ii6 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



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 metaphorical 

 struggle ; and the strife, short and sharp, which is 

 so common in nature, is not misery, although 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 excited it has vanished 

 from sight. And when death comes, it comes un- 

 expectedly, 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 touch of something that numbs 

 the nerves — ^merely the prick of a needle. In what- 

 ever way the animal perishes, whether by violence, 

 or excessive cold, or decay, his death is a com- 

 paratively easy one. So long as he is fighting with 

 or struggling to escape from an enemy, wounds are 

 not felt as wounds, and scarcely hurt him — as we 

 know from our own experience ; and when over- 

 come, if death be not practically instantaneous, as 

 in the case of a small bird seized by a cat, the dis- 

 abling grip or blow is itself a kind of anodyne, 

 producing insensibility to pain. This, too, is a 

 matter of human experience. To say nothing of 

 those who fall in battle, men have often been struck 



