260 THE REV. THEODORE WOOD, F.E.S., ON 
dismemberment has taken place, creeps rapidly away, and 
appears to suffer no pain or inconvenience whatever. The 
weund quickly heals, and the lost member, in due course of 
time, 1s reproduced. But, strangely enough, the laceration 
of the flesh, which appears to have no exciting effect upon 
the nerves of the body, in which pain might conceivably be 
felt, throws those of the tail, in which plainly it cannot, into 
a state of extreme iritation and activity; and for some 
minutes the severed member leaps and dances in the air as 
though possessed of independent and vigorous life. Its move- 
ments, of course, like those of a decapitated eel or tortoise, 
are entirely due to reflex action. But it is both imteresting 
and instructive to notice such action taking place in a part 
of the body wherein pain is by the very conditions of the case 
impossible, while the very same injury which gives rise to 
that action seems wholly without effect in a part in which, 
judging by the analogy of the higher forms of life, suffering 
of no slight degree would seem to be inevitable. 
It may, of course, be argued that Nature, in furnishing these 
self-mutilating lizards with their curious power of dismem- 
berment, may have also modified the nerves of the region in 
which severance takes place, in order that the injury may 
entail no bodily suffermg. I do not know, however, that 
such a theory could be in any way supported by anatomical 
evidence ; while it is certain that none of the members of the 
reptile race appear to be at all susceptible to suffering, no 
matter in what particular region of the body an injury may 
be inflicted. 
IN the birds, of course, we enter upon entirely new con- 
ditions of the bodily structure. They are warm-blooded 
creatures, with an exceptionally rapid circulation, animated 
by a vivid and vigorous life, and possessed of bodily senses 
far exceeding in keenness those of the animals below them in 
the zoological scale. Alike in sight and in hearing, and most 
probably also in delicacy of scent, they are far superior to 
any reptile or fish. And therefore it would seem only natural 
to suppose that the sense which in the reptiles, fishes, and 
invertebrates allows merely of some small degree of tactile 
power would in them be so intensified and developed as to 
admit of the sensation of pain. 
Whether birds are capable of experiencing this sensation, 
however, in any marked degree, is exceedingly doubtful. 
For this at any rate is plain, that in the members of the 
