42 



The language of birds is most complex, and all, from the 

 marvellous song of the Nightingale and the imitative powers 

 of the Mocking-bird, to the apparently meaningless chirps of 

 our city sparrows, tell of mental powers striving for expres- 

 sion. In man the various emotions depend largely upon lan- 

 guage and the expression of the face for their outward 

 demonstration, and it is mteresting to compare with this the 

 state of affairs among birds. These creatures, though handi- 

 capped by a vocal language very inferior to our own and by 

 faces that are for the most part sheathed in expressionless 

 masks of horn, yet are able by movements of their feathers, 

 limbs and other portions of the body, to express a wide range 

 of emotions and to communicate clearly even delicate shades 

 of meaning. 



The mention of these finer qualities which show the high 

 mental position of birds as a race, suggests a factor common 

 to all animals, but which in birds is very important, and 

 developed to a remarkable degree — that of extreme individu- 

 ality. It is this wide variation on the already high level of 

 knowledge that gives to birds the numerous chances for new 

 accidental opportunities^ as we may call them, stepping- 

 stones on the road of deduction to some new and higher 

 expression of psychic power. Every-day accidents in the 

 search for food may be instantly seized upon b}^ the quick 

 perception of birds and turned to good account. Birds had 

 early learned to take clams or mussels m their beaks or claws 

 at low tide, and carry them out of the reach of the water so 

 that at the death of the moUusk the relaxation of the adduc- 

 tor muscle would permit the shell to spring open and afford 

 easy access to the inmate. Probably it needed only the acci- 

 dental dropping of a few shells on the hard rocks, and a taste 

 of the appetizing morsels within, to fix the habit which, by 

 imitation, has spread so widely among birds at the present 

 day. To how trivial an accident might the beginning — the 

 psychic anlaga — of many a world-wide trait of birds be 

 traced, if we could but read the past clearly ! 



