ORDER ACCIPITRES. 125 



with all other animals, can we hold any intellectual intercourse 

 with them ; but merely an exchange of aflfections and of phy- 

 sical sensations. 



These animals can never introduce their acquirement of 

 speech among their own species ; and this, by the way, is one 

 of the greatest distinctions between man and all other animals. 

 Those animals that are the most successfully trained and edu- 

 cated by man, are quite incapable of communicating their 

 acquisitions to their fellows. All the knowledge rests in the 

 individual, and dies with him. There is no system of mutual 

 instruction among brutes. Under the immediate guidance of 

 man, they are indeed sometimes rendered influential in the 

 training of their fellows ; but, of their own accord, they could 

 never become so. The birds of which we speak, even after 

 they are taught our sounds, communicate with their own species 

 only by natural cries and signs. It is only in their relations 

 •with us, that they repeat the words which we have taught them. 

 Every thing which comes from without, never enters into the 

 proper composition of the animal. It is only a superficial mo- 

 dification, a fugitive impression, destroyed with the individual, 

 or even eSaced by time ; the natural bias resumes its ascendant 

 as the tree regains its original position, when the force which 

 bent it is withdrawn. 



This imitation of speech, however, presupposes some general 

 aptitude for education, independently of the conformation of 

 the vocal organs. These birds seem to possess a sort of sensi- 

 bility analogous to our own, a sort of sympathy with man, 

 which is indispensably necessary to all education of the lower 

 animals. The nature of the other species is more harsh and 

 intractable, for we never find them so much tamed as those 

 birds which can learn to talk or whistle. In truth, neither the 

 birds of prey, nor the gallinse, nor the grallae, nor the palmipedes, 

 are capable of the same degree of improvement as the small races 

 of birds, the insectivora, the climbers, &c. Still less do they pos- 

 sess any capacity of imitating the human voice. They are more 

 brutal and indocile. They attach themselves to us, not as friends, 



