70 THE BIRD WATCHER 
another, as though it @@re a game or romp. Some- 
times, indeed, there will be a little bit of a scuffle ; 
but if there be fighting, still more, as it appears to 
me, is there the play or pretence of fighting, which 
is tending to pass into a social sport or dance. 
The antics of birds are often so very curious, and 
the whole subject of their origin and meaning is so 
full of interest, that nothing which might by any 
possibility throw light upon this ought to be neglected, 
or can be too closely observed. I believe that the 
feelings of animals, still more than is known to be 
the case with savages, pass easily from one channel 
into another, and that, therefore, nervous excitement 
brought forth by one kind of emotion is apt, in its 
turn, to produce another kind, so that if any special 
transition of this sort were at all frequent, it might, 
through memory and association of ideas, become 
habitual. If, however, a mé/ée or scrimmage—to meet 
the case of these guillemots—became, almost as soon 
as started, a mere hurrying and scurrying about, it 
would be difficult to detect the one as the cause of the 
other, and this is just the difficulty one might expect, 
for in such a sequence the tendency would, no doubt, 
be for the first or causal part of the activity to become 
more and more abbreviated (what should delay the 
passage ?) till, at length, a mere start on the part of 
any one bird might set the others off dancing. Finally, 
what had become a mere pretence or starting-point 
might vanish entirely, or only survive as an indis- 
tinguishable part of the other, in which case there 
