THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 3 



old school of philosophers, whose views on Mind 

 were extremely limited and bigoted, has given 

 place to a newer and more enlightened class of 

 observers. Birds, for instance, are no longer re- 

 garded as mere automatic machines, governed by 

 mysterious impulses all vaguely classed under the 

 convenient term of " instinct," but as creatures 

 endowed with mind, with mental powers very 

 similar to those which control the movements of 

 man himself. At no other period of the year, 

 perhaps, are these various mental powers so well 

 displayed as in the spring-time. For instance, 

 what enormous powers of memory birds call into 

 action in performing their long journey from Africa, 

 and other remote regions, to their summer quarters 

 in this country ! What passion and jealousy ani- 

 mate them in the pairing season ; what a large 

 amount of imitation, reason, and forethought are 

 required in the all-important task of selecting a 

 site for the nest, and then in building the structure 

 itself! How much more interesting and fascinat- 

 ing, too, does the study of birds become when, 

 instead of classing all this brain- work as mysterious 

 " instinct," we watch the progress of the little 

 Mind which prompts these actions, and note the 

 -endless variation of the method by which these 

 mental powers are used ! Take the subject of 

 Migration first. The tiny leaves are just bursting 

 from the buds on the birch trees in this grand old 

 Yorkshire coppice ; the ferns are beginning to 

 uncurl their fronds deep down in the damp mossy 



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