160 Habit and Instinct. 



my fingers. The birds thus got a dainty morsel, namely, 

 young ovules with sweet sauce.'* And then, in reference 

 to the instinctive character of the action, he continues, 

 "In my former letter I remarked that if the habit of 

 cutting off the flowers proved to be a widely extended 

 one, we should have to consider it as inherited or 

 instinctive; as it is not likely that each bird should dis- 

 cover, during its individual lifetime, the exact spot where 

 the nectar, and, as I must now add, the ovules, lie con- 

 cealed, or should learn to bite off the flower so skilfully 

 at the proper point. That the habit is instinctive, Prof. 

 Frankland has given me interesting evidence. When 

 he read my letter he happened to have in the room a 

 bunch of cowslip flowers and a caged bullfinch, to whom 

 he immediately gave some of the flowers, and afterwards 

 many primrose flowers. The latter were cut off in exactly 

 the same manner, and quite as neatly, as by the wild 

 birds near here. I know that this is the case by having 

 examined the cut-off portions. Prof. Frankland informs 

 me that his bird pressed the cut-off portions of the calyx in 

 its beak, and gradually worked them out on one side, and 

 then dropped them. Thus the ovules were removed and 

 the nectar necessarily squeezed out. Now, the caged 

 bullfinch was caught in 1872, near, but not in, the Isle 

 of Wight, soon after it had left the nest, by which time 

 the primroses would have been out of flower; and since 

 then, as I hear from Prof. Frankland, it had never seen a 

 primrose or a cowslip flower. Nevertheless, so soon as 

 this bird, now nearly two years old, saw these flowers, 

 some machinery in the brain was set into action, which 

 instantly told it in an unerring manner how and where to 

 bite off and press the flowers so as to gain the hidden prize." 

 This appeared to be a final solution of the matter. 

 But the observations of a subsequent correspondent 



