BIRDS GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 311 



this way than birds, on account of their depending so 

 much upon smell for their information. No doubt indi- 

 vidual differences are to be met with in animals of both 

 classes, and much depends on previous experience. Young 

 dogs, or dogs which have never seen a mirror before, are 

 not, as a rule, difficult to deceive, even though they have 

 good noses. I myself had a setter with an excellent nose, 

 who on many repeated occasions tried to fight his own 

 image, till he found by experience that it was of no use. 

 As to birds, I have seen canaries suppose their own images 

 to be other canary birds, and also the reflection of a room 

 to be another room the birds flying against a large 

 mirror and falling half stunned. I mention the latter 

 circumstance because it afforded evidence of the superior 

 intelligence of a linnet, which on the same occasion dashed 

 itself against the mirror once, but never a second time, 

 while the canaries did so repeatedly. 



Mrs. Frankland, in * Nature '(xxi., p. 82), gives the fol- 

 lowing account of a bullfinch paying more attention to a 

 portrait of a bullfinch than to his own image in a mirror, 

 which is certainly remarkable ; and as the fact seems to have 

 been observed repeatedly, it can scarcely be discredited : 



The following is a curious instance of discrimination which 

 I have observed in my bullfinch. He is in the habit of coming 

 out of his cage in my room in the morning. In this room there 

 is a mirror with a marble slab before it, and also a very cleverly 

 executed water-colour drawing of a hen bullfinch, life size. The 

 first thing that my bullfinch does on leaving his cage is to fly to 

 the picture (perching on a vase just below it) and pipe his tune 

 in the most insinuating manner, accompanied with much bow- 

 ing to the portrait of the hen bullfinch. After having duly 

 paid his addresses to it, he generally spends some time on the 

 marble slab in front of the looking-glass, but without showing 

 the slightest emotion at the sight of his own reflection, or 

 courting it with a song. Whether this perfect coolness is due 

 to the fact of the reflection being that of a cock bird, or whether 

 (since he shows no desire to fight the reflected image) he is per- 

 fectly well aware that he only sees himself, it is difficult to say. 



That birds possess considerable powers of imagination, 

 or forming mental pictures of absent objects, may be in- 



