JUNE. 91 



them all five sitting, some on the ground and some 

 in bushes, like stuffed frogs, with their beaks in the 

 air and their large round eyes fixed upon you. 

 Except that they are born with the instinct of 

 implicit obedience to their parents' instructions, one 

 would think that it must be a dire ordeal for the 

 young thrushes to sit there motionless when they 

 see your great eyes glaring at them, and your lips, 

 parting in a smile, revealing terrible rows of teeth 

 that could crunch up a young thrush with ease. 



DISREGARD OF MAN. 



But the experience of ages has proved it to be 

 best for young thrushes that they should sit still 

 when they are told to. Thus they escape many 

 prowling enemies. Weasel or cat, stoat or fox, which 

 would pounce upon them at once if they tried to 

 flutter away, will pass on, with eyes probably fixed 

 upon the excited father thrush up in the tree. Only 

 man discovers the trick, but the more one sees of 

 the influence of evolution upon the habits of wild 

 things, the more one learns that man hardly counts 

 as a factor at all. He is, indeed, regarded as a 

 dangerous animal, but no provision is made to guard 

 against the power of reason, which renders him 

 dangerous in a way peculiar to himself. It is a poor 

 compliment which Nature pays us, perhaps, but it 

 seems to be a fact that she has hardly begun to dis- 

 cover that we differ in any material respect from cats 

 or weasels. A few creatures like the robin have 

 become familiar with us and trust us ; while others, 

 which are habitually killed for sport or in defence of 



