52 Transmission of Experience in birds. 



they happen to feed near the road, and in rainy weather I 

 remember having seen thirty-four together, which allowed 

 the coach to pass within ten or twenty yards. A dung-cart 

 may leave the road, and approach them, without exciting 

 their suspicion, which is not the case with other carts or 

 waggons employed by the farmers. But though the indivi- 

 dual bird becomes more and more wary, in the proportion as 

 it grows older, yet it profits very little, comparatively, by its 

 own immediate experience ; and as the smell of iron must be 

 neutralized, by carefully rubbing all the parts of a trap with 

 pine-twigs, for catching wolves or foxes, which have never 

 seen one, so, for the bustard, which relies chiefly on its eye 

 for its safety, every suspicious appearance, which the instinc- 

 tive knowledge of the bird would denounce as dangerous, 

 must be removed from the objects intended for its destruction ; 

 and thus the same instruments may be repeatedly and suc- 

 cessfully employed against the same individuals. Among 

 different examples, which I could communicate in support 

 of this, I shall mention the following as the most striking. 

 In 1817, I had a long ox-cart stuck round with straw wisps, 

 so as to resemble a dung-cart and to allow a man to sit con- 

 cealed in it. It was mounted with a duck- gun, on a swivel- 

 joint; the back part of the cart, from which the muzzle of the 

 gun projected a little, presenting a considerable opening be- 

 tween the wisps, to allow the marksman a certain range of 

 sight sideways. The gun was loaded with two handfuls of 

 swan-shot and a proportionate quantity of powder, and with 

 this cart I, with two other sportsmen, all dressed in peasants' 

 frocks, under which we had rifles, repaired to a district where 

 bustards may always be found. We soon discovered a flock 

 of seven, and with proper management approached them so 

 near as to kill two, by discharging the gun and rifles. The 

 rest flew in a direction, where we did not lose sight of them 

 with our telescopes, until they alighted, at the distance of 

 about four English miles. We followed them, and, by the 

 same manoeuvres, got a second shot at them, which, however 

 brought only one bird down. This time the survivors flew 

 very high, and passed a ridge, beyond which we were not able 

 to discover them again. To elucidate this principle by ano- 

 ther example, I may refer to the Ampelis garritlt/s, which is 

 bred in northern wildernesses, where, unmolested by man, it 

 cannot become possessed of transmitted instinctive caution as 

 to him. When a flock of these birds, which visit Germany 

 every seventh or eighth year, alight on a mountain ash to feed 

 on its fruit, one may approach them without any caution, and 

 shoot a number of them. The rest fly to a neighbouring tree, 



