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enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady; and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible
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danger does the parent expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made bright.
What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that, for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
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the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers, are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them, rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places, which in turn have grown