COMMISSION OF ERROR. 515 



up and down, just like a monkey, wanting to see the inside. 

 I shall never forget the laugh he gave when at last he saw 

 his own black face in it. The more he laughed the more his 

 likeness laughed. He could not make it out. He imagined 

 there was some one at the back of the glass.' The Pata- 

 gonians do the same. 



But these effects of the mirror on the imagination of man 

 are by no means confined to savage man. They occur, under 

 exceptional circumstances, among ourselves, in races the 

 most highly civilised. Thus Galton writes : * No less than 

 nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or her 

 reflection in a looking-glass and addressing it in the belief it 

 was the other twin in person.' 



Certain startling assertions have been made regarding 

 the effect of pictorial representations of persons, other ani- 

 mals or things, on the lower animals assertions involving 

 the highest possible compliments to the painter's skill and 

 the fidelity with which he copies nature. A type of these 

 statements is to be found in the old classical story of the 

 Greek artist, Zeuxis, outvying nature, in so far as birds pre- 

 ferred his painted grapes to real ones ! The story itself is 

 of course a poetical and complimentary exaggeration. But 

 it is a fact that this celebrated Athenian excelled in the 

 accuracy of his pictorial imitations of natural objects ; that 

 in Athens the works of the painters were often exhibited in 

 the theatre, in the open air ; and that the evidence of such 

 modern artists as Millais shows that there is no improbability 

 connected with the supposition that birds may have pecked at 

 the painted grapes of Zeuxis, mistaking them for real ones. 



Pierquin tells us that recognition of the portraits of 

 masters, mistresses, or children-playfellows is common in the 

 dog . or cat, which show their identification of the resem- 

 blance with the original by licks or caresses. They lick the 

 painted faces or hands of a dead master, just as they show a 

 joyful recognition of the resemblance while he is alive, when, 

 for instance, the portrait and the original are in the same 

 room or stand side by side. But they also mistake portraits 

 for their originals (Lee). 



Such mistakes occur more usually, however, in relation 



