The Strange Instincts of Cattle^ 347 
safety, moves our hearts by its close resemblance to 
one of the most highly-prized human virtues ; just 
as we are moved to intellectual admiration by the 
wonderful migratory instinct in birds that simulates 
some of the highest achievements of the mind of 
man. And we know that this beautiful instinct is 
also liable to mistakes — that many travellers leave 
us annually never to return. Such a mistake was 
undoubtedly the cause of the late visitation of 
Pallas’ sand-grouse : owing perhaps to some un- 
usual atmospheric or dynamic condition, or to 
some change in the nervous system of the birds, 
they deviated widely from their usual route, to 
sca.tter in countless thousands over the whole of 
Europe and yjerish slowly in climates not suited to 
them ; while others, overpassing the cold strange 
continent, sped on over colder, stranger seas, to 
drop at last like aerolites, quenching their lives in 
the waves. 
Whether because it is true, as Professor Freeman 
and some others will have it, that humanity is a 
purely modern virtue ; or because the doctrine of 
Darwin, by showing that we are related to other 
forms of life, that our best feelings have their roots 
low down in the temper and instincts of the social 
species, has brought us nearer in spirit to the 
inferior animals, it is certain that our regard for 
them has grown, and is growing, and that new facts 
and fresh inferences that make us think more highly 
of them are increasingly welcome. 
