A SENSE OF CURIOSITY 147 



reduced, the latter become alarmed, and in 

 their fright press on up the narrowing water. 

 In the meanwhile, the dog (or decoy-man) 

 keeps moving on from screen to screen, until 

 finally the whole flock is enmeshed. 



Now, had the ducks a spark of individual 

 intelligence there is nothing to prevent them 

 from either swimming or flying back into the 

 open water with impunity, but they cannot 

 do so for lack of reasoning powers. 



A sense of what we must understand as 

 curiosity is quickly aroused in birds by the 

 sudden appearance in their midst of a foreign 

 species of gaudy plumage ; even a yellow 

 canary, at large, will produce the same effect, 

 which is, as most people know, that the un- 

 fortunate and, maybe, harmless creature is at 

 once mobbed and set upon by all the small 

 birds in the neighbourhood. The meaning of 

 this is that the bird is strange, i.e., not natural 

 to these particular surroundings ; the sub- 

 conscious mind, therefore, is not in sympathy 

 with it ; but should the occurrence become 

 common, natural harmony, by degrees, is 

 restored. The readjustment is gradual, be- 

 cause there is no intelligence whereby it might 

 be quickly effected. 



In the same way animals become accus- 

 tomed, as we say, to innovations, such as 



