AND OTHER BIRDS 199 



At Tutira, T\dtli our domesticated but abso- 

 lutely free, Pukeko, there comes a time after each 

 brood is of a certain age, when the male no longer 

 gives up what before was willingly proffered ; he 

 has become selfish with the enlightened selfish- 

 ness of prevision. He is obeying that most 

 profound of all instincts, the instinct common to 

 either sex, though felt in greatest degree by the 

 male, which in queen bees even in the grip of war 

 forbids a mutual death because of their hives^ 

 and which in fighting women, no doubt causes 

 them to scratch rather than strike where a blow 

 might easily be fatal. 



From a human point of view the male bird is 

 a colossal egotist. The hen and nestlings are 

 merely parts of himself — parts easily duplicated 

 and replaced — and if of value to his lordship, 

 valuable as portions of his entity. In their 

 deaths a part of him perishes, he is injured in 

 their injury, but that he, the male, who owns 

 these properties, should lose his life in their 

 defence, is something to him outside the limits 

 of sense. 



If mankind has another standard of conduct, 

 it may be because of the knowledge that he 

 belongs to the commonest breed in the world, and 

 that in him the blind feeling for his race has 

 become weakened by a wider outlook. He knows 

 he can afford to die and yet inflict no injury on 

 his kind. 



My little volume is now ended, and as, in its 

 first chapter, I pointed out how our surviving 

 species could be yet saved, so now in its last I 

 return to the subject. 'Only by varied iteration 

 can alien conceptions be forced on reluctant 



