The Birds’ Calendar . 
Are these creatures possibly endowed with 
a ‘‘sixth sense,’’ or with a faculty of commu- 
nication not dreamed of by those who are so 
proud of the possession of ‘‘ intelligence,’’ rath- 
er than what they contemptuously call ‘‘ mere 
instinct?’’ Really, we human beings flatter 
ourselves quite too much; and, moreover, our 
very familiarity with the many wonderful man- 
ifestations of instinct all about us breeds a 
contempt therefor that discounts our own intel- 
ligence, and causes us to fall into still greater 
condemnation ; for surely no charge more seri- 
ous can be brought against the supremacy of 
man’s reasoning powers than the fact that the 
mere prevalence of anything inexplicable, so far 
from increasing our wonderment thereat, invari- 
ably reduces it to a minimum, eventually be- 
coming a sort of reason for eliminating all sense 
of mystery. In other words, a marvellous ex- 
hibition of the Creator’s wisdom and power 
evokes a thousand times less of admiration when 
the display isa thousand times repeated. Where 
does the instinct of the ‘‘lower’’ animals lead 
to any such foolishness as this? 
9 
The classification of objects in natural science 
is a recognition of the two diametrically op- 
178 
