I frequently climb into the cupola of the barn during the winter, and
bring down a dazed junco that would beat his life out up there against
the window-panes. He will lie on his back in my open hand, either
feigning death or really powerless with fear. His eyes will close, his
whole tiny body throb convulsively with his throbbing heart. Taking
him to the door, I will turn him over and give him a gentle toss.
Instantly his wings flash; they take him zigzag for a yard or two,
then bear him swiftly round the corner of the house and drop him in
the midst of his fellows, where they are feeding upon the lawn. He
will shape himself up a little and fall to picking with the others.
From a state of collapse the laws of his being bring the bird into
normal behavior as quickly and completely as the collapsed rubber ball
is rounded by the laws of its being. The memory of the fright seems to
be an impression exactly like the dent in the rubber ball--as if it
had never been.
Memories, of course, the animals surely have; but little or no power
to use them. The dog will sometimes seem to cherish a grudge; so will
the elephant. Some one injures or wrongs him, and the huge beast
harbors the memory, broods it, and awaits his opportunity for revenge.
Yet the records of these cases usually show that the creature had been
living with the object of his hatred--his keeper, perhaps--and that
the memory goes no farther back than the present moment, than the
sight of the hated one.
At my railroad station I frequently see a yoke of great sleepy,
bald-faced oxen, that look as much alike as two blackbirds. Their
driver knows them apart; but as they stand there, bound to one another
by the heavy bar across their foreheads, it would puzzle anybody else
to tell Buck from Berry. But not if he approach them wearing an
overcoat. At sight of me in an overcoat the off ox will snort and back
and thrash about in terror, twisting the head of his yoke-fellow,
nearly breaking his neck, and trampling him miserably. But the nigh ox
is used to it. He chews and blinks away placidly, keeps his feet the
best he can, and doesn’t try to understand at all why greatcoats
should so frighten his cud-chewing brother. I will drop off my coat
and go up immediately to smooth the muzzles of both oxen, now blinking
sleepily while the lumber is being loaded on.
Years ago, the driver told me, the off ox was badly frightened by a
big woolly coat, the sight or smell of which probably suggested to the
creature some natural enemy, a panther, perhaps, or a bear. The memory
remained, but beyond recall except in the presence of its first cause,
the greatcoat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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