Dec. 20.—As stated in a recent diary entry, I was greatly shaken by the remark of an English editor in which he suggested that a bird has no concept of purpose." I know, of course, that birds are most unreliable in many of their actions and can well be compared to Kipling's Bandalog, but I mustsmaintain that they have a very definite concept of purpose which amounts to logical thought comparable with the product of human brain. Here is an example, When the cold weather comes I put out, in addition to the ordinary food, lures of peanuts strung on wires (or shelled nuts contained in other devices) to encourage those pretty little Titmice known as Lesser Grey Tits: the local sparrow, being a very clever bird, quickly learns to change his habits and to cling (ever so clumsily) to the food supply reserved for Tits: worse than this, the sparrows wait for the Tits and steal the food from them as they win it from the difficult positions in which it is purposely placed. But the Titmice are not to be defeat: they wait around in the tress until I have put the soft foods out...and within five seconds they are in the tree where their food is kept in order to get it while the sparrows are otherwise engaged: I have checked this for many days and am certain of my facts, These tiny Titmice must therefore have the following logical train of thought: (a) A known figure will hand out food at a certain hour after sunrise (b)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.