oo(J Townsend, Courtship in Birds. [july help she gave to the people about her who needed it — rich as well as poor — will be remembered as long as those who knew her shall live. Some tributes to her greatness have been printed — but no words, written or spoken, can ever tell of all the good she did. 288 E. Fifteenth St., New York, N. Y. COURTSHIP IN BIRDS. BY CHAKLES W. TOWNSEND, M. D. The difference between the mentality of birds and of man is enormous and we must be on our guard against imputing purely human motive to the lower animals. On the other hand the difference between man and the lower animals in many important matters is not one of kind, but one merely of degree. A gull will drag a dried fish from the upper beach to the water to soften it before eating, a grackle will dip a tough bit of biscuit in the water for the same purpose, and a man will soften a hard crust in his coffee. How much is sub-conscious instinct or reflex action in some or all of these cases and how much is self-conscious reasoning and forethought — it is not my purpose to discuss here. To call it instinct in all cases in the lower animals and reason in all cases in man may possibly savor of conceit. The desire to live, to obtain food and to mate are primitive inborn instincts common to both the lower animals and to man. To gratify these instincts similar actions are resorted to by both the lower animals and man. The actions of a child desiring food from a table and those of a dog under the same circumstances are very much alike. Each appeals by voice and actions for the food, each is anxious to please the owner of the food, and each — unless the point has been reached in its experience of life when it fears the consequences of unlawful acts — will avail itself of an opportunity to surreptitiously snatch the food. In the same way the desire of the male bird to please the female more than its rivals please the same bird appeals to us as a very
