Page:BirdWatcherShetlands.djvu/210

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
184
THE BIRD WATCHER

reared, all the while that it was rearing the foundling, to keep the two distinct, and remember not only that it had finished with its own chick, and seen it leave or gone off with it from the ledge, but also that it had not had another one since then. But though I believe that mental association may call up a very clear image of some past event in a bird's mind, I cannot credit it with such retentiveness and perspicuity of memory as this. Moreover, what idea of ownership in a chick can a bird have, other than those feelings which compel it to rear it? When once they are roused, the chick before it is its own.

But has not this a bearing upon the nature and origin of sympathy? When we sympathise with others we, by a quick mental process, put ourselves in their place, and feel to a lesser degree in ourselves what we suppose them to be feeling. In a certain degree, therefore, we are them, but our reason assures us that this is not really the case. We can distinguish; but can animals, or can they other than partially? Anthropologists have much to say—sometimes, perhaps, almost too much—on the extent to which savages mistake their subjective impressions for objective reality; but what applies to the savage should apply with much greater force to the animal. When a herd of fierce animals—as, say, of peccaries—are filled with sudden rage at the sight of a companion struck down by some beast of prey—bear, jaguar, or puma—and attack the assailant, is each member of it distinctly conscious that he is acting in defence of