NOVEMBER 263 



day brown loopers and green cabbage-moth caterpillars 

 were put before the little birds. 



1 These were approached with some suspicion, but presently 

 one chick ran off with a looper and was followed by others, 

 one of which stole and ate it. In a few minutes all the 

 caterpillars were cleared off. Later in the day they were 

 given some more of these edible caterpillars, which were 

 eaten freely ; and then some cinnabar larvae. One chick ran, 

 but checked himself, and, without touching the caterpillar, 

 wiped his bill a memory of the nasty taste being apparently 

 suggested by association at the sight of the yellow-and- 

 black caterpillar. Another seized one, and dropped it at 

 once. A third subsequently approached a cinnabar as it 

 crawled along, gave the danger note, and ran off.' l 



Now in these instances the superior precocity in 

 turning experience to advantage shown by very young 

 chickens over Herr Amtsberg's pike may be accounted 

 for, not only by the greater mental capacity of the 

 higher vertebrate, but by the keener physical sense of 

 the warm-blooded animal. 



Instances like these might be cited in abund- 

 ance to discredit the hypothesis that fishes and 

 birds are unconscious automata. More perplexing 

 are those displays of effective consciousness and 

 caution which, if founded on experience, indicate 

 that experience must have been congenitally trans- 

 mitted. 



I went a-fishing one day in the Mimram, a pretty 

 little chalk-stream in Hertfordshire. From a little 

 fishing-house on the bank I noticed several trout 

 rising in a reach of the stream meandering through a 



1 Habit and Instinct, by C. Lloyd Morgan, p. 41. 



