WORSE THAN DEATH 65 



and special grounds, to be said for the belief, by 

 the parent birds who, finding that there was no 

 other way in which they could free their darlings, 

 with stern Roman resolve, gave them their freedom 

 thus. If this be so, the deep-seated feeling of 

 which man imagines himself to be the exclusive 

 possessor, that there are things worse even than 

 death, treachery, ingratitude, cowardice, loss of 

 freedom, loss of honour, religious apostasy, the 

 feeling which bade Virginius save his little daughter, 

 by a kindly stab with the butcher's knife, from 

 slavery and shame ; the feeling which bade the 

 Numidian king, Massinissa, send as his last present 

 to his beautiful bride, Sophonisba, when she was 

 captured by the Roman Scipio, a cup of poison, 

 with the message that "she was to see to it that 

 she did nothing unworthy of the daughter of 

 Hasdrubal and the wife of two Numidian kings," 

 is not confined to Roman or Numidian, or even to 

 human nature as a whole. It extends, in its 

 measure, by reason of the intensity of their parental 

 affection, to the solemn and impassive-looking 

 brown owl. 



Owls, I believe, always pair for life, and their 

 affection for one another is at least as marked as 

 that for their young, as another touching anecdote 



