V 

 FACTORS IN ANIMAL LIFE 



THE question that the Califomian schoolchildren 

 put to me, " Have the birds got sense ? " still 

 "sticks in my crop." 



Such extraordinary sense has been attributed to 

 most of the wild creatures by several of our latter day 

 nature-writers, that I have been moved to examine 

 the whole question more thoroughly than ever be- 

 fore, and to find out, as far as I can, just how much 

 and what kind of sense the birds and four-footed 

 beasts have. 



In this and in some following chapters I shall 

 make an effort to use my own sense to the best advan- 

 tage in probing that of the animals, which has, as I 

 think, been so vastly overrated. 



When sentiment gets overripe, it becomes senti- 

 mentalism. The sentiment for nature which has 

 been so assiduously cultivated in our times is fast 

 undergoing this change, and is softening into sen- 

 timentalism toward the lower animals. Many a 

 wholesome feeling can be pushed so far that it 

 becomes a weakness and a sign of disease. Pity for 

 the sufferings of our brute neighbors may be a manly 

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