IMPERFECTION OF INSTINCT. 173 



cited consisting in the changing causes being internal instead 

 of external. The case was communicated to me by a lady, 

 who, from its peculiar nature, desires me to withhold her 

 name ; but I quote the account in her own words : — 



" A white fantail pigeon lived with his family in a pigeon- 

 house in our stable-yard. He and his wife liad been brought 

 originally from Sussex, and had lived, respected and admired, 

 to see their children of the third generation, when he sud- 

 denly became the victim of the infatuation I am about to 

 describe. . . . 



" No eccentricity whatever was remarked in his conduct 

 until one day I chanced to pick up somewhere in the garden 

 a ginger-beer bottle of the ordinary brown stone description. 

 I flung it into the yard, where it fell immediately below the 

 pigeon-house. That instant down flew paterfamilias, and to 

 my no small astonishment commenced a series of genuflexions, 

 evidently doing homage to the bottle. He strutted round and 

 round it, bowing and scraping and cooing and performing the 

 most ludicrous antics I ever beheld on the part of an ena- 

 moured pigeon. . . . Nor did he cease these perform- 

 ances until we removed the bottle ; and, which proved that this 

 sino-ular aberration of instinct had become a fixed delusion, 

 whenever the bottle was thrown or placed in the yard — no 

 matter wdiether it lay horizontally or was placed upright — 

 the same ridiculous scene was enacted ; at that moment the 

 pigeon came flying down with quite as great alacrity as when 

 his peas were thrown out for his dinner, to continue his 

 antics as long as the bottle remained there. Sometimes this 

 would go on for hours, the other members of his family treat- 

 ing his movements with the most contemptuous indifference, 

 and taking no notice whatever of the bottle. At last it 

 became the regular amusement with which we entertained 

 our visitors to see this erratic pigeon making love to the 

 interesting object of his affections, and it was an entertain- 

 ment which never failed, throughout that summer at least. 

 Before next summer came round he was no more." 



It is thus evident that the pigeon was affected with some 

 strong and persistent monomania with regard to this particular 

 object. Although it is well known that insanity is not an 

 uncommon thing among animals, this is the only case I have 

 met with of a conspicuous derangement of the instinctive 

 as distinguished from the rational faculties — unless, indeed, 



