A R TICULA TION. 1 29 



adduced to test the validity of my a priori inference — nannely, 

 that if the more intelligent brutes could articulate, they would 

 make a proper use of simple verbal signs. Let it, however, 

 be here remembered that birds are lower in the psychological 

 scale than dogs, or cats, or monkeys ; and, therefore, that 

 the inference which I drew touching the latter need not 

 necessarily be held as applying also to the former. Never- 

 theless, it so happens that even in the case of these psycho- 

 logically inferior animals the evidence, such as it is, is not 

 opposed to my inference : on the contrary, there is no small 

 body of facts which goes to support it in a very satisfactory 

 manner. A consideration of this evidence will now serve to 

 introduce us to the fourth and last case presented in the 

 programme at the beginning of this chapter, or the case of 

 articulation w^ith attribution of the meaning understood as 

 attaching to the words. 



Taking, first, the case of proper names, it is unquestionable 

 that many parrots know perfectly well that certain names 

 belong to certain persons, and that the way to call these 

 persons is to call their appropriate names. I knew a parrot 

 which used thus to call its mistress as intelligently as any 

 other member of the household ; and if she went from home 

 for a day, the bird became a positive nuisance from its 

 incessant calling for her to come. 



And in a similar manner talking birds often learn correctly 

 to assign the names of other pet animals kept in the same 

 house, or even the names of inanimate objects. There can 

 thus be no question as to the use by talking birds of proper 

 names and noun-substantives. 



With respect to adjectives, Houzeau very properly remarks 

 that the apposite manner in which some parrots habitually 

 use certain words shows an aptitude correctly to perceive 

 and to name qualities as well as objects. Nor is this any- 

 thing more than we might expect, seeing, on the one hand, 

 as already shown, that animals possess generic ideas of many 

 qualities, and, on the other, that an obvious quality is as much a 



