Belittled Birds
One is not allowed in these times to say that birds are intelligent, at any rate in the human sense ; but they certainly do intelligent things. For example, on one golf links, as soon as the water-sprinklers get to work on a green, the rooks encircle it, and as soon as any part is freed from the actual spray, proceed to dig for the worms brought to the surface layer. That great authority and charming writer on birds, Edward Armstrong, has been arguing that the birds which sham wounds in order to draw marauders away from their nest or young are not acting intelli- gently. Perhaps not in the strictest sense ; but the device is most saliently carried out by birds that evince the strongest parental affection, and certainly arises from love of pffspring. How often have I seen it practised by the partridge, which excels perhaps all other birds in its domestic affections. The strength of this sense is also the answer to those (who include a famous Dean) who say that there is no such thing as unselfish- ness in the so-called lower animals. When a hedge-sparrow will mob an adder (as I have seen) and a pair of partridges fight a carrion crow in defence of their nest, their motive is certainly not exaggerated when hailed as unselfish ; after all, one must use some human word of such actions. I prefer the view of that great Darwinian, Professor Thompson, who said in effect that birds could be much cleverer if they had need to, be.
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