REVIEW — ILLUSTRATIONS OF INSTINCT. 
697 
productive of pain, from which its nature turns away. The degra- 
dation of a brute can never be so low as moral guilt and baseness 
can reduce the pride of man ; and this the degraded man too surely 
feels is the additional bitterness in the cup which he must drain 
whom sensuality has degraded.” 
“ It is in correspondence with these principles of a partial deve- 
lopment of the higher prerogatives of mental excellency, that we 
discern in animal actions methods of proceeding which it is hard 
not to regard as of a moral or intellectual character, but which, on 
investigation, seem to be merely politic. We witness amqng 
birds the execution of justice on such culprits as offend against the 
principles and regulations of their community. The rook offers a 
familiar example of this in refusing to build its nest in privacy, or 
anywhere but in the neighbourhood of some dignified mansion ; 
and as the nests of this bird require repair in spring, it often 
happens that the new materials are not to be obtained near at 
hand, and they are compelled to search for twigs at a distance, or 
else to break them off nearer home while in a growing condition, 
which is a work of much labour. To the younger members of 
the community, not learned in the laws of meum and tuum, this is 
an irksome task; and they are not long in coming to the conclusion 
that much trouble may be saved by watching their opportunity, 
and helping themselves from the growing structures of older 
builders around them in their absence, little imagining, we dare 
say, that their proprietors will detect the loss of here one, and there 
another, of the twigs inserted in the walls of their edifices. The 
discovering that they have been robbed is, indeed, no small proof 
of observation and reasoning : for the actual carrying off of their 
goods is never or but rarely seen by the owners, as the rogues 
take care not to be caught in the fact ; and we know that an egg 
may be taken away, and the parent bird be none the wiser. Birds 
are more alive to the least change in the external look of the nest 
than to the eggs within. But the rascals among rooks have little 
calculated on the power of observation of their older neighbours, 
and how well they, from experience, can compare the work done, 
and compute the time it ought to have taken if they had worked 
honestly and found their own materials. The wrong-doers being 
discovered, the punishment is appropriate to the offence : by the 
destruction of their dishonest work they are taught that they who 
build must find their own bricks or sticks, not their neighbours ; 
and that if they wish to live in the enjoyment of the advantages 
of the social condition, they must endeavour to conform their 
actions to the principles of the rookery of which they have been 
made members. 
It is not known what enormities led to the institution of another 
VOL. xx. 4 z 
