i82 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



widow still refused to forsake her husband, and 

 continued day after day slowly walking around the 

 stake on which his body hung. The kind-hearted 

 wife of the farmer heard of the matter, and went 

 to the relief of the stricken bird. On arriving at 

 the spot, she found the poor bird still watching at 

 the side of her dead, and making an occasional 

 effort to get to him. She was much spent with 

 her long fasting and grief. She had made a 

 circular beaten path around the corpse of her 

 companion ' (12). 



And these are the beings whose bones men jest 

 over at their feasts, and brutes shoot for pastime 

 on human holidays. Much has been said of the 

 sorrow of birds for their deceased mates, but not 

 too much. For the avian soul may be smothered 

 by the gloom and loneliness that come upon the 

 heart, when the great light of love and com- 

 panionship has gone out, quite as completely as 

 the soul of a bereaved human. In not many 

 human homes where loved ones lie sick and dying 

 are felt the pangs of more genuine grief than those 

 sometimes suffered by birds when their friends 

 and companions are stricken in death. The follow- 

 ing incident, vouched for by Dr. Franklin, who 

 observed it, is only one among many such instances 

 recorded in the literature on birds : 



A pair of parrots had lived together on the most 

 loving terms for four years, when the female was 

 taken with a serious attack of gout. She grew 

 rapidly worse, and was soon so weak as to be 

 unable to leave her perch for food, when the male, 



