on the Psychology of Birds .



125



and sympathy, 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 j^ear, 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 intellectual and social qualities which find their culmina¬

tion 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 im¬

portant 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 defence, can be correlated with an i?istinct, 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 } ? ear, 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 pass¬

ing on to brood her own eggs, as yet unhatched ; a Boon which

voluntarily risked his life to free a Pied-billed Grebe from a

nearly fatal ice-trap ; and a great Crowned Pigeon which assumed

the care of and sheltered a nestling Ring-Dove deserted by its

parents.



