A BEAVER’S REASON 
one. The doctor is convinced that his mare delib- 
erately went back to conduct her blind companion 
over the bridge and down to the salt-lick. But the 
act may be more simply explained. How could the 
mare have known her companion was blind? What 
could any horse know about such a disability ? The 
only thing implied in the incident is the attachment 
of one animal for another. The mare heard her 
mate calling, probably in tones of excitement or 
distress, and she flew back to her. Finding her all 
right, she turned toward the salt again and was fol- 
lowed by her fellow. Instinct did it all. 
My own observation of the wild creatures has 
revealed nothing so near to human thought and 
reflection as is seen in the cases of the collie and 
pointer dogs above referred to. ‘The nearest to 
them of anything I can now recall is an incident 
related by an English writer, Mr. Kearton. In one 
of his books, Mr. Kearton relates how he has fre- 
quently fooled sitting birds with wooden eggs. He 
put his counterfeits, painted and marked like the 
originals, into the nests of the song thrush, the 
blackbird, and the grasshopper warbler, and in no 
case was the imposition detected. In the warbler’s 
nest he placed dummy eggs twice the size of her 
own, and the bird proceeded to brood them without 
the slightest sign of suspicion that they were not of 
her own laying. 
But when Mr. Kearton tried his counterfeits 
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