244 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
parental affection. The offspring would probably be more 
vigorous. 
The parental instinct of birds, once established, no doubt 
helped to produce the present complex condition of that reason 
and intelligent adjustment to surroundings which, without any 
danger of being called unscientific and anthropomorphic, I hold 
all birds incontestably display. 
The elementary condition of the instinct which I have 
sketched was not a very permanent one. The females would 
find it an economy of energy in looking for suitable localities by 
always returning to the same spot, and so the eggs instead of 
being scattered would be laid in a clutch; or if in any district 
suitable localities were not numerous, the few localities that did 
exist would become overcrowded with eggs, and ground vermin 
and egg-eating birds would be attracted. This would threaten 
extinction, but the birds would respond by attempts, crude no 
doubt at first, at driving away their enemies and guarding the 
eggs. This would be the inception of the parental instinct. 
The male, being the more bellicose of the two sexes, would be 
the first to assume these watch-dog duties; moreover, should 
this species be an egg-eating one itself, the males would be 
forced to guard the eggs against their own females. To do this 
more successfully the male would collect his spouse's scattered 
products, and this again would result in the eggs being laid in a 
clutch, for the female, through the action of natural selection 
and her own enlightened intelligence, would not be slow to fall 
in with the male’s domestic arrangements. 
Another way of meeting these adverse circumstances and the 
onslaughts of enemies, but a way not adopted, was a further 
increase in the number of eggs—a tax on the organism as a 
machine, but not as an independent inteiligence. In some such 
accidental atmosphere must have arisen the germ not only of 
the paternal instinct but of the whole of the bird’s large and 
varied mental capabilities ; for, like charity, intellect begins at 
home, and just as civilization is dependent on the relative per- 
fection of the community, so the community is dependent on the 
condition of family life. 
If only for their own convenience, when undergoing the 
ordeal of egg-laying, the females would tend to be secretive 
