66 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



apes, and In fact of all other vertebrates — ^beasts, birds, 

 reptiles, and fishes? There is no broad line of demarca- 

 tion between our noble selves and these cur poor rela- 

 tions — even the wearers of feathers and scales. We 

 have had to learn, not without reluctance and a secret 

 bitterness, that even our best and highest qualities have 

 their smail beginnings in these lowlier beings. That 

 union or feeling of preference and attachment of an 

 individual towards another of its own or of a different 

 species, which I first began to observe in horses during 

 my boyhood, is, like play, unconcerned with the satis- 

 faction of bodily wants and the business of self- 

 preservation and the continuance of the race. It is a 

 manifestation of something higher in the mind, which 

 shows that the lower animals are not wholly immersed 

 in the struggle for existence, that they are capable in 

 a small way, as we are In a large way, of escaping from 

 and rising above it. Friendship is in fact the highest 

 point to which the animal's mind can rise. For whereas 

 play, which has Its origin in the purely physical state 

 of well-being and in instinctive impulses universal 

 among sentient beings, does indirectly serve a purpose 

 in the animal's life, friendship can serve no useful pur- 

 pose whatever and is the isolated act of an individual 

 which clearly shows a perception on his part of differ- 

 ences in the character of other individuals, also the will 

 and power to chose from among them the one with 

 which he finds himself most in harmony. Furthermore, 

 such friendships do not come Into existence inevitably, 

 or automatically, as the result of a feeling on the part 



