Mind in Animals. 401 



much as one can do to protect his eyes from the lightning- 

 like attacks of these birds, so swiftly and so unerringly do 

 they direct their blows at these points. 



So great is the affection and solicitude of the red-eyed 

 vireo for her young, that she will scarcely leave the nest 

 when the hand is stretched out a few inches over the mouth 

 of the structure. And then when she does leave, it is not 

 in a hurried, precipitate manner, but with a quiet, deliberate 

 movement that excites one's admiration and makes one 

 vow never to abuse such simple, childlike confidence. I 

 have even placed my hand upon the sitting-bird without 

 disturbing the current of her brooding thoughts, or the 

 peaceful serenity of her soul. A rough dash at the nest 

 tends to frighten her away instanter, but when the hand is 

 reached out to it slowly and silently the bird seems to act as 

 though it had nothing to fear, and remains calm and self- 

 possessed. 



Who is not familiar with the proverbial skill of the Caro- 

 lina dove in feigning lameness when her nest is being 

 approached ? Without a cry, and with scarcely a rustle of her 

 feathers, she slips out of her nest upon the ground, and by a 

 series of manoeuvres, as if desperately wounded, grovels 

 along on her belly in the dust till she has led her enemy a 

 long journey from the site of the nest, when she will take 

 to wing and and fly away into a coppice or a clump of brush- 

 wood. 



That birds should manifest a love for the young which 

 they hatch has always seemed a strange problem to me. I 

 can see how that, in the case of a mammal, the mother 

 should feel a love for the creature who is absolutely a part 

 of herself whose very life-blood is drawn from her veins. 

 But this is not necessarily the case with birds. If, as often 

 happens with poultry, the eggs of several hens are placed 

 under one bird for hatching, the hen that hatches them 

 knows no difference between the chickens that come from 

 her own eggs and those which proceed from eggs laid by 



