BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 141 



may, or may not, be able to escape; or feeding, 

 or sleeping, or fighting, or courting, or incubating, 

 however many days or weeks this process may 

 last — in all things he is obeying the impulse that 

 is strongest in him at the time — he is doing what 

 he wants to do — the one thing that makes him 

 happy. 



As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or 

 in a large majority of cases so quickly proves 

 fatal, that, compared with what we call disease 

 in our own species it is practically non-existent. 

 The "struggle for existence," in so far as animals 

 in a state of nature are concerned, is a meta- 

 phorical struggle; and the strife, short and sharp, 

 which is so common in nature, is not misery, al- 

 though it results in pain, since it is pain that kills 

 or is soon outlived. Fear there is, just as in fine 

 weather there are clouds in the sky; and just as 

 the shadow of the cloud passes, so does fear pass 

 from the wild creature when the object that ex- 

 cited it has vanished from sight. And when death 

 comes, it comes unexpectedly, and is not the death 

 that we know, even before we taste of it, thinking 

 of it with apprehension all our lives long, but a 

 sudden blow that takes away consciousness — the 



