that they could not comprehend "day after to-morrow," and that
their vocabulary was limited to about 200 words.

It is very probable that the language of the Poonans and the
Jackoons is equally limited. And what are we to conclude from
all the foregoing? Briefly, I should say that the architectural
skill of the orioles, the caciques and the weaver birds is greater
than that of the South Patagonia native, the Jackoon and the
Poonan. I should say that those bird homes yield to their makers
more comfort and protection, and a better birth-rate, than are
yielded by the homes of those ignorant, unambitious and
retrogressive tribes of men now living and thinking, and supposed
to be possessed of reasoning powers. If the whole truth could be
known, I believe it would be found that the stock of ideas
possessed and used by the groups of highly-endowed birds would
fully equal the ideas of such tribes of simple-minded men as those
mentioned. If caught young, those savages could be trained by
civilized men, and taught to perform many tricks, but so can
chimpanzees and elephants.

Curiously enough, it is a common thing for even the higher types
of civilized men to make in home-building just as serious mistakes
as are made by wild animals and savages. For example, among the
men of our time it is a common mistake to build in the wrong
place, to build entirely too large or too ugly, and to build a
Colossal Burden instead of a real Home. From many a palace there
stands forth the perpetual question: "_Why_ did he do it?"

Any reader who at any time inclines toward an opinion that the
author is unduly severe on the mentality of the human race, even