SALT ON A BIRD'S TAIL 59 



in Damaraland have the biggest horns of any true 

 Bos as much as 13 J ft. along the curve from point to 

 point. We have to distinguish from our own cattle, 

 for which there is no name except " Bos taurus," for 

 neither ox, bull, cow, heifer, nor steer will do the other 

 bovines the buffaloes, the yak, and the bison besides 

 those great beasts the gayal and the gaur of India and 

 the banting of Malay. All these may be seen and 

 studied either in the Museum or the Zoological Gardens. 



25. The Experimental Method 



The observations lately made by a Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer about an attempt to put salt on a bird's tail 

 remind me of my first attempt to deal experimentally 

 with a popular superstition. I was a very trustful little 

 boy, and I had been assured by various grown-up 

 friends that if you place salt on a bird's tail the bird 

 becomes as it were transfixed and dazed, and that you 

 can then pick it up and carry it off. On several 

 occasions I carried a packet of salt into the London 

 park where my sister and I were daily taken by our 

 nurse. In vain I threw the salt at the sparrows. They 

 always flew away, and I came to the conclusion that I 

 had not succeeded in getting any salt or, at any rate, 

 not enough on to the tail of any one of them. 



Then I devised a great experiment. There was a sort 

 of creek eight feet long and three feet broad at the west 

 end of the ornamental water in St. James's Park. My 

 sister attracted several ducks with offerings of bread 

 into this creek, and I, standing near its entrance, with a 

 huge paper bag of salt, trembled with excitement at 

 the approaching success of my scheme. I poured 

 quantities whole ounces of salt on to the tails of the 

 doomed birds as they passed me on their way back from 

 the creek to the open water. Their tails were covered 



