no WILD BIRDS 



character among human beings, despite appear- 

 ances ; and may it not be the same with bees and 

 birds and beasts of all kinds, despite appearances ? 

 I quite agree this would be a reasonable line to take, 

 for if we are easily deceived watching human beings, 

 how much more easily may we be deceived watching 

 wild creatures, in which the mental variations and 

 distinctions are obscurer to us, more minute ? 



I confess that as a rule I have only been 

 able to see a general level of intelligence in the 

 species, an intelligence spread impartially among 

 all the individuals of the species a " faultily 

 faultless " level. But this level may only seem to 

 be ; and it may be that, if I could make a very long 

 and close and something like a microscopic study of 

 willow warblers, I should find after all one individual 

 of this species, despite appearances, does differ in 

 intelligence and other points from another individual, 

 just as men and women in a common crowd really 

 differ, and so the shepherd tells us as the " silly 

 sheep " in a pen differ. 



Though the general habits of many birds, beasts, 

 insects, and fishes have been studied and described, 

 habits of food migration, hibernation, and rearing 

 their young, the working of the animal's mind, its 

 ways of reason or of instinct, have rarely been 

 worked out with precision. The honey-bee is an 

 exception ; so are some of the wild bees and wasps, 

 for Huber and Fabre have written the intellectual 

 side of the lives of these insects. But there has 

 never been a Huber or Fabre for even one species 



