492 LIABILITY TO ERROR. 



quently damage their loads at first ; but, gradually profiting 

 by experience, they correct their early errors of simple 

 inexperience (Houzeau). Chickens arrest themselves in the 

 very act of error and avert it (Spalding) . Colonel O'Kelly's 

 famous parrot, if it mistook, in beating time, a note in music, 

 ' would revert to the bar where the mistake was made and 

 correct itself.' Similarly, the parrot corrects its own errors 

 in speech. There is a speedy discovery of error in ants that 

 have mistaken seeds for larvse, or beads for seed (Moggridge) . 



The recognition and rectification of error in the dog in- 

 cludes the discovery of its own, and of its master's blunders 

 in the game of dominoes (Watson) : and even the correction 

 of its own mistakes in grammar or orthography, composi- 

 tion or spelling, by the trained transposition of painted or 

 figured words, or letters. Its consciousness of error, moreover, 

 is frequently expressed by what may literally, as well as 

 figuratively, be called its shamefacedness : its sense of blun- 

 der often developes a keen feeling of self-accusation, which 

 leads to its retirement from its accustomed haunts especially 

 from man's observation. 



In other animals, as in man, the discovery of error may 

 be too late to admit of its rectification, as in the case of 

 Mrs. MacKellar's fox-terrier, that surreptitiously dropped 

 fish back into the water as fast as they were caught by his 

 mistress, and apparently discovered his error only when no 

 more fish were caught. 1 



Even the most sagacious animals are sometimes led, by 

 their unsuspiciousness or inexperience of man's treachery 

 or trickery, into error at first sight, as in the case of menagerie 

 elephants at first mistaking stones for nuts. But the dis- 

 covery of the deception is speedy, and the results of that 

 discovery sometimes serious to the perpetrator of the cruel 

 practical joke. The musk-ox commits an error in the inter- 

 pretation of sound when it fails to distinguish a rifle report 

 from thunder. It shows, however, a speedy perception of 

 its mistake, correcting it by the application of other senses 

 or sensations of sight and scent (Richardson) . 



It does not, by any means, follow that where error is re- 



1 < North British Advertiser,' January 23, 1875. 



