530 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



on finding that nothing happened, would have kept quiet on subsequent 

 occasions. 



In the latter case the behaviour of the birds was exactly the same, but the 

 whole of their attention was directed to us, and not at all to the dog, which 

 conclusively proves to me that these birds at all events are led by a common 

 instinct to attract attention from their nests in one particular way under 

 any circumstances of danger, real or supposed. 



In eight years' experience of birds' nesting, and observing the habits of 

 birds during the period of nidification, in India, liurma, and South Africa, 

 I have never once ^een a bird show the least intelligence, nor has a single in- 

 cident ever come under my notice which has ever made me even suspect that 

 birds are capable of reasoning. 



I think each species possesses hereditary instincts of its own to conceal its 

 nests, and attract attention from its chosen sites, but has not the i-easoning 

 powers to use them intelligently under varying circumstances. 



I was also very much interested in Mr. C. H. Donald's description of the 

 injury-feigning incident of the black partridge, which came under his observa- 

 tion. I have found many nests of game birds, but have never met with a single 

 incident of these birds feigning an injury, although I have noticed it in all the 

 other birds mentioned by him except the woodcock. The fact, however, that 

 partridges do adopt this method for attracting attention from their young has 

 been known for many years. Gilbert White, when writing from Selbornej)n 

 the 26th March 1773 to the Hon'ble Daines Barrington on the ^<r > < i | ** i of '^off 

 animals, remarks : — 



" Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw 

 away the dogs from her helpless covey." 



In another place he writes : — 



" A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with her wings 

 and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. While the dam 

 acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small and 

 unable to fly, run for shelter into an old foxearth under the bank. So wonder- 

 ful a power is instinct." 



An incident once came under my notice of the Madras bush lark {Mirafra 



affinis) feigning injury. One day whilst walking down the British Infantry rifle 



range at Meiktila in Burma, I struck at a piece of a chatti lying on the ground, 



with my walking stick. I was surprised to see a small bird run out from beneath 



it, and run along for some distance with an apparently broken wing. At first I 



thought it really was wounded, and had taken shelter under the piece of chatti 



from the heat of the sun, but when it eventually rose from the ground and flew 



away I knew at once what was up, and on turning over the piece of chatti 



discovered:a nest containing three eggs. 



STANLEY PERSHOUSE, 



2nd Border Regiment. 

 The Hall, Strensall, Yorkshire, 



lOth February 1909. 



I 



'a' 



