262 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



animal having been accelerated by emotional shock. But 

 of course the question is an open one. 



So much for the power of reptiles to establish such 

 definite and complete associations as are required for the 

 recognition of persons —associations, however, to which, as 

 we have seen, frogs, and even insects may attain. As for 

 other associations, a correspondent writes to me : — 



I believe tortoises are able to establish a definite association 

 between particular colours on a flat surface and food. Only the 

 day before reading your article on animal intelligence I noticed 

 the endeavours of a small tortoise to eat the yellow flowers of 

 an inlaid writing-table, and I have often remarked the same 

 recognition with regard to red. 



Lord Monboddo relates the following anecdote of a 

 serpent : — 



I am well informed of a tame serpent in the East Indies, 

 which belonged to the late Dr. Yigot, and was kept by him in 

 the suburbs of Madras. This serpent was taken by the French, 

 when they invested Madras in the late war, and was carried to 

 Pondicherry in a close carriage. But from thence he found his 

 way back again to his old quarters, which it seems he liked 

 better, though Madras is distant from Pondicherry about one 

 hundred miles. This information, he adds, I have from a lady 

 who then was in India, and had seen the serpent often before 

 his journey and after his return. 



Considering the enormous distances over which turtles 

 are able to find their way in the season of migration, this 

 display of the homing faculty to so great a degree in a 

 serpent is not to be regarded as incredible. 



Mr. E. L. Layard, in his ' Eambles in Ceylon ' says 

 of the cobra : ^ — 



I once watched one which had thrust its head through a 

 narrow aperture and swallowed one {i.e. a toad). With this 

 encumbrance he could not withdraw himself. Finding this, he 

 reluctantly disgorged the precious morsel, which began to move 

 oflf. This was too much for snake philosophy to bear, and the 

 toad was again seized ; and again, after violent efibrts to escape, 

 was the snake compelled to part with it. This time, however, 

 a lesson had been learnt, and the toad was seized by one leg, 

 withdrawn, and then swallowed in triumph. 



» See Annas, and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 2nd series, vol. ix., p. 333. 



