COMMISSION OF ERROR. 519 



Moreover, we have the analogy of the mirror, of paintings, 

 of models, and of other mere representations or resemblances, in 

 favour of the probability of the self-deception of birds, insects 

 and other animals, by well-imitated artificial flowers. 



There are some curious cases of painted living animals 

 deceiving their fellows. Thus the skin of a living male ass 

 has been painted so as to resemble that of a zebra, experi- 

 mentally, with a view to deceiving a female zebra in pairing; 

 and the ruse has succeeded, in so far as the latter animal 

 has been induced to accept the attentions of the former 

 (Baird) . This kind of experiment might fitly be extended to 

 other species and genera, and to other and higher pheno- 

 mena than pairing. 



Stuffed skins and very inartistically stuffed are quite 

 successful in the capture of the ruff, acting as inanimate 

 decoys. Even when f executed in a very rude manner ; ' not 

 at all life-like, moved by strings in jerks, representing jumps ; 

 simply stuffed with a wisp of straw, ' with no great atten- 

 tion to cover the straw beneath ' by proper suture of the 

 skin ; ' rough as this preparation is, and as unlike a living 

 bird, as skin and feathers can be made, it answers all the 

 purpose' (Montagu) : a fact that surely indicates, either 

 great stupidity, much carelessness in observation, a very 

 vivid imagination, or all three, on the part of the animals 

 deceived. 



Stuffed animals are used sometimes as decoys for wild 

 ones. The London bird-catcher uses a 'dummy,' or dead 

 stuffed bird, to deceive the male chaffinch (Greenwood). 



A mother sheep, bereaved of her own lambs, has been 

 deceived by putting the skin of one of her dead lambs on a 

 living one of some other individual, under which circum- 

 stances she has accepted the unwitting role of foster-parent 

 (Hogg). 



Living imitations of their own form and gait deceive many 

 unwary animals ; thus the Australian aborigines successfully 

 counterfeit, for the purpose of capture, the look and walk of 

 the emu. 



To this category belongs the usefulness of the human 

 scarecrow, the very rude imitation of man, constructed by 



