INTELLIGENCE IN BIRDS. 113 



delectable, and that it will also attract insects. The 

 farmer has found by experience that it will make sugar. 

 The bird knows as well as the man from what trees and 

 at what seasons it Avill run, and he generally bores the 

 evergreen in winter, the maple and silver birch in March 

 and April, and the yellow birch a month later, just when 

 the fluids of these trees flow most freely. 



Although appearing on the eal*th in some of their 

 primitive forms and conditions, at an earlier period than 

 some of the quadrupeds, yet the birds undoubtedly in 

 many respects rank first among the lower animals in 

 organization and intelligence. They have the largest 

 brain in comparison with the other parts of the body, it 

 being in some species one-sixteenth part of the entire 

 weight. Their powers of locomotion are superior to any 

 other class of vertebrates. They have th.e largest 

 breathing capacity and the most rapid respiration. An 

 English scientist says : " This rapid movement of the 

 heart necessitates a rapid circulation of blood through 

 the brain : and this means a more hurried flow of con- 

 sciousness, a more rapid succession of ideas. In a^given 

 time the swallow moves more, breathes more, and there- 

 fore probably feels and lives more than any other living 

 animal." Certainly no other beings manifest such acute 

 suffering at the destruction of their mate or young, or 

 show such a whirlwind of ecstasy as many of the little 

 fluttering warblers do in some of their Avild bursts of 

 song. 



Birds alone of all the lower animals use, like man, 

 the tongue as the principal organ of sound or speech : 



