WAYS OF NATURE 



is not always a safe guide. It is like a lawyer's plea 

 to the jury for his client. Romanes was so intent 

 upon making out his case that he allowed himself 

 to be imposed upon by the tales of irresponsible 

 observers. Many of his stories of the intelligence of 

 birds and beasts are antecedently improbable. He 

 evidently credits the story of the Bishop of Carlisle, 

 who thinks he saw a jackdaw being tried by a jury of 

 rooks for some misdemeanor. Jack made a speech 

 and the jury cawed back at him, and after a time 

 appeared to acquit Jack! What a child's fancy to 

 be put in a serious work on " Animal Intelligence " ! 

 The dead birds we now and then find hanging from 

 the nest, or from the limb of a tree, with a string 

 wound around their necks are no doubt criminals 

 upon whom their fellows have inflicted capital pun- 

 ishment ! 



Most of the observations upon which Romanes 

 bases his conclusions are like the incident which he 

 quoted from Jesse, who tells of some swallows that 

 in the spirit of revenge tore down a nest from which 

 they had been ejected by the sparrows, in order to 

 destroy the young of their enemies — a feat im- 

 possible for swallows to do. Jesse does not say he 

 saw the swallows do it, but he " saw the young spar- 

 rows dead upon the ground amid the ruins of the 

 nest," and of course the nest could get down in no 

 other way ! 



Not to Romanes or Jesse or Michelet must we go 

 148 



