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The Mute Swan 



CHAPTER VII 



Friendship in Animals 



Some lordly-minded person has said that it is a misuse 

 or an abuse of the word to describe as friendship the 

 distinct preference for each other's company and habitual 

 consorting together of two individuals among the lower 

 animals ; because — this wise man continues — being lozvcr 

 an'unals, they cannot rise to the height of that union 

 between two minds, or souls, common among men. 

 Where then does the capacity for this union begin? for 

 who will venture to say that the two-legged upright or 

 man-shaped mammalian of Tierra del Fuego or the 

 Andaman Islands or of the Aruwhimi forest, is capable 

 of a feeling beyond the power of elephants, dogs, seals, 



<5S 



