"As, in the course of generations, the young birds of this race begin to
display a fear of man before yet they have been injured by him, it is an
unavoidable inference that the nervous system of the race has been
organically modified by these experiences, we have no choice but to
conclude, that when a young bird is led to fly, it is because the
impression produced in its senses by the approaching man entails,
through an incipiently reflex action, a partial excitement of all those
nerves which in its ancestors had been excited under the like
conditions; that this partial excitement has its accompanying painful
consciousness, and that the vague painful consciousness thus arising
constitutes emotion proper--_emotion undecomposable into specific
experiences, and, therefore, seemingly homogeneous"_ (Essays, vol. i. p.
320.)]

It is comforting to know that the "unavoidable inference" is, after all,
erroneous, and that the nervous system in birds has not yet been
organically altered as a result of man's persecution; for in that case
it would take long to undo the mischief, and we should be indeed far
from that "better friendship" with the children of the air which many of
us would like to see.




CHAPTER VI.

PARENTAL AND EARLY INSTINCTS.


Under this heading I have put together several notes from my journals on