THE ANIMAL AND THE PUZZLE-BOX 



lark pouring out his notes up in the sky seems sing- 

 ing from the joy of song alone. The song of a bird 

 excites the males of its species to rivalry, but the 

 females are as inattentive as if they had no ears. I 

 am myseK inclined to think that the songs of birds 

 are a part of the surplusage of the male sexual prin- 

 ciple, like their bright colors, and that to their mates 

 they are merely noises. The males sing in the ab- 

 sence of the females just as joyously as in their pres- 

 ence, as note the caged canaries; and the harsh, 

 raucous- voiced birds are as acceptable to their mates 

 as are the musical- voiced to theirs. Why should it 

 not be so? A consciousness of the pleasure of melo- 

 dious sounds would seem to lift the bird out of the 

 animal plane into the human plane. 



I wish our laboratory investigators would tell me, 

 if they can, what sense or faculty it is that enables 

 one bird to pursue another so unerringly — a hawk 

 in pursuit of a sparrow, or a song-bird pursuing an- 

 other in sport, the pursuer trimming its movement 

 to those of the pursued as if the two were one body. 

 When a dog pursues a squirrel or a rabbit, if the pur- 

 sued darts suddenly to one side it gains time, the 

 hunter overshoots, and has to recover itself; not so 

 with the birds, there is no overshooting, no lost time, 

 and no recovery. It is as it the pursuer could read 

 the intentions of the pursued at every movement, 

 and anticipate every dodge and turn. It is probably 

 some analogous gift or sense that enables a flock of 

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