Stpt. 21, 1882] 



NATURE 



49 9 



ing about her doll in her own perambulator, the writer 

 stole away the doll without her perceiving the theft. 

 When she thought that the doll had had a sufficiently 

 long ride, she walked round the perambulator to take it 

 out. Not findii g the doll where she had left it she was 

 greatly perplexed, and then began to say many times 

 "poor Na-na, poor i\a-na," "Na-na ta-ta, Na-na ta-ta"; 

 this clearly meant — Poor Na-na has disappeared. And 

 many other examples might be given of this child 

 similarly using her small stock of adjectives and verbs 

 correctly. 



According to Preyer, from the 1st week to the 5th 

 month the only vowel-sounds used are u and a. On the 

 43rd day he heard the first consonant, which was m, and 

 also the vowel o. Next day the child said ta-liu, on the 

 46th day go, oro, and on the 51st arra. All the vowel 

 sounds were acquired in the 5th month. We have no 

 space to go further into the successive dates at which the 

 remaining consonants were acquired. In the nth month 

 the child first learnt to articulate a certain word (ada) by 

 imitation, and afterwards repeated the taught word spon- 

 taneously. The first year passed without any other indi- 

 cation of a connection between articulation and ideation 

 than was supplied by the child using a string of different 

 syllables (and not merely a repetition of the same one) on 

 perceiving a rapid movement, as any one hurriedly leaving 

 the room, &c. ; but this child nevertheless understood 

 certain w-ords (such as " Handchen geben ") when only 

 52 weeks old. Inefficient attempts at imitative speaking 

 precede the accurate attempts, and at 14 months this in- 

 efficiency was still very apparent, being in marked con- 

 trast with the precision whereby it would imitate syllables 

 which it could already say; the will to imitate all syllables 

 was present, though not the ability. At the beginning of 

 the 14th month on being asked — " Wo ist dein Schrank?'' 

 the child would turn its head in the direction of the cup- 

 board, draw the person who asked the question towards 

 it (though the child could not then walk) ; and so with 

 other objects the names of which it knew. During the 

 next month the child would point to the object when the 

 question was asked, and also cough, blow, or stamp on 

 being told to do so. In the 17th month there was a con- 

 siderable advance in the use of sign-language (such as 

 bringing a hat to the nurse as a request to go out), but 

 still no words were spoken save ma-ma, papa, &c. In 

 the 20th month the child could first repeat words of two 

 unlike syllables. When 23 months old the first evidence 

 of judgment was given ; the child having drunk milk 

 which was too hot for it, said the word " heiss." In the 

 63rd week this word had been learnt in imitative speak- 

 ing, so it required 8£ months for it to be properly used as 

 a predicate. At the same age on being asked — "Where 

 is your beard ? " the child would place its hand on its chin 

 and move its thumb and fingers as if drawing hair 

 through them, or as it was in the habit of doing if it 

 touched its father's beard ; this is evidence of imagina- 

 tion, which, however, certainly occurs much earlier in 

 life. At the close of the second year a great advance was 

 made in using two words together as a sentence — e.g. 

 " home, milk," to signify a desire to go home and have 

 some milk. In the ist month of the 3rd year sentences 

 of three or even four words were used, as " Papa, pear, 

 plate, please." Hitherto the same word would often be 



employed to express several or many associated mean- 

 ings, and no words appeared to have been entirely in- 

 vented. The powers of association and inference were 

 well developed. For instance, the child received many 

 presents on its birthday, and being pleased said "bursta" 

 (= Geburtstage) ; afterwards when similarly pleased it 

 would say the same word. Again, when it injured its 

 hand it was told to blow upon it, and. on afterwards 

 knocking its head it blew into the air. At this age also 

 the power of making propositions advanced considerably, 

 as was shown, for instance, by the following sentence on 

 seeing milk spilt upon the floor — " mime atta teppa papa 

 01','' which was equivalent to " Milch fort (auf den)Teppich, 

 Papa (sagte) pfui ! " But it is interesting that at this 

 age words were learnt with an erroneous apprehension of 

 their meanings ; this was particularly the case with pro- 

 nouns — "dein Bett,'' for exn tuple, being supposed to 

 mean " das grosse Bett." All words which were spon- 

 taneously acquired seemed to be instances of onomato- 

 paeia. Adverbs were first used in the 27th month, 

 and now also words which had previously been used 

 to express a variety of associated or generic mean- 

 ings, were discarded for more specific ones. In the 

 28th month prepositions were fir;t used, and questions 

 were first asked. In the 29th month the chief advance 

 was in naming self with a pronoun, as in "give me 

 bread" ; but the word " I " was not yet spoken. When 

 asked — "Wer ist mir?" the child would say its own 

 name. Although the child had long been able to say its 

 numerals, it was only in this month that it attained to 

 an understanding of their use in counting. In the 32nd 

 month the word " I " was acquired, but still the child 

 seemed to prefer speaking of itself in the third person. 



The long disquisition on the acquirement of speech is 

 supplemented by a chapter conveying the observations of 

 other writers upon the same subject. This is followed by 

 an interesting chapter on the development of self-con- 

 sciousness, and the work concludes with a summary of 

 results. There are also lengthy appendices on the 

 acquirements of correct vision after surgical operations 

 by those who have been born blind, and on the mental 

 condition of uneducated deaf mutes ; but we have no 

 space left to go into these subjects, Enough, we trust, 

 has been said to show that Prof. Preyer's laborious under- 

 taking is the most important contribution which has yet 

 appeared to the department of psychology with which it 

 is concerned. George J. Romanes 



SCLATER'S "JACAMARS AND PUFF-BIRDS" 



A Monograph of the Jacamars and Puff-birds, or Families 



Galbulida- and Bticconidce. By P. L. Sclater, F.R.S., 



&c. 1 vol. roy. 4to, half-bound Morocco. (London : 



Dulau and Co., 1882.) 



THE completion of another illustrated Ornithological 

 Monograph is an event worthy of record in the 

 columns of NATURE, although the subjects of it are, 

 perhaps, of somewhat limited interest to the scientific 

 world in general. "Jacamars" and "Puff-birds" are, 

 no doubt, well-known groups to the ornithologist, but 

 confined as they are in life to the dense forests of South 

 and Central America, and invisible to most persons even 

 as inhabitants of our Zoological Gardens, their names 



