MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE BIRDS 



485 



of instinct and fear is the predominant one. Without 

 it "natural selection" would be of no avail and there 

 would be no evolution. 



Fear of man is as strong in birds as is fear of hawks 

 or fear of predacious animals, developed not alone 

 through the experience of the individual, but through that 

 of the species and that of all birds. It is less strongly 

 developed in those birds which have never seen man, but 

 it is always present. Added to it, is the fear of every- 

 thing that is unusual. Birds hatched in the far north 

 and seeing man for the first time on their migrations 

 southward, are less timid than their more experienced 

 fellows, but their innate fear of anything unusual makes 

 them somewhat wary and thus preserves them. Imma- 

 ture shore-birds, for example, and the yoimg of many 

 warblers, when they first arrive in the fall are surpris- 

 ingly tame but, as soon as they have absorbed the timidity 

 of their associates, there is no way of making friends 

 with them. Once in a great while there comes a bird 

 which is very slow in learning from its associates and 



A I-KAKLESS CHICKADEE 

 But it is the lure of ft>nt[ arui an insatiable appetite that have tamed him. 



whose fear instinct seems undeveloped .so that it hop 

 about apparently unconscious of the ])roximity of man. 

 Unfortunately for our pleasure, these birds are usually 

 deficient in other ways, as well, and do not survive long. 

 If these birds could be preserved or if the immature 

 shore-birds and warblers could be segregated from the 

 rest of the bird world, we might develop a strain of 

 birds actually fearless of man but, until that happens, we 

 must be content with birds as they are, and take solace 

 in the knowledge that their fear of man helps them to 

 escape their other enemies as well. 



The fear instinct appears in young birds with the de- 

 velopment of the feathers and the power to escape or to 



A COURAGEOUS LEAST BITTERN DEFENDING ITS NEST 



No love is wasted upon intruding human beings, but its abnormally devel- 

 oped instinct to incubate gives it courage. 



respond to the calls of their parents. The precocial young 

 of such birds as grouse, ducks, grebes, rails, plovers and 

 sand])ipers, which are covered with down when hatched 

 and able to run .nliont. instinctively crouch and hide from 



CLOSE OBSERVATION OF A BLUE-HEADED VIREO 



The incubation instinct in birds is often more powerful than the fear 

 instinct, and they lose their timidity nf man. 



