PERSONALITY IN BIRDS 233 



classification, proceed in whatever direction and 

 according to whatever criteria one will. They serve 

 as reminders that birds, not having descended in a 

 linear series, are not to be classified thus. 



Beginners in the study of birds frequently express 

 surprise that it should be possible to distinguish one 

 bird from another, so alike do many of them seem in 

 their outward appearance; afterwards with fuller 

 knowledge they are equally surprised that creatures so 

 distinct one from another should ever have been causes 

 of confusion to them. As it is with the outward appear- 

 ance of birds, so is it with their manifestations from 

 within. The personality of each bird is distinct, char- 

 acteristic. The little mind in it is ever at work in its 

 own way, and the little will always uttering itself after 

 its kind. But a bird's actions are the expression of 

 a mentality and a morality different from, though in 

 some measure resembling, our own. Hence the 

 perennial fascination for man in attempting to trace 

 their workings ; hence the sympathy that grows with 

 increasing knowledge of them. If ever man comes 

 to lay aside his gun, and desists from slaughter of 

 beautiful and innoxious creatures, it will be because 

 the sympathy that comes with widening knowledge 

 will have revealed them to him as personalities, the 

 destruction of which would bring with it something 

 of the reproach of blood-guiltiness. This may seem 

 heresy to-day, but the heresies of one age often 

 become the creeds of the next. 



