418 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



of Judge Stevens, of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, as a witness 

 to the same. 



Again, I quote the following case communicated to 

 'Nature ' by Dr. Frost, because, although it shows an almost 

 incredible amount of far-sighted stratagem, I cannot on 

 the one hand see much room for mal-observation, and on 

 the other hand it is, as I shall show, to some extent cor- 

 roborated by an independent observation of my friend 

 Dr. Klein, and another correspondent: 



Our servants have been accustomed during the late frost to 

 throw the crumbs remaining from the breakfast-table to the 

 birds, and I have several times noticed that our cat used to wait 

 there in ambush in the expectation of obtaining a hearty meal 

 from one or two of the assembled birds. Now, so far, this cir- 

 cumstance in itself is not an ' example of abstract reasoning.' 

 But to continue. For the last few days this practice of feeding 

 the birds has been left off. The cat, however, with an almost 

 incredible amount of forethought, was observed by myself, 

 together with two other members of the household, to scatter 

 crumbs on the grass with the obvious intention of enticing the 

 birds. 1 



Although this account, as I have said, borders on the in- 

 credible, I have allowed it to pass, because up to a certain 

 point it is, as I have also said, corroborated by an obser- 

 vation communicated to me by my friend Dr. Klein, F.R.S. 



Dr. Klein satisfied himself that the cat he observed had 

 established a definite association between crumbs already 

 sprinkled on the garden walk, and sparrows coming to eat 

 them ; for as soon as the crumbs were sprinkled on the 

 walk, the cat used to conceal himself from the walk in a 

 neighbouring shrubbery, there to await in ambush the 

 coming of the birds. The latter, however, showed them- 

 selves more wide awake than the cat, for there was a wall 

 running behind the shrubbery, from the top of which the 

 birds could see the cat in his supposed concealment, and 

 then a long line of sparrows used to wait watching the cat 

 and the crumbs at the same time, but never venturing to 

 fly down to the latter until the former, wearied with wait- 

 ing, went away. In this case the reasoning observation 



1 Nature, vol. xix., p. 519. 



