86 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



creature may exercise to a greater degree some 

 one of its powers to meet the demands of the 

 occasion, but there is really nothing remarkable 

 in this. It would be strange if they did not, 

 and we would have cause for wonderment if 

 wild life succumbed without an effort to avoid 

 any danger suddenly sprung upon it. When we 

 read anecdotes of animal life, we read usually 

 the every-day doings of the creatures mentioned. 

 When we see these incidents paraded in news- 

 papers as remarkable, we read the evidence of 

 the author's ignorance. It is the manner of 

 the bird or mammal when nothing particular is 

 going on that gives us a true insight as to what 

 that mammal or bird really is, just as we can 

 realize what our friends are only when they 

 are seen unmoved by anger or undisturbed by 

 petty vexations. In birds in particular it is 

 the toss of the head, the flirt of the tail, the 

 cheerful or impatient chirp, and a dozen or more 

 little details that are really instructive and come 

 to the rambler to mean more than all the un- 

 usual incidents, so called, that will be witnessed 

 in a lifetime. 



The free agency of birds is as much a myth 



