fires. We can understand this sensation in animals, since we ourselves
experience a similar one (although in a less degree and not associated
with fear) in the effect which mere brightness has on us, both by day
and night.

On riding across the monotonous grey Patagonian uplands, where often for
hours one sees not the faintest tinge of bright colour, the intense
glowing crimson of a cactus-fruit, or the broad shining white bosom of
the Patagonian eagle-buzzard (Buteo erythronotus), perched on the summit
of a distant bush, has had a strangely fascinating effect on me, so that
I have been unable to take my eyes off it as long as it continued before
me. Or in passing through extensive desolate marshes, the dazzling white
plumage of a stationary egret has exercised the same attraction. At
night we experience the sensation in a greater degree, when the silver
sheen of the moon makes a broad path on the water; or when a meteor
leaves a glowing track across the sky; while a still more familiar
instance is seen in the powerful attraction on the sight of glowing
embers in a darkened room. The mere brightness, or vividness of the
contrast, fascinates the mind; but the effect on man is comparatively
weak, owing to his fiery education and to his familiarity with brilliant
dyes artificially obtained from nature. How strong this attraction of
mere brightness, even where there is no mystery about it, is to wild
animals is shown by birds of prey almost invariably singling out white
or bright-plumaged birds for attack where bright and sober-coloured
kinds are mingled together. By night the attraction is immeasurably
greater than by day, and the light of a fire steadily gazed at quickly
confuses the mind. The fires which, travellers make for their protection
actually serve to attract the beasts of prey, but the confusion and fear
caused by the bright glare makes it safe for the traveller to lie down
and sleep in the light. Mammals do not lose their heads altogether,