256 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



These similarities to us seem quite sufficient to 

 outweigh what ought to be the handicap of a non- 

 convoluted brain ; and in any case, too much 

 stress may be laid on these anatomical characters. 

 Rodents have non-convoluted brains, but no one 

 would accuse a rat of want of intelligence on that 

 account, and similarly among birds there are 

 plenty of species in many different groups that 

 can compare in intellectual power with almost any 

 of the mammals other than man. They all of 

 course stop short of human ability just where the 

 higher beasts do when the power of speech is 

 needed to communicate impressions. 



In observing the habits of the young chimpanzees 

 which our most enterprising dealer, Mr. J. D. 

 Hamlyn, imports and hands over to his talented 

 wife to receive the rudiments of a human education, 

 I have been impressed with the fact that these apes 

 are quite as human as children, at least till the age 

 at which a child should acquire speech ; but in one 

 which was kept in the Hamlyn establishment for 

 two years it seemed to me that there was no ten- 

 dency to further progress, as there would have been 

 in a child, and this one instance strikes me as 

 more valuable than many observations on apes made 

 to lead the dull monotonous life to which they are 

 condemned in public collections. 



In estimating the intelligence of birds, we are 

 apt to be deceived by not understanding their 

 expressions of feeling, which afe, except in the case 

 of Owls, which have faces of a recognizably similar 



