the Coloration of Eggs. 535 



disliked by it so greatly as was a Buruet moth. As in the 

 case of the rat and the lemur, I carried out, not one, but 

 several experiments to make quite sure that I was not 

 suffei'iug from self-deception, or the mongoose from some 

 sort of misapprehension ; and, as before^ I sometimes used 

 every sort of endeavour to coax the animal to eat the eggs 

 it refused. It was my genuine endeavour (as it is always) 

 not to prove my theory, but, if possible, to disprove it. In 

 this I failed, and friends staying with us were equally struck 

 with the strength of the preferences shown. One of these 

 friends was Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall, my original guide and 

 mentor, and the only person to whom (pending my own final 

 satisfaction) I had yet mentioned the idea — in a letter 

 wiitten from Africa two and a half years before. In view of 

 this fact — in view, too, of his personal experience in this kind 

 of experimentation and of his acute faculty for criticism 

 (well known to entomologists) — I was particularly interested 

 and pleased to obtain from him an expression of his 

 complete satisfaction as to the actuality of the preferences 

 witnessed. 



Indeed, the method employed admitted of no doubt. It 

 was not a mere putting down of two or more eggs and seeing 

 which Avas taken first, the animal being all the time prepared 

 to eat the others too. Certain eggs left under the animal's 

 nose Avere seen to be persistently ignored after tasting or 

 smelling, while eggs of another species placed amongst them 

 were each time at once picked out and eaten, the mongoose 

 even, in the case of certain species, returning to the empty 

 shell again and again, and licking it out afresh, or, in his 

 eagerness, crunching it up, while still emphatically and 

 obstinately refusing the rejected eggs, though these looked 

 most tempting with their glistening contents brimming over 

 the hole which 1 always made to avoid complications through 

 varying strength of shell. 



I wanted yet more evidence, however, and it was not till 

 eight or nine months later that I finally decided to com- 

 municate my experimental results, and (with due reserve) 

 the view they suggested to a meeting of the British Ornitho- 



