THE MASTER INSTINCT 



a long and hazardous one. Among birds of prej^ the 

 female is the larger, the bolder, and the more active. 

 The parental instinct seems much stronger in her 

 than in the male. 



The breeding-instinct has developed among the 

 birds, especially among the ground-builders, one of 

 the most surprising traits or practices to be found in 

 all animate nature. I refer to the tricks and the 

 make-believe that birds will resort to in order to 

 decoy one away from their nests or their young — 

 feigning lameness, paralysis, suffocation, anything 

 to fix the attention of the intruder upon the mother 

 and lure him away from her precious eggs or young. 

 I can recall nothing else so extraordinary in the 

 whole range of animal instinct. The bird suddenly 

 becomes a consummate actor and plays a role she 

 probably never played before, and plays it in the 

 best style of the art. Her behavior looks like the 

 outcome of a sudden process of reasoning. "This 

 creature," it seems to say, "wants my brood, but I 

 will make him want me, and forget the brood. To 

 do so, I have only to throw myself in his way and 

 offer him an easy victim. By my feigned disable- 

 ment I can draw him on and on, while my young 

 hide, or the clue to my nest is lost." 



Last spring in a low, wooded bottom in Georgia, 

 my friend and I started a woodcock from her nest, 

 in which were three eggs. The bird flew a few yards, 

 at a height of ten feet or more, and then suddenly 



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