Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/212

156 disease is rare, though parasitical disease, in which some other organism benefits, is commoner. And so long as there is life and health there is every indication that those possessing it find enjoyment and pleasure in the possession. Each animal to exist at all must be alert and fit, ever watchful to avoid danger, ever quick and strong to overcome an adversary or obtain a victim. But fear, as we understand it, is absent; the weaker creature watches for danger, but has no apprehension; the alertness is not merely instinctive but largely reflex. The quickest to act without waste of time for thought is the one which survives and leaves progeny; the weakling goes to the wall.

The heedless butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, bent on pure animal satisfaction, for it does not need the sweets it sips, dodges the onslaught of the shrike, and at once continues its hunt for pleasure. The young lapwing crouches when the peregrine's shadow crosses the moor, but continues to feed immediately the terror has departed. The whitethroat, which dived into the hedge when the sparrowhawk swooped, sings again whilst the hunter chases another possible victim. The mouse, which froze when the owl reeled past, attends to its ablutions immediately the coast is clear. All these avoid the danger, but are not unnerved; they do not think beforehand about what may happen; they brood not on the terrors of the past. If we watch the play of animals, listen to the singing of birds, observe the busy hunt for material satisfaction of the insects, we see no suggestion of fear or misery; their alertness is hardly uneasy, though if the hare is startled or the bird's nest threatened there are certain indications of anxiety—in the one case uncertainty about where and when to escape, in the second a parental attachment to property. Immediately the animal realises that it or its home is no longer endangered it appears by its behaviour to again enjoy the