318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [J line, 



The animals used in these experiments were domestic mice, toads, 

 a mynah (Acridotheres tristis), a heron (Ardea cinerea), a prairie 

 owl, a water tortoise and a lizard. The results of the experi- 

 ments are described in detail, but no general conclusion is given. 

 At least seven of the things offered as food were both accepted 

 and refused by the same species of animal. This number 

 included the common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) . 

 Titchener, E. B. Comparative Palatability. Nature, Vol. 44, 

 No. 23, October 8, 1891, p. 540. 



Experiments with frogs, toads and ducks, supplementary to the 

 above; no general remarks. 

 Titchener, E. B. Comparative Palatability. Nature, Vol. 45, 

 No. 3, November 19, 1891, p. 53. 



These experiments relate to the choice of food by captive goldfish, 

 silverfish, frogs, and a spider. The details are given without 

 comment. 



BIRDS. 



Experiments in Europe. 



Birds have been used more frequently than animals of any other 

 class to test the potency of the protective adaptations of insects and 

 other groups under experimental conditions. One of the most 

 important series of experiments was carried on chiefly as a study of 

 the origin of the process by which food is accepted or rejected by 

 birds. In this series Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan performed various 

 experiments with young chicks, pheasants, guinea-fowls, moorhens, 

 and ducks, the net result of which "is that, in the absence of parental 

 guidance, the young birds have to learn for themselves what is good 

 to eat and what is distasteful, and have no instinctive aversions." 63 

 The results of these experiments are often quoted by the selectionists, 

 and as usual in such cases with sweeping inclusions not at all intended 

 by the author. He says: "I am not, of course, prepared to say 



that in no case is there such instinctive aversion Birds 



like the megapodes, which are hatched out in mounds apart from 

 parental influence .... may show instinctive avoidances which 

 our well-cared-for birds do not possess. That the parent bird does 

 in most cases afford guidance is unquestionable" (pp. 43-44). 



Some of the principal results that have a bearing on the value of 

 warning colors under experimental conditions are as follows: 



1. Chicks tested and rejected cinnabar caterpillars (Euchelia jacobce), 

 but ate brown loopers and larvae of the green cabbage-moth 

 (p. 42). A jay ate five cinnabar larvae, but would take no 

 more (p. 43). 



63 Habit and Instinct, 1896, p. 43. 



