OF WILD ANIMALS 69 



And what are we to conclude from all the foregoing? Briefly, 

 I should say that the architectural skill of the orioles, the 

 caciques and the weaver birds is greater than that of the South 

 Patagonia native, the Jackoon and the Poonan. I should say 

 that those bird homes yield to their makers more comfort and 

 protection, and a better birth-rate, than are yielded by the 

 homes of those ignorant, unambitious and retrogressive tribes 

 of men now living and thinking, and supposed to be possessed 

 of reasoning powers. If the whole truth could be known, 

 I believe it would be found that the stock of ideas possessed 

 and used by the groups of highly-endowed birds would fully 

 equal the ideas of such tribes of simple-minded men as those 

 mentioned. If caught young, those savages could be trained 

 by civilized men, and taught to perform many tricks, but so 

 can chimpanzees and elephants. 



Curiously enough, it is a common thing for even the higher 

 types of civilized men to make in home-building just as serious 

 mistakes as are made by wild animals and savages. For 

 example, among the men of our time it is a common mistake 

 to build in the wrong place, to build entirely too large or too 

 ugly, and to build a Colossal Burden instead of a real Home. 

 From many a palace there stands forth the perpetual question: 

 "Why didhe do it?" 



Any reader who at any time inclines toward an opinion 

 that the author is unduly severe on the mentality of the human 

 race, even as it exists today in the United States, is urged to 

 read in the Scientific Monthly for January, 1922, an article by 

 Professor L. M. Tennan entitled "Adventures in Stupidity. — 

 A Partial Analysis of the Intellectual Inferiority of a College 

 Student." He should particularly note the percentages on 

 page 34 in the second paragraph under the subtitle "The 

 Psychology of Stupidity.". 



