XV 



THE MENTAL TRAITS OF BIRDS 



IN comparison with mammalian mentality, the avian mind 

 is much more elementary and primitive. It is as far be- 

 hind the average of the mammals as the minds of fishes 

 are inferior to those of reptiles. 



Instinct Prominent in Birds. The average bird is 

 more a creature of instinct than of reason. Primarily it lives 

 and moves by and through the knowledge that it has inherited, 

 rather than by the observations it has made and the things it 

 has thought out in its own head. 



But let it not for one moment be supposed that the in- 

 stinctive knowledge of the bird is of a mental quality inferior 

 to that o the mammal. The difference is in kind only, not in 

 degree. As a factor in self-preservation the keen and correct 

 reasoning of the farm-land fox is in no sense superior to the 

 wonderful instinct and prescience of the golden plover that, on 

 a certain calendar day, or week, bids farewell to its comfortable 

 breeding-grounds in the cold north beyond the arctic circle, 

 rises high in the air and launches forth on its long and perilous 

 migration flight of 8,000 miles to its winter resort in Argentina. 



The Migrations of Birds. Volumes have been written 

 on the migrations of birds. The subject is vast, and inexhaust- 

 able. It is peihaps the most wonderful of all the manifestations 

 of avian intelligence. It is of interest chiefly to the birds of 

 the temperate zone, whose summer homes and food supplies 

 are for four months of the year buried under a mantle of snow 

 and ice. All but a corporal's guard of the birds of the United 

 States and Canada must go south every winter or perish from 

 starvation and cold. It is a case of migrate or die. Many of 



171 



