Whatever may have been the reason for abandoning this beautiful and in a way noble sport, its disuse must be deemed most unfortunate by all the students of animal intelligence, for it has deprived us of precious opportunities in the way of observations on the mental peculiarities which exist in a most interesting group of birds. In these days, when there is a fancy for reviving the customs of our forefathers, it might be well for some persons of leisure to give their attention to restoring the arts of falconry. Enough of the practice and of the traditions is left to make it an easy task to reinstitute all the important parts of the custom. Moreover, those who essayed the matter would have access to a much greater range of rapacious birds than our forefathers, who had to content themselves with the limited number of wild species which inhabit the continent of Europe. Especially on our Western plains, where game-birds abound and the country lies wide open, sportsmen would find an admirable field in which to follow the bird they flew. Not only would the restoration of hawking give us a sport much more skilful and refined than the fox chase, but it would reintroduce the cultivation of the only creature which, having once been brought to the service of man, has been permitted to return to its ancestral wild life. The most striking and by far the most interesting quality exhibited by our birds is found in their sympathetic motive. In this spiritual quality, so far as it relates to their own kind, the feathered creatures are clearly in advance of all other species, including even man. A single fact, one of great generality, will serve to make this statement clear. Among the birds we find the only cases of true marriage which are known in the animal kingdom. In the greater number of the species the union is for a season, but among many it is for life. In the case of certain varieties of paroquets, the union is so indissoluble that, according to common report, a report which seems much better verified than the most of those concerning the habits of animals, neither member of the pair will survive the death of the other. Man, with all his striving towards a better social state, has, as a whole, not yet attained to the enduring affection for the mate which is evinced by the greater part of the birds.