BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 15 



mind ; and he will also be able to call up the images 

 of dozens or of scores of horses he has known or seen 

 in the same way. If on the other hand we think of 

 a rat, we see not any individual but a type, because 

 we have no interest in or no special feeling with 

 regard to such a creature, and all the successive 

 images we receive of it become merged in one the 

 type which already existed in the mind and was 

 probably formed very early in life. With the dog 

 for subject the case is different : dogs are more with 

 us we know them intimately and have perhaps 

 regarded many individuals with affection ; hence 

 the image that rises in the mind is as a rule of some 

 dog we have known. 



The important point to be noted is, that while 

 each and everything we see registers an impression 

 in the brain, and may be recalled several minutes, or 

 hours, or even days afterwards, the only permanent 

 impressions are of the sights which we have viewed 

 emotionally. We may remember that we have seen 

 a thousand things in which at some later period an 

 interest has been born in the mind, when it would 

 be greatly to our pleasure and even profit to recover 

 their images, and we strive and ransack our brains 

 to do so, but all in vain : they have been lo st for 

 ever because we happened not to be interested in 



