Birds Mate For Life Quotes & Sayings

What's going on in your backyard?" He heard her chair creak. "Mr. Bluebird's nowhere in sight. He must be out hunting for food. Mrs. Bluebird is incubating her eggs." "They're married?" "Of course." "How do you know?" "Because . . . they're, you know, they're having a family." "Did Audubon's publication tell you birds who nest are married?" "I'll have you know, sir, bluebirds mate for life." "They do?" "They do." "Well, then. I stand corrected." Across the room a pair of carved cuckoo birds in an ornate clock poked out to announce the quarter hour. "Are cuckoo birds monogamous?" "Mostly." "In that case, Mr. and Mrs. Cuckoo say hello. — Deeanne Gist

we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary, - the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such — Plato