298 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 
The process in the kingbird, as above detailed, gives 
at least an opportunity for the more definite limitations 
of those actions which Prof. Baldwin has, perhaps 
unfortunately, called half-congenital. 
The action of the callow bird in deglutition is prob- 
ably performed as a reflex on the stimulation of the 
presence of food in the pharynx. Small fragments upon 
the beak, and in the anterior portion of the mouth, are 
not perceived, and do not quiet the almost irritating 
clamour of the gaping young. The enormous size of 
the mouth, the thickened “lips,” and the bright-coloured 
concentric markings of the oral walls, make a target, 
the sensitive centre of which (the opening of the 
cesophagus) only a most awkward parent could fail 
to hit. We might argue that the young nestling has 
not, at first, a definite sense of taste; and actual 
experiment on the kingbird shows that most unsavoury 
morsels, when placed in the mouth, are swallowed, 
though not without subsequent signs of surprise, if 
not of disgust. It is not, then, difficult to perceive 
that the young bird, while still within the nest, 
acquires, as a result of the selective activity of the 
parent, a taste for certain food. The discriminative 
exercise of the sense of taste is thus a result of direct 
tuition. The young cow-bird, whose foster-parent has 
been a vireo, will doubtless acquire a relish for food 
very different from that enjoyed by, perchance, its own 
brother, but the ward of a graminivorous finch. 
It may be objected that the orphan chick, selecting 
food without the discriminative direction of a parent, 
is not a parallel case with the young kingbird. The 
bird in my possession was so tame, that when it reached 
an age comparable with the newly-hatched chick, I 
could take it into the fields and observe it as it foraged, 
chick-fashion, for itself. I think that I saw it capture 
