The Scottish Naturalist. 247 



"Miss Knox, 48 Havclock Road, Hastings. 

 ""Miss Knox states that she will have much pleasure in answering any 

 questions Dr. Lauder Lindsay may wish to ask her. 



" The Editor takes this opportunity to thank Dr. Lindsay in advance for 

 his promise to recommend The Animal World. Nothing is inserted in its 

 pages unless received from respectable or reliable sources. " 



That wonderful, evergreen "Chambers's Journal" — a serial 

 that was virtually the forerunner or pioneer of all our best cheap 

 serial literature, and which still maintains, notwithstanding its 

 age and the competition to which it is subjected, its high 

 character, continuing its weekly issue from that Edinburgh 

 Publishing house that has done so much for the spread of 

 popular literature of a proper kind — abounds in anonymous 

 articles, of varying value, illustrative of the mental aptitudes — 

 the character or disposition — the habits or mode of life — of 

 animals. Here, for instance, are some of them : — 



(1) "The Talking Bird;" a most instructive account of a 

 well-known Edinburgh Parrot : Number for October, 

 1874. 



(2) " Our Coon :" in the Number for March 15, 1873. 



(3) "About Dogs :" Number for June 21, 1873. 



(4) "Animal Volunteers 5" describing the mental peculiarities 



of a number of Regimental Dogs and other Regimental 

 Animal Pets : Number for April 24, 1875. 



(5) "Trap-door Spiders :" Number for March 8, 1873. 



(6) "About Spiders :" Number for April 10, 1875. 



(7) "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale:" Number for 



July 8, 1865. 



Some of these papers, for instance No. 5, are written by the 

 head of the firm of W. &. R. Chambers himself — Dr. William 

 Chambers — who signs them with his familiar initials, IV. C, 

 and so vouches for the authenticity of their contained anecdotes. 



Writing me on December 23, 1873, Dr. Chambers informs 

 me that "the writer of the article, 'Our Coon' (No. 2 in the 

 foregoing list), was Mr. D. Kerr, 34 Regent's Park Road, 

 London." 



Regarding the truthfulness of the remarkable statements 

 made in No. 1, as to the sensible conversational powers of a 

 Parrot, I preferred satisfying myself by personal inquiiy, in 

 Edinburgh, in the summer of 1875. I saw the master of the 

 animal, a well known Photographer in Princes Street. He in- 



