STATUS OF THE SPECIES 113 



A pair of Blue Jays, after an absence of nearly two hours, imme- 

 diately returned to their nest and fed their young, their suspicions com- 

 pletely allayed by the presence of a mounted Jay in the nest tree. Here 

 was a response so quick and satisfactory that it might be considered 

 evidence of the bird's ability to draw an inference, but the bird's failure 

 to distinguish a poorly mounted, discarded museum specimen of its 

 own kind, and later of an Owl, from the living bird, indicates its inabil- 

 ity to reason. (See "Camps and Cruises," pp. 5-14.) 



Using the word reason, therefore, as psychologists commonly define 

 it, I may say at once that I have seen no conclusive evidence of reason- 

 ing power in my study of birds. But in place of this characteristic 

 of the human mind, one finds in birds, certain other senses and faculties 

 so much more highly developed than they are in man that we doubt- 

 less have but a faint conception of their value. Birds exhibit a truly 

 surprising power of memory implying aleo association of experiences 

 while in their hearing, sight, and probable sense of direction, they 

 are incomparably our superiors. In my judgment, then, it is to the 

 keenness of these powers rather than to an alleged gift of reason that 

 the bird owes its success in life. Before their manifestation, reason, 

 following the slower channels of logical inference, may often well stand 

 aghast. What form of reason would lead a bird night after night on a 

 journey of thousands of miles with such nice precision of movement 

 that the goal is reached on a certain day? For men, with only the bird's 

 physical equipment, the feat would be impossible. 



In thus denying the bird's power to reason, we add rather tjhan 

 detract from the interest with which we study the evidences of its own 

 peculiar and remarkable gifts; and our interest is intensified by the 

 wide range of variation in the mental development among individuals 

 as well as groups, which often renders it uncertain just what response 

 will follow a certain stimulus. 



Nor, in denying the birds close association with us on the higher 

 planes of intelligence, should we lose our feeling of kinship with them. 

 We have distanced them in the race of mental development; but that 

 should not render us any the less eager to discover in some of their 

 traits those which characterized the childhood of our race. 



Status of the Species. The measure of a bird's success in life is 

 determined not alone by its powers as a migrant (if it be migratory); 

 its attractiveness when wooing a mate; its skill as a nest-builder; its 

 devotion and courage as a parent ; the nature of its physical and mental 

 endowment, or the degree of its intelligence, but also by the extent of 

 its adaptability and the character of its temperament. When, there- 

 fore, we ask why some birds are abundant and others rare, all these 

 factors are to be considered in connection with all the conditions under 

 which the bird lives; and to do this with due attention to the many 

 influences involved, is one of the ultimate objects of the study of orni- 

 thology; for, to determine the causes of the success and failure of life 

 is second only to determining the origin of life itself. 



