578 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on 



place when the rat was still somewhat far from repletion. 

 The early rejections were very decided. 



Expt. 2, Feb. 3. — Morning. Ate a very small scrap of 

 papaw, tasted and rejected and thereafter refused an egg of 

 P. layardi, but readily ate that of A. albifrons; refused, then 

 ignored most persistently the Bulbul's egg, but readily ate 

 the blue egg of Crateropus kirki (I removed it when half 

 finished), and once more ignored for quite five minutes the 

 Bulbul's egg. I added an egg of H.jamesoni (spotted blue 

 form) and left. 



I returned twenty to twenty-five minutes later to find 

 the Weaver's e^^ eaten and the Bulbul's still intact, though 

 left under the rat's nose. I had not time to continue the 

 experiment, but left the BulbuFs egg, and on returning con- 

 siderably later found it two-thirds eaten. Forty minutes 

 later still, judging him to be distinctly hungry, I gave 

 him a very small scrap (barely more than an eighth of 

 an inch each way) of bread and another of papaw, then 

 placed a Canary's egg {S. icterus) in the cage. He neglected 

 this at the moment, and apparently ate none of it during 

 an absence on my part of a few minutes. I therefore added 

 a not dissimilarly marked egg of Cisticola semitorques. He 

 at once ate this, then picked up the Canary^s egg and ate it 

 too. I put in a second Canary egg and this was ignored, as 

 was a Bulbul's (P. layar-di), which I added a few minutes 

 later. On my adding a little later a Crateropus egg, he 

 turned round as though tempted to try it, actually licked it, 

 and tui'ned away again. On my adding a blue H.jamesoni 

 egg, he lapped a very little, and turned away and persistently 

 iguored all four eggs, though I waited away for ten or 

 fifteen minutes. I pushed them up to him in turn on my 

 return, held them to his mouth, and generally tried to coax 

 him to eat them; but he seemed in an irritated condition, 

 bit savagely at the forceps and my fingers, and would have 

 nothing to do either with these eggs or with that of Sitagra 

 ocularis. 



An hour later all remained untouched and the rat in the 



