6 COWARD, Note on the behaviour of a Blackbird. 



with nothing ; it strives with something visible, to it a 

 rival of flesh and blood, another bird. 



It is easy to say that this is a fool amongst blackbirds, 

 but it is difficult to prove that any other blackbird is more 

 reasonable. The irate master of this particular wall will 

 not allow any other gay bachelor to approach. If we 

 could be sure that another bird would perch upon that 

 wall and either ignore the reflection or attack it and 

 speedily find out his error, we could argue that our bird 

 was mentally deficient, below the standard of his kind ; 

 we might even believe that reasoning power was being 

 slowly evolved in the species. As it is we can get no 

 further than the fact that we have a bird with an excellent 

 memory but with inability to use its brain power beyond 

 a certain point. If after each series of assaults it learns 

 that something is wrong, then its memory is indeed a 

 strange one, for it speedily forgets these glimmerings of 

 reason but remembers the spot and the rival who is 

 always there. Probably it desists after each bout when 

 it imagines either that it has punished the intruder 

 sufficiently or when it has had sufficient punishment itself, 

 for surely its poor head must ache after half-a-dozen 

 bangs against that hard glass. 



The persistence of the attacks of both Mr. Moffat's 

 and my birds, lasting all through the period of excitement, 

 suggests an instinctive stimulus to aggression but no 

 stimulus to mental progress ; the bird is obsessed with its 

 idea so long as its reproductive organs are active. There 

 is no evidence that when its mate is ceasing to care about 

 the welfare of the young she so carefully and even self- 

 sacrificingly cherished, the male bird argues that there is 

 no further need to drive away this ever returning rival. 

 He simply tires of sexual warfare just as she tires of 

 domestic cares — the sexual stimulus has worn itself out. 



