Song Birds and Water Fowl 
happens to be of service to us. We should 
judge all his conduct according as it is normal 
or abnormal to his nature. But precisely what 
is normal to a mere animal is not always easy 
to determine. To accuse any animal of crime 
is contrary to reason; and yet we virtually do 
so in saying, for example, that a horse, or a 
dog, or a cow is vicious. An ugly specimen of 
a domesticated animal does not seem to be in 
its normal state ; it appears to show depravity 
of something very like a moral nature. Many 
an animal is crafty, that is, devilishly intelli- 
gent ; and we often inflict punishment, osten- 
sibly only to restrain it by fear from doing the 
vicious or crafty deed again, but with a lurking 
feeling that the animal is really guilty. 
No one criticises a bird for capturing insects ; 
but when it comes to its eating another bird’s 
eggs, we draw the line. Is it a reasonable line? 
Somehow it seems more against nature for an 
animal to violate the interest of creatures of its 
own kind than to destroy lower forms of life. 
Is such a distinction rational? If so, since 
mammals stand higher in the scale of life than 
birds, ought we to have indignant feelings 
toward a cat that has captured a robin or 
bluebird ? If it were only a butcher-bird, no 
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