The Minds of Animals 



and fear are overcome, and one is repaid a thousandfold 

 for all one's trouble by making a genuine friend of the bird. 



It must be remembered that I am not speaking of 

 young birds reared by men from infancy, but of birds 

 caught perhaps at the age of thirty or forty years, or even 

 older. For marabous attain a very great age, like large 

 ravens or vultures, one of which lived in captivity under 

 favourable conditions for a hundred years. My marabous 

 moved about in the camp free and unrestrained. They 

 built their nests, and did not try to fly away. They greeted 

 me on my return with joyful cacklings ; they planted them- 

 selves close to my tent as sentinels, and caressed me with 

 their powerful and dangerous bills. For a long time my 

 black cook had taken on the duty of feeding them, and 

 their affection for me was not at all the result of my giving 

 them dainties, but of my just and intelligent conception 

 of their habits. 



I could write a great deal more about the sagacious 

 deeds of these birds. I must, however, restrict myself, 

 and will only mention that Dr. Ludwig Heck, to whom 

 thousands of wild animals were attached, could not help 

 remarking, on the steamer near Naples, the affection my 

 marabous showed me. 



" There are more things in heaven and earth than are 

 dreamt of in our philosophy," Dr. Heck wrote at that 

 time in an essay on his own observations. Hamlet's 

 phrase often recurs to me, also, in this connection. I am 

 convinced by what 1 have myself seen of animals that 

 their minds are highly developed, though we have been 

 unable to discover how they work. 



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