_For the principle of the thing_, I replaced two little birds in the nest. They were promptly hurled to the ground. Next day, the whole crime was accomplished, and the false father and the false mother were still idiotically wearing themselves out to nourish their children's murderer. What to do about it? How many human stories there are, in the likeness of that incident! One cannot even justly blame the cuckoo, if the great principle: "Remove yourself, that I may have your place!" remains in this universe the watchword added by Providence to the express recommendation to love one another. XVI A DOMESTIC DRAMA I am fond of observing animals, real ones, whose spirit has not been perverted by the insufferable pretence and affectations which are all too often accompaniments of the human form. Whoever watches them with a seeing eye may gather deep lessons from the activities of animal life. In man and beast the motions of being are governed by one philosophy, however much trouble the sacristans of letters may take to separate under the heads of "instinct" and "thought" phenomena differing in degree but identical in nature. Analogies of structure and function in the entire hierarchy of the organic world were one day perceived, and Lamarck and Darwin drew from these their well-known conclusions, to the confusion of biblical tradition. Comparative anatomy and comparative physiology are now flourishing sciences of which academicians find it less easy to assimilate the results than to proclaim the failure. At the point we have reached in the knowledge of vital manifestations all along the scale of living creatures, unlimited material is day by day accumulating for the science of comparative psychology which will soon be established. While experts are elaborating general laws, the profane may be permitted to set down the observations suggested to them by the passing show of life. In this character I wish to relate a domestic drama the scene of which, I grieve to say, was my own garden. The actors, fair readers, were simple pigeons. The difference between feathers and hair will perhaps seem to you to excuse many things. You shall compare and judge. My only ambition is to point out analogies resulting from the nature of things, and lead such of my contemporaries as do me the honour to read what I write, to a wider comprehension of the human soul.