1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 32L 



one of six wood lice (Oniscus asellus) was accepted, and from five to 

 seven green cherries were refused. Both of these items are eaten by 

 adult starlings, thus rounding out to a total the contradictory 

 evidence as to choice of the four items by the same bird under natural 

 and under artificial conditions. 



In 1889 and 1890, Mr. A. G. Butler, whose experiments with 

 lizards are included in the tables of Poulton, previously discussed,, 

 published three articles dealing with the food preferences of captive 

 birds. These included both British and tropical birds, which were 

 kept in large aviaries. The first 66 of Mr. Butler's trio of papers 

 treats only the general results of six years' experimenting. He says: 

 "My experience .... has been that no insect in any stage was 

 ever refused by all the birds; what one bird refused another would 

 eat" (p. 171). In the course of this paper, Mr. Butler casually 

 remarked that for two years he had sent data on the experiments to 

 Mr. Poulton, "not even retaining a copy of my notes, but so far 

 nothing seems to have come of it; I presume, therefore, that my facts 

 have rather tended to mystify than clear the matter up" (p. 171). 

 Poulton seems to have taken deep umbrage at Butler's remarks, 

 as he returned the notes and made a hot reply on pp. 358-360 of the 

 same volume. Butler later published his notes in full, 67 and says:: 

 "Few things ever astonished me more than the hostile attitude which 

 Mr. Poulton assumed with regard to that innocent paper, or the 

 cruel misconstruction which he put upon the most harmless remarks 

 made therein; that my comment touching the repeated reproduction 

 of a few comparatively unimportant observations of my own should 

 have been dislocated into a claim to the origination of Wallace's 



theory is too absurd to be considered seriously I still 



insist that, so long as a few desultory observations are incessantly 

 forced into a front place, it is an evidence of how little has hitherto 

 been done upon which to establish the truth of a theory ; many more 

 observers are wanted, and all their observations must be impartially 

 treated if we are to arrive at exact scientific truth. I was not aware 

 that Mr. Poulton had made a selection of 'the most interesting 

 results' of my recent experiments for publication in the Report of 

 the British Association, or I should not have said 'so far nothing- 

 seems to have come of it'; nevertheless, as it is impossible for any 



66 "A few remarks respecting Insects supposed to be distasteful to Birds," Annals 

 and Mag. of Nat. Hist., Sixth Ser., Vol. IV, 1889, pp. 171-173. 



67 " Notes made during the summer of 1887 on the effect of offering various 

 Insects, Larvse, and Pupae to Birds," I.e., pp. 463-473. 



