While I was revising today, I found this picture from my revision notes. It’s a photo of a young bird, pushing its sibling (unhatched) out of the nest. It struck me both as funny and at the same time really sad.

It’s funny cos it just looks really silly, but it’s also sad because it’s so cruel! Of course, I’m being completely subjective and unscientific, but I don’t care. I’m a human being first, and a scientist, what, maybe about 17th? If that…

Anyway, it reminded me of a speech made by Katherine Hepburn in Suddenly Last Summer (1960), one of my favourite films. (One of the only films I’ve seen more than once, to be honest.)

She gives this talk about how she and her son went to the Galapagos Islands and saw a horrific scene on the beach. I have the whole, four-minute speech as an mp3 on my computer, and the film’s worth watching if only because of Hepburn’s voice — it’s fascinating!

Violet Venables (Katherine Hepburn) talks to Dr. Cucrwicz (Montgomery Clift) just after she’s described the scene on the beach.

Dr. Cucrwicz: Nature is not created in the image of man’s compassion.

Mrs Venables: Nature is cruel! Sebastien knew it all along, was born knowing it, but not I. I said, ‘No, no, those are only birds, turtles — not us.’ I didn’t know then that it was us, that we’re all of us trapped by this devouring creation.