MOTIF OF BIKD SONG. 71 



Doubtless there is a cause, deep set in the 

 mystery of life, from which arises in accord- 

 ance with some natural law, the instinctive 

 interchange of affection between man and the 

 song-birds. I say instinctive because I am 

 not convinced that reason has anything to do 

 with the matter. A man may be an ardent 

 admirer of birds, and yet be an enthusiastic 

 sportsman ready to kill them for mere 

 amusement, in which he is as irrational as is 

 the jay that would pluck out the eyes of him 

 who feeds it in the dead of winter, provided 

 it chanced to imagine the eyes to be as lus- 

 cious as the berries of the brier. 



There is an impulse a law other than the 

 instinctive movement toward food and pro- 

 tection, which causes the song-bird to get 

 close to man. I could gather many facts to- 

 gether in proof of this. Indeed, all the lower 

 animals are capable of loving man, and many 

 of them have often and voluntarily sought to 

 show such affection. 



Mr. Huxley, in accordance with the infer- 

 ence enforced by a great number of anatomi- 

 cal facts, has grouped the birds and reptiles 

 together under the name sauropsida; and it 

 has come to be pretty generally admitted 

 among scientists that, whether the avian race 

 has or has not actually descended from a 

 reptilian ancestor, there is certainly a like- 

 ness existing which justifies the inference of 

 such an origin, especially in the absence of 

 any tenable theory to the contrary based on 

 scientific reasoning. In this connection it is 

 a striking fact that no mammal, of its own 

 accord, ever has sought the companionship of 

 man as freely and sincerely, so to speak, as 

 many of the birds and some of the reptiles 

 have. I have seen toads, lizards, and even 



