CHAPTER XI 



Courtship in Birds 



''The blackbird hence selects her sooty spouse; 

 The nightingale^ her musical compeer^ 

 Lured by the well-known voice ^ the bird of night. 

 Smit with her dusky wings and greenish eyes, 

 Woos his dun paramour. The beauteous race 

 Speak the chaste love of their progenitors. 

 When, by the spring invited, they exult 

 In woods and fields, and to the sun unfold 

 Their plumes, that with paternal colours glow.'' 



— Addison 



THE difference between the mentality of 

 birds and of man is enormous and we must 

 be on our guard against imputing purely 

 human motive to the lower animals. On the 

 other hand the difference between man and the 

 lower animals in many important matters is not 

 one of kind, but one merely of degree. 



A gull will drag a dried fish from the upper 

 beach to the water to soften it before eating, a 



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