the Coloration of Eggs. 541 



mongoose of my experiments were eager to trj^ and did try, 

 every kind of egg offered them. It was only after trial — 

 smelling, tasting, or commencing to eat — that their refusals 

 took place. Moreover, the eggs were nearly always offered 

 opened and the opened portion brought right up to the 

 animal's nose before being deposited just below it. 



I have g(me into this criticism, though it was obviously 

 (through my own fault) based on a misunderstanding of 

 what took place in the experiments and a non-realization of 

 the care with which they were conducted, because I find that 

 it impressed a good many of those who heard it. Applied 

 to the trial of Palsearctic eggs on an Indian mongoose there 

 is more to be said for it. I was myself much disappointed at 

 having, in the end, to use that animal. But I was anxioiis 

 to expei'iment on something further, if only for my own 

 satisfaction, and, apart from the knowledge that I would be 

 using eggs of genera that also occur in India, I realized 

 from my general experimental experience that the animaPs 

 use was in reality less objectionable than at first sight 

 it might appear. Most animals are specialized in some 

 particular direction : some prefer Diptera, some Orthoptera, 

 some are browsers, others grazers ; yet within each large 

 class of prey there is, despite individual differences, a 

 wonderful tendency to sameness in the preferences of animals 

 generally, even when (as often happens) they stray somewhat 

 outside their own special sphere. In the same way imported 

 herbivorous animals iu Africa show very similar preferences 

 to those of African Antelopes, and domestic fowls and 

 northern migrants to those of indigenous insectivorous birds. 

 A cat, a wild raven, and a lion showed the same preference 

 with regard to prey which could only be regarded as the 

 natural food of the lion. A domestic cat's preferences in 

 birds were very similar to those of an African lemur (the 

 lemur of the egg-experiments), and a Woodford's Owl on 

 which I experimented confirmed in the greatest detail the 

 bntterfiy-prelerences of my diurnal birds, migratory and 

 otherwise. It all shows (and I could adduce yet better 

 evidence of the fact) that it is no pure matter of taste — 



