CHAPTER -X: 
COLOR CALLS AMONG THE BIRDS. 
Tuis is an age of badges and uniforms. Every 
society has its ribbon, every college its “colors.” 
Nations have long had their flags, and armies their 
banners. Still we are much behind the times in all 
this compared with the birds and mammals. 
Nature has always been concerned about the race, 
and seems to have cared for the individual only as a 
means of preserving the species. 
The first form of natural increase was doubtless 
the sacrifice of ¢ndividuality only, as when a simple 
cell fissured into two. Here was the possibility of 
immortality. But later she demanded the sacrifice of 
life also to build a higher organism, as when the 
young budded out and broke away and left the 
mother a shapeless, helpless trunk ; or burst forth and 
left her a lifeless sac. Later still, as the organism grows 
higher, both life and individuality are spared awhile 
to cherish the offspring—to subject the parent to the 
great laws of love and labor. 
But altruism had a higher mission still than the re- 
lation of parent and children. Parental interest, after 
all,is a selfish one, for it is exercised toward a part 
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