832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the same kind. I can not imagine an animal with hoofs, walking 

 only on the ends of its toes, having metatarsi joined, lengthened, 

 and raised up, with the four limbs brought close to the body, and 

 moving nearly always in the same parallel j^lane — that is, adapted 

 to a terrestrial, measured, and rhythmical locomotion — giving 

 birth to an animal with nails, plantigrade, having movable fin- 

 gers made to fit themselves around trees, to hook on to branches, 

 with limbs endowed with the most unrestricted movements of 

 abduction and adduction. But it requires no mental effort to 

 conceive an adaptation already begun in this direction with the 

 lemurs, and having only to continue and specialize itself still fur- 

 ther in the monkeys. 



BIRD COURTS OF JUSTICE. 



SEVERAL writers have given descriptions of proceedings of 

 assemblies of birds of various species which they regarded 

 as formal "trials in court." While this view of the nature of 

 the transactions noticed can not yet be accepted as established 

 by competent observation, they are certainly of an interesting 

 character, and reveal a peculiar phase of bird-life. Dr. Edmond- 

 son describes regular assemblies of crows of the hooded spe- 

 cies — "crow-courts" they are called — which are held at certain 

 intervals in the Shetland Isles. A particular hill or field suitable 

 for the business is selected, but nothing is done till all are ready, 

 and consequently the earlier comers have sometimes to wait for 

 a day or two till the others arrive. When all have come, the 

 court opens in a formal manner, and the presumed criminals are 

 arraigned at the bar. A general croaking and clamor are raised 

 by the assembly, and judgment is delivered, apparently, by the 

 whole court. As soon as the sentence is given, the entire assem- 

 blage, " judges, barristers, ushers, audience and all, fall upon the 

 two or three prisoners at the bar, and beat them till they kill 

 them." As soon as the execution is over, the court breaks up, and 

 all its members disperse quietly. 



The Rev. Dr. J. Edmund Cox has given the particulars of a 

 trial by rooks which he witnessed between fifty and sixty years 

 ago. He was riding along a quiet road in the vicinity of Norwich, 

 England, when he was startled by sounds of an extraordinary 

 commotion among the inhabitants of an adjacent rookery. Secur- 

 ing his horse to a gate, he cautiously crawled for a hundred feet or 

 so, to a gap in the hedge of a grass-field, to investigate proceedings. 

 A trial by jury was seemingly going on. The criminal rook " at 

 first appeared very perky and jaunty, although encircled by about 

 forty or fifty of an evidently indignant sable fraternity, and as- 



