GATHERED BY THE WAY 
to be read as a development of reason in its place. 
It is a modified instinct, —the instinct for food seek- 
ing new sources of supply. Exactly how it came 
about would be interesting to know. Our oriole 
is an insectivorous bird, but in some localities it is 
very destructive in the August vineyards. It does 
not become a fruit-eater like the robin, but a juice- 
sucker; it punctures the grapes for their unfermented 
wine. Here, again, we have a case of modified and 
adaptive instinct. All animals are more or less 
adaptive, and avail themselves of new sources of 
food supply. When the southern savannas were 
planted with rice, the bobolinks soon found that this 
food suited them. A few years ago we had a great 
visitation in the Hudson River Valley of crossbills 
from the north. They lingered till the fruit of the 
peach orchards had set, when they discovered that 
here was a new source of food supply, and they 
became very destructive to the promised crop by 
deftly cutting out the embryo peaches. All such 
cases show how plastic and adaptive instinct is, at 
least in relation to food supplies. Let me again say 
that instinct is native, untaught intelligence, di- 
rected outward, but never inward as in man. 
VII. THE ROBIN 
Probably, with us, no other bird is so closely 
associated with country life as the robin ; most of 
the time pleasantly, but for a brief season, during 
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