Some Notes on the Psychology of Birds 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE 



Curator of Birds, New York Zoological Society 

 (Reprinted by permission from the Seventh Annual Report of the New York Zoological Society) 



EVEN a superficial study of the psychology of birds compels us to at- 

 tribute to them a highly developed intellectual and emotional life. 

 A few examples may make this more patent, and I will mention only 

 those which entail rather complex psychic processes. Birds have remarkable 

 memories. It is said a Pigeon will remember a person after many months, 

 and a Bullfinch has been known to recognize a voice after a year's time. 

 Birds often dream, and frequently sing or chatter in their sleep. There 

 are few species of birds which do not show the emotions of love and sym- 

 pathy, and, what is a very rare trait among animals, that sincerity of 

 affection which causes many birds to mate for life. Even in those 

 species which pair for only a year, one of the two will sometimes pine 

 and die with grief at the loss of its mate. 



Indeed, sympathy is the key-note in the growth of the higher intel- 

 lectual and social qualities which find their culmination in man, and 

 Professor Shaler is right when he attributes to birds a higher development 

 of this emotion than to any other creatures below man. Reptiles can be 

 trained to know their keeper, and an alligator will defend her buried 

 eggs; dogs are unusually affectionate animals, and the higher monkeys 

 have many sympathetic habits and emotions, but birds lead them all. 

 This is not remarkable when we consider the wonderfully important 

 place which the family holds in this class of vertebrates. The building 

 of the nest, the comparatively long incubation of the eggs, and the 

 patient feeding and complex education of the young birds all are duties 

 in which both parents often share. It is this continued association, this 

 "bridging over of generations," which has made sympathy so prominent 

 a factor in the minds of birds. In what other class of animals are vocal 

 signals of fear, distress, or terror so widely understood, or so willingly met 

 with efforts of assistance ? 



To me it seems puerile to try to believe that a bird's affection for her 

 young, so great that she will often give her life in their defense, can be 

 correlated with an instinct, using that word in the common acceptance 

 of the term. It is no more an instinct in the sense of an uncontrollable 

 emotion, than is the analogous action of an heroic human being. 

 Altruism, pure and simple, has governed the action of more than one 

 bird under my observation during the past year, and that, too, in some 

 instances, between birds of different species. Three instances come to 

 mind: a female Red-winged Blackbird which carried a mouthful of worms 

 to a nestful of young Red-wings near by, before passing on to brood her 



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