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to be not its invariable habit. Less than a month ago I saw 
one, a8 I had previously seen another, engaged in striking a 
small spherical object, probably a nut, which was held by the 
bird’s feet against the perch. The question therefore arises: 
is the nuthatch’s use of a cleft for a vice an accidental 
occurrence, or the result of a more or less direct mental 
process ? 
The object of investigating fauna is not, surely, the mere 
recording of occurrences, or destruction of individuals, or an 
elucidation of the physical history of creation; it must also 
embrace the character of the relationship between man and the. 
so-called lower animals. I am aware that this is a subject of 
which there is no record in the Proceedings of the Club; but 
an aberration of habit in some Garganey Teals which lived at 
Elmore, was made the subject of a paper by the late President, 
Sir William Guise. I venture to express a hope that notwith- 
standing the distinguished position which the Club occupies in 
the geological world, it may be the means of inducing some of 
its members to observe the habits of animals more closely 
than is at present customary. 
The anatomy of these creatures may reveal to us the 
exact physical processes by which they move, but it is move- 
ment, free from the trammels of habit, which suggests the 
animal will or mind; and which indicates a possibly existent 
evolution of habit and consequently of body. One of the chief 
_ features of interest in fossils or other relics of animals, is the 
_ evidence they afford of the habits of the creatures which they 
represent ; just as the physical characteristics of existing 
species derive half of their importance from their suggestion 
_ of corresponding characteristic habits. 
a. It can be only by observing and recording the habits of 
animals that we shall ever acquire accurate knowledge of 
animal psychology; and let us hope that before the approach- 
ing extinction of some of our rarer animals has been 
_ accomplished, observers will have recorded not only the bare 
: incidents of their local distribution and nidification, but also 
something of their domestic life and manners. 
