CHAPTER IX 



COURTS OF JUSTICE 



Here, too, all forms of social union find. 

 And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind: 

 Here subterranean works and cities see: 

 Their towns aerial on the waving tree, 



— Pope, 



THE great thinkers of the human world recog- 

 nise a kinship in all forms of life; men, ani- 

 mals, fishes and birds are made of the same stuff 

 and built on the same plan. In the bird world may- 

 be found reflections of hvmian institutions, a fact 

 which does not seem incredible when it is considered 

 that they have their own problems of community 

 life much the same as mankind. Perhaps if this 

 were better known, the wanton slaughter of birds 

 for purposes of ministering to human appetites, 

 personal adornment, pride in marksmanship, and 

 the mad desire to add to stuffed collections would 

 be a heathenish custom of the past. 



Bird court scenes reveal ideas of right and wrong 

 in a most startling manner. "Crow courts" are 



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