man is the only reasoning animal, tumbles to 

 the ground. Here we have in a bird — and if in one why 

 not in all? — an application of the natural laws of property; 

 a sense of injury; a conspiracy among the kindred tribe; an 

 attempt to recover a right, out of which, on its failure, springs 

 a spirit of revenge. Then must come a consultation, or, 

 what is even more wonderful, an instinctive spontaneous 

 agreement as to the proper mode of taking revenge ; and to 

 crown the whole, a knowledge of the natural effect of plas- 

 tering up an enemy in a cave without air, that is, that death 

 would ensue ; and what can an animal devoid of reason know 

 about death 1 It is necessary then I think either to con- 

 sider the evidence insufficient, or, admitting the accuracy as 

 well as the veracity of the observers, to break down the 

 waU which separates instinct from reason. I prefer the 

 former alternative. 



